Selling Something Without Getting Cheated

[bobg]

If you've heard too many times about someone here receiving counterfeit bills, how can you sell something with confidence? I know one trick to identify fake peso bills but there are probably pesos which would easily fool me. And I am not sure I would recognize all fake US bills either.

I've thought maybe I could meet the buyer at a currency exchange place and insist on receiving bills which have been exchanged in my presence. I suspose that would work, although you could still be robbed by the buyer or his friend when you leave the place. (Yes, I am a bit paranoid.)

How about Paypal? Are transactions registered promptly enough so that I could expect the buyer to wait until the funds show up in my account?

Any other ideas?

Thanks, Bob

 

[Davidglen77]

Depends on what you are selling of course. I highly recommend using Mercado Libre and it's accompanying payment service called Mercado Pago, which in some ways is like PayPal. It takes 14 days to get paid, but when I sold of a large quantity of merchandise and fixtures when I liquidated my business here, it was safe and I had no problems at all. I INSISTED to people who inquired about my items for sale on being paid this way and it was clearly stated in the postings, some people got annoyed and even cursed me out, but those are the people who came across as suspicious, wanted to come and look at merchandise off hours or at night and my answer was always NO and that is why I think I didn't end up getting robbed or cheated by anybody. It's fairly easy to use both services.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Forget Paypal, they send you a check, you have to pay 11 dollars for that, plus 5 percent they charge plus 3 percent for exchanging it for PESOS at Banco Piano plus 3 weeks of waiting aaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!

 

[mellowshipslinky]

I've signed up with Google Checkout ( linked to my Aus. account, not sure if there's an Arg. option) which is kinda like Paypal but if I have to pay anyone fees then I'd rather pay whoever is NOT Paypal

 

[steveinbsas]

If both the seller and the buyer are from the US (possibly many other countries as well), using paypal would be much easier and payment would be instantaneous.

 

[PhilipDT]

FYI paypal works with argentine credit cards too, so you should be able to use that.

 

[zork]

No one uses paypal here, chances are 95% of the time people won't even be sure what paypal is.

Mercadopago is safe yes, but at the same time it can be annoying, I remember I bought a cell phone on mercadolibre, I saw that the seller enabled mercadopago as a payment method, so I buy it, I pay for it and then the seller tells me he doesn't even know what mercadopago is, he doesn't know how it works and he won't accept it, I had to cancel the payment and got my money back from mercadopago but they still charged me a fee for the 'transaction' (I think it was around 15%-20%) so in the I lost money and I couldn't buy the item.

 

[zork]

On the other hand, you don't have to be that paranoid, I've used mercadolibre a lot and learned that if you only work with people with a good reputation you won't have a problem, just like with amazon. And it's easy to spot suspicious behavior, it's just common sense.

 

[BAJoe]

If you're willing to go to an exchange (casa de cambio) place, you can also do the money interchange at your bank. (edit: ANY bank really) Supposing you have an account here, you have 2 options:

1: have them transfer from their bank to yours. One of the best measures taken by this goverment, has been to force local banks to transfer funds between them INSTANTLY! This eliminates those stupid delays when nobody knew where your money was between the depositing and receiving accounts. This delay lasted minimum 48 to 72 hours, during work days!! Imagine the extended delay if you had a long weekend or bank strikes in the middle!! The only limits are that you must do it before 5 or 6 pm, on a banking day. It's done on any ATM, provided both banks "sistemas" are up and running. To be safe do it early in the day. The added 'COST' for this is ZERO, (up to a reasonable value, I guess). You can also transfer dollars INSTANTLY but only for real-estate operations, (not sure if this would include paying rent).

2nd option: If the buyer gets rough and says they don't have an account, OK. They can take their cash to your bank and deposit into YOUR account direct. As soon as the teller gives them the deposit slip with the full amount, you exchange that slip for the merchadise you are selling and that's that. You don't even have to touch or see the bills.

For both operations you need your CBU, (clave bancaria universal). As this number is entered either by the teller or thru the ATM, the system will bring up your full name,as the account holder. Make sure of this before the deposit is done.

Cheers

 

[elclandestino]

Befriend someone at the money exchange place or dealing with large amounts of cash and get them check the bills

Sometimes the bills could be fake even beyond buyer's knowledge