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Tips for Selling Your Camera Gear
4k Plays9 months ago
We all like to upgrade from time to time and unfortunately the longer you keep your old cameras and lenses the less valuable they become. In this episode Matt and Brian talk about some tips for selling your gear to get the most profit as well as avoid a scam.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome back to another frame of mind podcast. My name is Matt Klaskowski over at MattK.com. I'm a photo educator and all that fun stuff. And I'm joined by my buddy, Brian Mateusch from Mateusch.com, who is also a photo educator and all around nice guy sometimes. Sometimes. How's it going, man?
00:00:30
Speaker
It's great, man. I think I say this every time I'm on the show. It's always a blast to be here. Life is good, and it's just great that we get to talk about the stuff that we talk about anyway when we're on the phone together.
Navigating the Used Gear Market
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I get emails from time to time on our topic today.
00:00:51
Speaker
which is ways to sell your photography gear. And I guess possibly ways to buy, use photography gear too if you work at it in reverse. And also with the tagline like how not to get scammed.
00:01:06
Speaker
But you were you were when I thought about the topic because it's something I get asked about a lot something I don't hear people talk about and I think I think it's you know, it's it's a good topic and You I know, you know out of anybody I know you've probably sold
00:01:24
Speaker
I don't say this in a bad way. You've probably sold the most gear. Like a lot of people just keep it. Like you just keep it forever and ever and ever until it's literally worth nothing. And then you've got to take it somewhere and have it recycled where you're somebody that has actually, you know, when you, you get something new, you're, you're pretty good about selling whatever the previous version of it was. So I thought you'd be a good guest for this one. Yeah, absolutely. I, uh, I, I've sold and it's, it's not a bad thing. I've sold a ton of just camera gear.
00:01:53
Speaker
and a ton of just technology gear, like anything from laptops to, I mean, so I, and I also, this is not a topic that I think a lot of people, and certainly not in the podcast form that I can recall covering. And I think it's really important, especially today with just the sheer amount of ways someone could get scammed. Yeah, I think I'm gonna, I made a note in the very beginning of my outline
00:02:22
Speaker
And and it's I'm I'm gonna say it first and I think Brian echoes with me that we need to say this first And we'll probably repeat it many times throughout so just get ready to hear this over and over again, but be paranoid be paranoid if you're gonna sell your gear and Don't feel bad about it
00:02:45
Speaker
be as paranoid as you possibly
Comparing Sales: Dealers vs. Private
00:02:48
Speaker
can. We are in an era that I've used eBay and social media to sell things in the past. I know you have to. We are in an era of scams that just they're so hard to root out.
00:03:08
Speaker
And so it's just be paranoid. I don't want to be doomsday about it, but I do feel it's necessary to reiterate be paranoid. So I'll go with the first topic here, because you've got a really good one too. But I'm going to go with the first one that selling gear is a lot like selling a car.
00:03:34
Speaker
you can go to a dealership, which is a, you know, if you're going to go buy a new car, you can go in and most dealer, a lot of dealerships, especially these days will even take your used cars. Even if you're not buying something new from them, but it's like a dealership where it's trustworthy. You'll go there. They're going to give you a price. You, you don't really have any expectation of getting scammed by them. Although I'm sure that there's still probably some, some little hidden ways where you can there, but by,
00:04:04
Speaker
For the most part, you're going to go to the dealership, you're going to give your car and they're going to cut you a check. And you don't really have to worry about the fact that they're going to cut you a check and that that check is, or however they give you the money, that that money is going to be real and something you can deposit. And I think it's a lot like selling a car in that aspect where for me right now, this person that asked me,
00:04:28
Speaker
I would honestly say the best way to do it is going to be a reputable camera store. So B&H Photo, Adorama, or a local camera store. Like I am in Tampa. I don't even know that we have much of a local camera store anymore. But you know, I did teach, I taught something up in Philadelphia.
