I know members randomly inject comments into threads on what is wrong with this and that in our society but honestly, the last two pages are what is wrong with the this forum. They have ZERO to do with the OP. In some ways, it's a perfect example of what is wrong with our world these days. I refuse to participate in this trollish nonsense. All it does is divide members from our common hobby. Why not spend your time trying to better someone else's life instead of trying to bicker about if you are lawful or not in taking someone's life? Let's all try to be a little less selfish, maybe just for one day? Or one hour?

And yet they do, all the time. You need to watch the news sometime.

Except it's not murder. Your a criminal and deserve to get shot. You need bread? I already bought your bread it's called welfare.

I think you need to smoke a bit and lighten up.

Thread sure brought out the ugly in some people.

Yikes! Just discovered this thread and this sounds like a horror story.

Being only 3-4 years into the hobby, I am still trying to figure out the best way to facilitate these transactions. I still remember driving into Chicago back in March 2020 to buy my first game with an envelope containing $5,000 in cash and sweating bullets. Made sure to count it out for the seller right there on the pin's glass as soon as I got there.

Curious if anyone is using Venmo or Zelle these days for pin sales, and if that route is actually less risky than "cash on glass" given the OP's recent experience. At first glance, this seems like the way to go if the seller & buyer are in agreement.

It's depressing that division because of opinions is so common in society now. We are a bunch of grown men, and a few women, on here. An opinion shouldn't skew the main reason why we first came to the forum. We should be able to voice opinions without getting divided over it.

In my defense I've always been ugly

Jesus. I'm not usually Mr. Internet Moralizer, but some people in this thread really need to take a chill pill.

I used Venmo for my last pin purchase, and it did make everything easier to be quite honest. No envelope nonsense like this gentleman experienced. No fresh-from-the-bank bills stuck together leaving me 100$ short until I found the issue, which happened to me last year. No having to travel interstate with a large amount of cash... I wish more people would do Venmo.

Screen shot for posterity.

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What's lame about this guy is he always acts like he's had the game for years. He's full and complete BS.

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We really shouldn't.

There's plenty of places to argue about guns or brag about how we'd "deal with criminals," but this isn't supposed to be one of them.

But by page 5, we almost always end up in the same place.

Maybe we should use guns to pop the pricing bubble?

Geez. What was the first envelope for an Arcade 1up on his second stop?

I've never used Venmo before, but does it have the same "scam issues" that Paypal has?

For example, buying someone's pin and then issuing a "charge-back", claiming "I never got the item".

These kinds of things are why people won't use Paypal (not to mention the added fees).

I'm pretty sure once you Venmo its finished and closed. I paid for a game once from a trusted pinsider and it was done through my banks(Chase) app.from my understanding once I hit send there was no way to reverse it.

Yes. Venmo can be charged back like PayPal, if linked to a credit card.

Thanks for the clarification. Anyone that worried about carrying cash could use escrow. A friend just did a deal for 12.5k and it was only $140 for escrow. It was a shipping deal but see no reason it couldn't be used for an in person deal.

I'm Canadian so the gun thing is insanity to me. That aside anytime I buy or sell anything I count the money with the other party. I would consider it basic manners, it's really not that complicated.

Escrow is the most talked about thing in pinball that nobody has ever actually used.

If somebody approached me about using an escrow service to buy a game I’d move on to the next buyer. And so would everybody else here.

It’s pointless to offer it up here as a viable option for buying pinball machines. It isn’t.

We had no interest in shipping and risking a charge back but the buyer wanted the games bad. I advised him to tell him to mail cash or use escrow and he gladly agreed to escrow.

Bank wire is fine too.

I used that method on an out of state sale, and would absolutely do it again. A lot safer than "fat envelopes"!

Those days are long gone in this country......

Sold a game to a guy a couple years ago. We agreed on a price before he came over. He had a friend with him when he got to my house.

When it came time to pay, he told me he was $250 short. He thought he had enough cash and by the time he realized he didn't, the bank was closed. I told him "sorry, I have other people in line that are willing to pay the asking price so I'm not really willing to come down because you didn't go to the bank".

He pleaded a couple more times, and after he realized I wasn't budging he turned to his friend and said "man, do you have some cash I could barrow until I can go to the bank?". And what do you know, his friend just happened to have $250 in his pocket. His friend didn't even say anything, he just handed him the cash. A terrible actor.

