I live in Holiday Florida, and my neighbor Jimmy was killed going to a CL transaction Tuesday night. Him and his son went to sell a mini-bike, and two men stole the bike and shot my friend in front of his son. This was a terrible part of town, and I personally would NEVER have gone there to meet someone. But, all the time I go to other cities and meet people who are selling pinball machines and I don't know a good part of town from a bad part. Maybe sometimes you can get an idea from the state of the houses, but really, that's not much of a gauge. I'll bet I've met 15 people in this way and made large purchases of several hundred to thousands of dollars in the last year, and I guess I never realized how vulnerable I have been. One of the people I bought a game from recently, insisted that we meet in a supermarket parking lot. And he was a big dude- I'm sure he could take care of himself in a fist fight.
I guess what I'm saying is it might be good to have a brief discussion about how to be safe in these types of transactions. I mean, what do you do? Bring a gun along? I'm not like that personally, I don't believe in the things. But my safety does concern me, and, in some situations is it feasible to really bring a pinball machine up to the market, and do the deed there. If nothing else, you don't get to plug it in that way, and in the parking lot you aren't going to be able to do the kind of in-depth examination that I never fully do, that I OUGHT to do when buying a game, but usually am so giddy about the purchase, and maybe tired from the drive, that I don't actually so thorough an inspection.
What can a person do? What if I'm selling one to someone, do I really need to box the thing up and take it somewhere to meet this person? It makes it hard to demo your game for the person who is on the fence, or doesn't know anything about them, I can't really give them the "Here's how you take off the back glass, this is the lockdown bar.. and this is how to take the backbox off, and these plugs go here" type of speech.
I saw someone has taken to selling their games at the flea market. I guess that isn't out in the open really, but in a retail setting you would hope you would be afforded some sort of protection from the owners of the market or something.
I'm sure I'm just rehashing a topic I didn't find when I started looking. I saw Vids guide to not getting ripped off, but this seems a little different than a nigerian pinball scammer or something like that. I mean, yeah, taking your money, and your property, and then killing you is definitely a scam alright, but you see my point.
If this is covered somewhere else, please direct me to said page.. I did see that CL has a little blurb on their site about this type of thing, but all it really says is "Be careful when selling large dollar items." and this isn't just a $25 Koureg machine!
-Brian