Quote Originally Posted by GeoCam View Post
Claudia - thanks for the suggestion. I don't do it exactly like you mentioned (great idea, by the way!!) - I use some free software called "craigspal" that lets me search ALL cities and can even limit the search to the "bicycles" category. I have been checking that daily for months. I had seen the one in Austin, but that bike is just too big.

Edited to add:

Even though I have been searching nationwide on Craigslist, it has worried me what I would actually do if I did find a bike. I mean, how could you do a long-distance transaction like that with a perfect stranger and build in some safety for yourself that they would actually send the bike once they got your money. At least eBay has some buyer protections - I'm not sure how you could protect yourself in an interstate Craigslist transaction. Has anyone ever done that or do you have any ideas? The only idea I've had is to try posting here to see if a fellow TE member lives in the same city and might be willing to help do the deal, but I'd love to hear other suggestions.
I've bought a few things off craigslist long distance and sold a few things. A couple of people have wanted to just mail me a check, and that's for not so high dollar items. I do have an ebay account & good feedback, so I can usually give people that if they want some reassurances.

Otherwise when I've tried to buy things - it can be initially very difficult because they will think you're some sort of nigerian scammer, especially if it's someone that is not very comfortable on computers and are suspicious after hearing about all sorts of internet crime & fraud. I wanted to buy a camera lens off some lady by mail and I basically had to talk to her for a couple of weeks giving her camera advice and critiquing her photos before she felt comfortable enough that I was a real person and she would try selling long distance.

Whoever you want to buy something from are not necessarily going to have a paypal account. I've managed to talk a few of them into making them, but some will be suspicious that you're trying to lead them to a website that is asking for their bank account information. I don't think paypal gives you protection with that sort of transaction - but what I do is make very clear that there's an invoice and an agreement on it to send such and such item for however much money... If you have someone that's reasonably web savvy, you can have them set up a google base account... basically anyone with a google base account can post things on froogle... (you can use your gmail acocunt info for the base account) to sell.. and if they sell, google charges 2% for the credit card transaction via google checkout. HOwever, that is a transaction that is protected - both by your credit card & by google. That's going to be a complicated one to talk pople though, however.

My little brother once tried to buy a pda off of a guy on some forum... I think he mailed the guy a check for $450... and the pda never arrived, and the guy stoped responding to emails. My brother reported it to the police and a few other internet watch dog websites... It took about a year or two... but at some point he got a check in the mail from the pda guy, which was a requiment of the court....