any good places to buy cheap laptop

[ByWayofCanarsie]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

The cellphone store is a good idea IF the staff's management will let their salespeople waste time on non-customers instead of people who are going to buy their cellphone from the store. For computers, that's not a proper way to ascertain if a computer is a piece of junk. What if every two hours the screen dies, etc.? You need more time with it OR to have a computer repair shop look it over.

I'm a woman and he was a man. What was I going to do? Rape him?

If you're afraid of strangers, you should not be contacting them or letting them contact you on the internet in the first place. They could follow you home, take down your license plate and research you, or mug you in the parking lot of the public place for all you know if they are nefarious characters.

Check out Freecycle for instance. That is where you give stuff away for free. I have left things on the front porch for people to pick up if I was not going to be home. I have had people ring my bell and I give them things, or, on the rare occasions I wanted a free item, I always went to the person's home to pick it up.

To each their own, but meeting in a public place is always safer than meeting in a stranger's home or having a stranger come to yours. Other than selling furniture, the rule of thumb is to meet in a public place.

Tips for Buying and Selling Furniture on Craigslist - US News

How Can I Avoid Getting Screwed When Selling on Craigslist?

The Safe Way to Do Craigslist Transactions | Chron.com

Also, the cell phone store always works, since the person receiving the phone needs to activate the phone on a network, which makes them a customer. The person on the other end of the email doesn't know if you are a woman, a man, a gang, a rapist or a City Data Forum Moderator (shivers).

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by ByWayofCanarsie

To each their own, but meeting in a public place is always safer than meeting in a stranger's home or having a stranger come to yours. Other than selling furniture, the rule of thumb is to meet in a public place.

Tips for Buying and Selling Furniture on Craigslist - US News

How Can I Avoid Getting Screwed When Selling on Craigslist?

The Safe Way to Do Craigslist Transactions | Chron.com

Also, the cell phone store always works, since the person receiving the phone needs to activate the phone on a network, which makes them a customer. The person on the other end of the email doesn't know if you are a woman, a man, a gang, a rapist or a City Data Forum Moderator (shivers).

You forgot this one:

How Can I Avoid Getting Screwed Buying on Craigslist?

Look the seller up. Search the seller's email address and phone number on both Craigslist and Google. Look up the seller's name on Facebook and White Pages services (see if the address matches, too, if you're given one).

If I'm buying something that I cannot tell IMMEDIATELY is as represented, in good condition, and costs over $100, I want to know where the person lives or at least their real name (like from Facebook or LinkedIn) in case of problems if I meet them at a neutral location. (I usually don't buy or sell stuff on CL anyway so this does not come up too much for me.)

A really good idea for items of a certain price from the above article:

Meeting face-to-face can still be risky though, so to avoid the chance of being robbed, meet in a public place—preferably one with lots of witnesses and security cameras. A bank lobby, Gizmodo suggests, is perfect because you and the seller can withdraw and deposit cash without having to carry it around.

(The article has a lot of other good ideas for buying things and is worth reading in whole.)

I did buy a really great IBM laptop on CL a few years back and the guy was totally legit, had a good reason for selling it (his work bought him the newest model with all the bells and whistles) and had no problem letting me come to his apartment to pick it up and test it out in detail. His profession was IT, so he understood how I had to go over it thoroughly (some non-IT people I might meet in Starbucks might get antsy with this). That was a real good workhorse of a laptop for the time it was relevant.

This other guy I mentioned in my other post I just did not trust because instead of just telling me, "I don't want to do the sale at my house, so let's skip the transaction ..." he kept calling and calling me like he was desperate to sell the laptop with a million and one places to meet ... but just not at his house. A non-scammer would have given up if we did not agree where to meet instead of keep bothering me and just kept his ad up and waited for another buyer instead of all the theatrics this guy was putting me through on the phone.