00:04:50
Speaker
back in November. And there's a unique photo. I mean, they had a couple of them, you know, so it just depends on where you live. And if there's, there's going to be a, there's going to be a store nearby, but your B and H is your Adorama's, your, your local camera stores are going to be your safest bet. Now, just like selling a car, are you going to get top dollar selling it to a store versus selling it privately? Definitely not.
00:05:18
Speaker
your that store has overhead costs that the person down the street from you doesn't. So you will typically always do better selling something privately than you will to an established store. But if you want to avoid the scam, if you want to avoid
00:05:36
Speaker
headaches, if you want to avoid the time it takes to get a post together, take pictures of it, put it up, go back and forth with the person, do all those things. Then I would say a camera store might be one of the first places you want, at least consider as you're going along there.
Pricing and Timing Strategies
00:05:53
Speaker
Yep. I mean, for me, the so I agree with you.
00:06:02
Speaker
Not so much the camera stores, but the lack of camera stores here in southern Florida. There might be one in Miami. Yeah, there is. There's a good one in Miami. Is there? Yeah. I just don't want to go to Miami. It's still a hike for you, too. It is, yeah. But the place that, you know, I'll share my kind of favorite place.
00:06:26
Speaker
where I've sold gear. Man, when you look at this, it's fredmeranda.com, so it's Fred, F-R-E-D, Miranda, M-I-R-A-N-D-A.
00:06:39
Speaker
So this has been around forever, forever. I mean, when you look at this website, you're like, did I 1999? Yeah. It's so it's a forum. It's not even a website. It is a classic forum. But and you know, people it's a photography forum. But there are two threads. There is the buy and sell like photo gear and there's the buy and sell tech gear. And
00:07:07
Speaker
Here's the interest, there are two interesting things about this. Well first, first I've had nothing but good success. Buying and selling, mostly selling, 95% selling and like 5% buying. One, you have to pay.
00:07:22
Speaker
to post in those two threads so right off the bat there's kind of skin in the game you know you actually have to give up a little bit of money it's not a lot but it's i like that the other thing that's really interesting and this is similar to what you know ebay does as well there's kind of like a social currency system so
00:07:44
Speaker
If I sell something to someone and they buy it and the experience is good, the photos were accurate, I shipped it quickly, I communicated quickly. When they're done, they will leave you a review. It's not just like a star rating, it's also they'll leave a comment.
00:08:02
Speaker
that the more you build that the easier it is or the more inclined someone would be to do business with you when you're new it'll take a little bit of time because people be wary like you know this is a new account but um
00:08:16
Speaker
I had so much really good success with that, and I think I can say that I've never posted something for sale and didn't sell it, no matter what it was. I've sold MacBooks, I've sold cameras, I've sold lenses.
00:08:35
Speaker
And yeah, so I do recommend Fred Baranda. One, it's a trip to see it, but two, it's a great place also to buy, so check it out. Yeah. No, I knew that was going to be one that you mentioned, and I've always heard you say good things about it.
00:08:56
Speaker
I'll throw a tip into this, because my outline is mostly places to sell. That's kind of what we talked about, places to sell and how not to get scammed and all that stuff. But at the same time, there's another part of selling gear, which is how are you going to price it?
00:09:17
Speaker
Right. What, what are your expectations for pricing it? And I think, I think a lot of people think a lot of people, it's only to give you two tips for this one. I think tip number one is, so let's say, let's say the Sony, let's say I had the Sony A7R4. Okay. And when the Sony A7R5 came out, do you know when the best time to sell the A7R4 that week?
00:09:45
Speaker
You know, so don't, if, if you're somebody, if you think you're going to upgrade, if you've got something and you think you're going to upgrade it, I would say get it on the market as fast as possible. The longer time period.
00:10:01
Speaker
that you wait between the new version of something coming out and you having the old version that just the further and further down that that price is going to plummet. So I would say, you know, if you're if you think in any way you're going to be that person that's going to buy the new version, get the old one sold as fast as possible. Number two, they said what we were just talking about, set your expectations for price. Here's my thought process on used stuff. And this this goes across the board.