What is so wrong with having a different opinion than someone else? Are we supposed to agree on every just because we all like pinball? I like bantering different sides of an issue and like hearing diverse opinions.....often times I see things in another way. That is healthy...not divided.

They don't have to be.

I don’t think they are saying that. They are saying the days where people could have differing opinions and not have it create division are over. I tend to agree. So many people can’t handle different views from their own.

Exactly. It's everywhere - why do you think the "no politics or religion" mantra is everywhere? Who exactly ARE the people saying this? Think about it.

What exactly is the purpose of "safe zones"?

Back in the day, you could discuss your personal beliefs with others anywhere - and share and learn together. Some times you would walk away thinking that maybe you didn't have it all figured out after all.

Not anymore. Now - a person's politics is how they are and will be judged and it's only going to get worse - much worse.

You ain't a beauty but aye, yer alright

It's funny people pretend they don't know why that is.

Yeah that’s an old scam. I had a father and son come to buy my old car a few years ago. We had already agreed on a price. When it came time to pay the kid said he had only been able to save up X amount which was $100 short, would that be alright. I said I have a bunch of people waiting no I can’t go any lower. The dad said that’s all he’s got are you sure he can’t get it for that? I said sounds like you need to ask your dad to borrow $100. Dad pulls out his wallet and happens to have a crisp clean $100 straight from the bank that matched the other $100s his son had “saved” up.
There is trying to get a good deal and there is lying, I could never try that on someone, even if I got a better deal I would feel like trash for lying about it.

Its engineered to be this way now. Without division, you cannot offer the temptation of control. A political play as old as time, but the internet has only made this accelerate.

My opinion, of coarse.

Incorrect. I purchased a game from another Pinsider using escrow. Worked great for both of us. I would do it again. Since the seller suggested it, I bet he would too.

Happy to oblige!

Every time I have traveled to buy a pinball machine I worried a hell of a lot more about interstate travel with cash and civil forfeiture than I ever did about being robbed

This is a serious consideration when traveling with that much cash, and one to which many people are oblivious.

Police take BILLIONS of dollars from citizens every year in the US under the guise of “civil forfeiture”, and it is estimated that in 85% of the forfeiture instances, the property owner was never even charged with a crime.

I have a close friend who went through this. He was driving home to NY through rural PA, from a vacation in Florida.

He had a brand new truck and was pulling a brand new airstream camper. The podunk county police pulled him over on suspicion of drug trafficking. They confiscated his truck and trailer and left him in the side of the road in the middle of the night, without pressing any charges. His wife had to drive 4 hours to pick him up.

It took litigation and a ton of time to get his property back. And even once he did, they had torn his vehicle and camper to pieces before putting it back together haphazardly, and an envelope of cash he kept hidden under a seat and an expensive knife were missing.

This is insane. Hopefully your friend doesn’t stop until this police dept is held accountable.

He’s incredibly vindictive.. but it was just costing too much time and money to continue to go after them legally. He struggled to find a PA lawyer to pursue even just getting his property back. No lawyers in the rural county would take the case. He eventually was able to find a lawyer on the other side of the state, in Philly, to help.

Once he had his stuff back, the lawyer let him know how much it would cost if he wanted to pursue pressing charges against them, and it was prohibitively expensive.

He’d already had to pay for the lawyer just to get his stuff back, multiple days of traveling back and forth out of state dealing with it, lost a client of his contracting business during the first week while he secured another vehicle, and had to cancel air B and B bookings he had set up for the airstream.

Just imagine if he’d been on his way buying or selling something like a pin, with over $10k in his pocket. Yikes..

Yeah I’d go broke before I let that one go.

Unfortunately with CBDC right around the corner, cash on the glass will a thing of the past....

well i am the idiot who trust everybody - i have a garage house that has about 25 pins in it - it's a house and it separate from our main house - many of you have stayed there for a night or days as i always try to help people. never had an issue. i do remember Taxman from CT - rest his soul as i remember reading he passed away - drove all the way from CT to my house in RI for a game. I told him i left the basement door open and go in and check the game out and it he wanted it just leave the cash on another machine.

