Have you bought a bike privately online, unseen. how to be safe?

nexusfish

nexusfish

El Mariachi
Gday, looking at a bike from gumtree and looking to get the person to send it to me in Tasmania. Just wanted to see if anyone else has done this and what you can do to be sure (to the best of your ability) that the bike will be sent. Ive stalked the guy online ans much as possible and had a chat and he seems legit.

Any advice?

Cheers.
 
I've bought bikes sight unseen off of burners, can't say the same for Gumtree. I will say there's a solid bunch on here if you do need an in person inspection.
 
Regular burners are always fine. The odd random user who only trades here and nothing more, a couple have burnt me, but I’m taking sub 100 buck items.

As others are saying, get a burner to check over for you.
 
I have done deals on scummy without issue, but it is always a leap of faith.
try and do COD at depot if possible, sell the idea to them that you both are protected
and remember, if the deal is too good to be true, quite often is!
P.S. what is it and where?
 
I have bought 4 bikes from interstate in the last few years, ranging from 2k to 6k. 3 of them shipped to me unseen apart from pictures, one of them I did a 1 day 1300km round trip to Bacchus Marsh from Adelaide, the seller drove out from east Melbourne to save me doing the city crossing, all were found on Facebook pages so checking out the seller is a bit easier than a scumtree buy.

I'll send a few messages then when it looks like a goer, I'll have a chat on the phone. On 2 occasions I have sent the seller a friend request and even screenshotted some family members. Also ask when the pictures for the sale were taken, sometimes they are 6 months old when the bike was new.

There's a decent amount of trust involved to send 5k interstate for a carbon bike you have never seen but FB is a (little bit) safer platform as it's not as anonymous as the other options.

All FB buys have been 100% with no issues ever.... Not so much for the meth head who stole his dads PayPal account and went on a 40K spending spree in Adelaide, I lost a $1000 laptop but there were people who lost gear up to 4-5k, expensive jewelry, Petrol Go Karts, secondhand dirtbikes ect.... PayPal put my account in arrears of -$1000 and told me I had 30 days to make it right or it would be sent to a credit collection agency :mad:
 
I have recently bought a bike sight unseen from interstate.

The seller was an older gentlemen and he seemed like a good, honest guy that just loves to ride bikes. First up, I left messages to get more details and he apologised since he just come back from Canberra and was out riding locally today - good enough for me. I had a good feeling about it and he dropped it off to friends sister who took delivery as she is located in the same state and got it boxed up and shipped.

Sometimes you get lucky and it pays to use the force when you can.
 
Scumtree no. Burners/ other forums/ evilbay yes with no dramas. I’d be getting someone to check it over if possible. Having said that I reckon you can usually get a good idea of the seller by the way the add is worded. People who are keen on bikes tend to be more verbose and know what to highlight in an ad.
 
Bike is on the post now. I stalked him hard and found his you tube channel which just showed another passionate bike tragic like many of us with the same voice as on the phone chat we had. I also asked him to send me a photo of his licence, which he did and it was the same dude in the videos, in which he had same bike he is selling. If its a scam, its a well aligned one and I rekon he earned my money.

As a side note, ive never had any issues and on here, faceturd or scummtree. 99.9% people are honest folks, just the odd scumbag wrecks it for everyone.

Cheers, for the advice/offering to check it out. happy to do the same if anyone wants a bike from down in Tassie.
 
2017 Nukeproof Mega. Full DVO, Carbon c32 praxisworks wheels on industry 9 hubs. Rest of it seems pretty bling too. First ride (aside from busting some hucks on the kids jump in the front yard) will be Maydena!
 

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nexusfish said:
2017 Nukeproof Mega. Full DVO, Carbon c32 praxisworks wheels on industry 9 hubs. Rest of it seems pretty bling too. First ride (aside from busting some hucks on the kids jump in the front yard) will be Maydena!
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Noice!

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