00:10:29
Speaker
If I'm going to go, if I'm on Facebook marketplace, if there's, you know, there's people, I see people selling dressers. I see people, you saw all this different stuff. If I'm going to put my neck out and buy something used, man, it better be half of what it is new.
00:10:46
Speaker
on a private party, not at a store because the store is going to be, you're getting a certain guarantee when you buy, if I were to buy a used camera from B&H or a used camera from some camera store or whatever, you're getting a certain piece of mind. So not just selling, but with buying too.
00:11:04
Speaker
But if I'm buying it from somebody off the street, even if I know I'm not gonna get scammed, even if it's on eBay, even if it's reputable, even if it's all those things, I've got a really, really low tolerance for people that try to sell something that's used for 80% of what it costs new. That camera, that A7R IV, when that A7R V came out, I'm sorry, that camera's worth half of what it is.
00:11:30
Speaker
It might not sell at B and H for half of what it is, but that's what it's worth. Yeah. And if I can jump on that, speaking of price, the other things from the seller point of view, if you are going to try to sell it at, you know, list it rather, the price you put it when you, and you are like Matt saying like 80% or 75%, you should also, without a doubt, two things. One, expect that someone's going to come back and
00:12:00
Speaker
you know, if they will, yeah, negotiate if they will ball you. No, no, you know, easy say no, thank you. You're clearly not in you're not serious about this. But my the point is, have a price in mind that you are like, let's just do this. Let's close. And that's to Matt's point, like, whether it's half off, whatever you're comfortable with,
00:12:24
Speaker
Um, just have that ready because once you have, once someone expresses interest, um, obviously you want to sell it. So don't, unless, like I said, unless it's a clear global, just be prepared to negotiate. That's an important thing. Just in life to have those negotiation skills. Also to be able to say.
00:12:44
Speaker
You know what? Sorry. I do know how many times I've it's kind of gotten close and I just, you know what? This doesn't seem like it's going to be a good fit. I wish you the best of luck. And I walked away from the sale.
Negotiation and Opportunity Costs
00:12:55
Speaker
Um, so yeah, like regarding pricing, absolutely. And don't, if I can jump in, jump in this really quickly too, Matt, like.
00:13:06
Speaker
Don't waste your life just searching every single place. The point, you probably want to buy something, and I'm speaking from a buyer's perspective now, you probably want to buy something. Get a secondhand A7R4, something like that, or a lens, a Mark I lens. You can spend all that time going to all the places that we're going to talk about.
00:13:31
Speaker
Or you can just find a decent deal. Maybe it's $100 more than you want to spend at the lens and start actually using it and go out and enjoy. There's no opportunity cost. Yes. You and I have talked about this because, I mean, you've sold things. We've chatted on the phone about, you know, like I put something up for sale and it went right away, you know, and that actually means you're priced it well. Yes. But yeah, don't, don't,
00:13:59
Speaker
Don't make a living. How do I write this? If your job is not to sell your camera gear or whatever it is you're selling, don't make a living selling it. Yes. Put it up for a fair price.
00:14:13
Speaker
Be willing to negotiate a little, have an idea in your mind. But like you said, if you're buying or selling, don't make a living out of that, because there are opportunity costs. And everybody's financial system is different. So what $100 to one person, where they won't cave on, that $100 might be worth something different to somebody else. So you've got to do a little bit of personal evaluation there and what it is. But I would say the one thing is don't let pride hurt you, because personal story,
00:14:40
Speaker
I was selling a stand-up paddle board last summer. My wife, we had a really nice one. It was like the real good, hard stand-up paddle boards. And it became too difficult to store and get in and out when we wanted to use it. And so we tried out an inflatable one, and it served its purpose enough for us to switch. So I had the stand-up paddle board I had to sell. And I had a price on it, and somebody
00:15:10
Speaker
Somebody came in and low balled it. I said, no, I wanted this. They came in and they barely went above what they low balled it for. Long story short, I haven't sold it yet. If I could go back in time, I would take what they offered. They were the first ones and they always say it like with houses, with cars, a lot of times your very first
00:15:34
Speaker
Your very first inquiries are usually your best ones. Um, and so that's something to keep in mind in there, but, but yeah, don't make a living out of selling it. If that's not what your job is, um, selling it fast means you did good. It means you're happy. It means the buyer is happy. It means you did good.
