How do you protect yourself selling high value items?

[coinbug]

I have a couple of watches that I'd like to sell on eBay that are each just north of $10,000.00.

I've been pretty lucky as a seller so far, and haven't really thought about the risk, but now I'm thinking pretty hard.

Any tips?

 

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[Mackaydon]

Instead, sell through a reputable auction house; like Heritage Auctions.
Don......

 

[A2coins]

I agree with Don

 

[Drmad7]

My two largest sales were a bracelet for $4000 and an Omega watch that originally went to $7K before I discovered damage and notified the high bidder. Then relisted with known damage for $4995.00 and it sold within 15 minutes to a guy in Singapore. I’m sure it would have been checked over better by an auction house and received a higher price.

 

[trdhrdr007]

My policy is not to sell anything that would keep me up at night if it disappeared. For me that's anything over $1000. I recently sold an item on Heritage that was a good bit over that. I suspect I'd have done better on eBay but the piece of mind was worth it to me.

 

[Terry Soloman]

I was a Red Star .seller on ebay, selling high-end custom knives. I finally had enough after I sold a $7,000 meteorite knife to a fellow that got buyer's remorse and told ebay the knife was not what he expected. They froze my paypal until I agreed to take it back. When I got it back, there was obvious signs of use on the blade, making it worth half of what it was sold for.

No more ebay or paypal since. Good Luck!

 

[Indigo Knight]

I'm with everyone else here. Selling such expensive items on eBay in a high fraud category is a recipe for disaster.

If you get paid with PayPal and have never had more than $10K come into your account in one month before, your account will almost certainly be frozen automatically. You'll need to provide your SSN and an invoice for the original purchase of the watch(es) and possibly more information in order to unfreeze it. I know this because it's happened to me. I'm not sure what amount the software auto-freeze is set to, but it's around $9-10K.

eBay managed payments may not even allow you to list the item, as they seem to have blocked most higher fraud categories.

Find a private auction house that specializes in higher end watches and jewelry.

 

[coinbug]

Holy camoly! This is worse than I'd imagined. Heritage Auctions might work for me. I never thought I could have a problem with PayPal.

 

[Xraywolf]

You could consider local pickup only, and meet at a police station for the transaction.
Ebay is always tempting because of the number of eyeballs looking at your auction, but far too much of a risk to just mail away and hope for the best.

 

[trdking]

if you truly have nice valuable watches Contact heritage ha.com Keith Davis. He is a great guy and a walking encyclopedia on time pieces. Negotiate your fees. I posted 50K in watches and they waived my fees entirely. Worked out very well having the power of a big house on the sale side. I did however end up buying new pieces when the auction went off so if you need the money don't look at what else is for sale in the auction! HA HO HUM

 

[cheech]

No more high end items on eBay for me the way they’re forcing returns The seller does not have a chance

 

[dts52]

My wife had far too many bad experiences with eBay as a seller... and those items were never more than a few hundred dollars (a lot of money to us). eBay NEVER sided with her but always with the buyer. Merchandise was returned used, sometimes damaged and once a fake Coach handbag was substituted for the genuine one she sold. Never, never, never again. Don’t take the chance. Good luck.
dts

 

[smokeythecat]

Coinbug, don't even think of putting anything pricey on Ebay. They could say not as described and send you a garden rock or can of soup back, and as long as the tracking # showed delivered, you'd be DONE!