He felt funny and wouldn't go in my house with nobody home. I have had others pick up games when i am not home and would say just put the money on one of the cars in the garage. never got ripped off - yes i guess i am pretty lucky - but i have found most people on RGP and pinside are just good people who love pinball.

my favorite story is a guy who cam down to pick up my 69 camaro pace car for 32k - spent the night in the garage house - next morning he was getting ready to leave and i said you don't really seem to want to buy it. he said the price was great but it wasn't really what he wanted. i told him don't buy it and think about it and it won't go anywhere. About 2 weeks later he called me and got a nice 69 RS, when he was cleaning out the car he found 25k in it. Lucky bastard - i thought he might give me a 1k or something - not a thing - but he did thank me for being so kind. I have never been that lucky.

as i get older i am getting a little more careful - but just had a pinsider spend the weekend here when he had emailed me about hotels in the area - i just said stay at my garage house as it's private and it's separate from the house we live in. So him and his wife stayed for a few days - i was away for the weekend so i didn't even get to see him or his wife, but they stayed for a few days which was better then a hotel - and cheaper as it cost them nothing. it's always nice to help others out. First thing he did was offer his house if we were ever in the Saratoga area.

someday i'm sure i will get burned - but so far so good.

thanks ed

Yikes.

I'm a gun enthusiast with a concealed carry license. The only reason for me to even point a weapon at someone was if I felt like I was in immediate danger and I was going to pull the trigger. Nobody's life is worth losing over a pinball machine.

Physical violence is old, this is the digital age. Is the scam worth a lifetime of "random" digital happenings, like accounts being compromised, etc...?

It has been my experience that 95% of the time I am doing a pinball buying deal off pinside where I am traveling that it is in a very nice neighborhood with a house that makes me look like a pauper. I'm really not worried about getting jumped outside a million dollar house in a gated community. The one time I felt like I was in a bad neighborhood picking up a pin I asked the owner to step out front to make sure it was the right house. They opened up the garage and it was right there so no biggie. As to selling pins from my house? I really doubt someone is going to be able to quickly break down a pin and haul it up my hill on their own in a timely manner. I do however have my family at home and you better believe I will stand between you and them.

I've sold pins to first time pin buyers a few times who are nervous about carrying that much cash. Dude, put my house in google maps... does this look like the type of place you'd get jumped?

I also made a comment one time when buying a pin... "Man... this feels like I'm doing a drug deal or something". Oh man, you smoke? I got some good stuff. "No thanks man, it was a joke". I don't use that joke anymore.

In my personal experience the most likely place to get scammed is a retail pinball establishment, but that is a separate thread and it is a few select individuals giving the large majority of great pinball retailers a bad name.

Very soon, the steps are already in place - yet most people don't even realize it. Then when our overlords launch it - we'll be powerless to stop it.

I used a bank wire 4 times in the past year as I purchased 2 NIB games and two games on the used market from Pinside members. All 4 transactions were seamless for both the buyer and the seller.

Granted, the Pinside members that I purchased the 2 used games from both had excellent feedback on Pinside from numerous previous transactions and in both of my transactions there were several texts, emails and phone calls so I was very confident that the sellers were legitimate. The 2 NIB transactions were from an authorized Stern Dealer and an authorized JJP dealer both with excellent feeback.

It cost me one flat $20 wire fee from my Credit Union for each transaction, but it was well worth it and if I purchase another game that is not local to me I will definitely use a wire transfer again. I initiated the wire transfer with my Credit Union with a phone call and the entire process was surprisingly painless, quick and secure.

Gord

Yeah if I’m doing anything other than 3-4k, I’m most likely gonna do a wire unless it’s close friends.

Fortunately the average lifespan of a $100 is 22 years

Cash will be around for awhile and will exist as some unit of value. Just like bottle caps in Fallout.

I’d be more worried about us going the way of Zimbabwe and needing a hundred trillion dollar note.

I've handed envelopes of money for three purchases where I gave TOO MUCH MONEY!

In two of those instances the guys counted it in front of me, and I overpaid by $100.

In one instance the guy took it and I left. He called me 5 minutes later to tell me I overpaid by $600. I had forgotten I put a delivery fee in there for something else. Woopsie!

So I count everything now, money coming in and going out. And always with a witness. Counting is no good without it.

What a bad ass

I didn’t read this whole thread but I picked up a game last week and the seller had a money counting machine. Counted $9,500 in about 3 seconds. I think I am going to pick one up. Even with the limited deals I am doing, the numbers are so big now, I think it is justified. Protects both parties.

Me too. I trusted you when I bought a TOTAN off you years ago - game showed up with screws through the playfield and all kinds of things that you somehow missed in the pictures and description of the game. I'm strictly a cash on the glass person now. Thanks for the education.