00:15:51
Speaker
I would go to another place, which would be photography clubs and groups that you're in. That's, I think, a really good viable place. If your camera club doesn't have some type of a buy-sell exchange or some place, that'd be a great suggestion. Everybody has stuff that they want to sell. I think that's a great place because you know you're among like-minded individuals.
Selling to Friends: Pros and Cons
00:16:21
Speaker
You know that the people around you are mostly probably trustworthy. They've been there for a while. You've seen them for a long time. So I would definitely say camera club. And if your camera club doesn't have a means to do this, I would really suggest it. And then, you know, I don't think that that's unfair for somebody to say, Hey, you know, in the monthly newsletter, can we have a little classified section? Because that can truly be a help to its members. Absolutely.
00:16:45
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:17:32
Speaker
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00:18:01
Speaker
I know that there's, I'm kind of on the fence with this one, Matt. I see it on the outline. And that's selling to or buying from friends, close friends, family. And I think it's a great way to kind of just, if you have something that you want to get rid of,
00:18:24
Speaker
On one hand, if it's a good friend or family, you're probably going to accept or take a much lower offer because they're friends or family. My caveat to that is you become the built-in customer and tech support person
00:18:40
Speaker
That's true. That's my thing, Matt, because here's the thing. I buy or sell something on Fred Miranda or from a camera club. Actually, camera clubs can also fit into the family friends. From some other, we'll talk probably about Facebook or Craigslist, which is probably the worst. But once that transaction's done, it's over. I'm not going to see this person again. I make it clear that the sale is final, et cetera, et cetera.
00:19:09
Speaker
with a person, with a friend or family. Like, if I were to sell something to you, Matt, and you had a problem with it, oh, that would be the worst part, if there was a problem with it. Now I feel obligated, I have to, of course, I would never want to sell something duplicitously, like, oh, it actually has. Yeah, like the day of, I get it, and I'm like, dude, it doesn't work. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about four, six, eight weeks later,
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, how does this work? Why aren't my photos sharp? I don't know what you did in those four to six to eight weeks with the device. I have no idea what you did. I know what the condition and the performance of the device was when I sold it to you. With that said,
00:20:01
Speaker
Those are great opportunities, especially if you have older gear that's just collecting dust and your spouse is yelling at you because you're becoming a hoarder. It's a great opportunity to give stuff away to your family or friends. Donate. Yeah, donate. Yeah, you can do donate. That's a great point.
00:20:22
Speaker
If it's an older thing and you can take the tax write off, donate it to your local Salvation Army or your Goodwill or your church or your synagogue or whatever. And as long as they're in the US, a 501c3 organization, they should give you a donation receipt that you can write off. And that's a really important component. Sometimes the write off could be more beneficial than what $100 you'll get if you sell it.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of people, again, if you're sitting on a Sony a7R II, which that was, what, the 2015 camera? I'm out there, yes.
Donating Gear: Benefits and Incentives
00:20:59
Speaker
2015, I mean, we're taught eight, nine years ago. If you're sitting on a Sony a7R II, don't sell it. If you're going to sell it, just understand you're going to get $200 for it. I don't care what you paid for it. Just understand you're going to get a few hundred dollars for it tops.
00:21:17
Speaker
unless you're, again, willing to sit around and try to wait for the right buyer for it. But I don't think you're going to find the right buyer for it. I think you'd be better off giving it to a school that has a photography club in it, you know, and let somebody use it and start to learn from it, knowing that, you know, it's not the latest and greatest, but it's got aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and they can learn to do anything they need to on that camera.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think the older it is, the less likelihood you're going to have to sell it and maybe donating it is a viable option. But dude, that's a really good point you made about selling to people you know. There is a safety net. You know their check's not going to bounce. You know that you're going to get your money from it. Sure.
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, like how does that friendship work out when in eight weeks it breaks? Exactly. I mean, I would feel mortified. If I sold you something, I would feel especially you're like one of my closest friends. We talk about stuff all the time. And if I would be like,
00:22:20
Speaker
What do you want me to do? And it happened to me last year. I won't go into the story, but let's just say something happened to me last year where I helped somebody with some gear and I regretted it. It ended up like that and it became a contentious type of a situation. So yeah, I hear you. Yeah.
Safety and Scams in Online Marketplaces
00:22:47
Speaker
So let's talk about some of the, let's talk about the Ebays and the Facebook marketplaces and the Craigslist. Okay. What are your thoughts, rankings on them? So rank in terms, okay, if we rank it in terms of the, my opinion, the shadiest versus the least shadiest, I think all three are just the dregs. I avoid them as much as possible, but from most shady, I would say Craigslist.
00:23:14
Speaker
then 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Followed by Facebook marketplace followed by eBay.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I, being the safest of the options, the least, the least shady, the least shady. We're not saying safe. Right. If you do them, do what they tell you to do. Like you, you use PayPal and not the PayPal friends thing. You don't try to go skirt the 3% transaction fee because when you do those things and you have, you have protections. Yeah. Um, but man, I mean, if you want to, we could start, if you want with Craigslist, uh, to me.
00:23:55
Speaker
I don't even want to give it any time. It's a dumpster fire. It may have worked for some of you. It worked for me. I talked about the paddle boards. I actually had two paddle boards. I was able to sell one of them through Craigslist. I've sold stuff before. Not saying it won't work. It's a dumpster fire. It is full.
00:24:18
Speaker
of scams. Full of scammers, full of scams. I put something up for sale and immediately, immediately, like within minutes, start getting text messages from people.
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm interested in buying this, your biggest thing that should throw you off, they want to do the deal as fast as possible. Won't even negotiate, I'm willing to pay full price. You know right there it's a scam. And then they'll come back and they'll want to send you a call. And we'll talk about some of the scams in just a second. So yeah, Craigslist is a dumpster fire. My concern, so Facebook Messenger, I've had success. I've actually, not Facebook Messenger, I'm sorry, Facebook Marketplace. Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker
I had a Traeger smoker that was basically a list, just sitting there for eight months, the listing. And after like eight months, some guys like, hey, I'll buy this. Now granted, that's a local thing. The reason why Facebook marketplace, I think cuts both ways, Matt, in that it's a great way to target your local region, because you can post in like the, like here we have the Palm Beach buy and sell.
00:25:31
Speaker
The reason why it cuts the other way is because I kind of like the somewhat faceless or anonymous component of buying and selling. I prefer to just
00:25:47
Speaker
mail you the thing if possible. And not have to, when you open yourself up to, like when the guy bought the trigger, he had to come over. And I did a little bit of vetting with him beforehand. But yeah, that's never a comfortable thing to have a complete stranger come over. And I'm sure there's a firearm nearby as well. No question about it. I'm sorry. This is 2024. I will protect my family.
00:26:16
Speaker
I just wanna, you know, I wanna do my due diligence. And that's, I would say, with a, obviously a Traeger smoker is a completely different story than a camera body or a lens in those situations. So for example, I sold, I had the first generation Roadcaster Pro. So it's like a mixer. I bought the second generation. I wanted to get rid of the first one to, you know, offload or to kind of compensate for the cost.
Conducting Safe Local Sales
00:26:45
Speaker
And so in that case there, I met the guy, it's a relatively small thing, and I met the guy and I...
00:26:53
Speaker
I was able to just like, we were in a lit public place and I just felt a lot safer. So in those situations, you know, it's another good thing in terms of like the local stuff is with the camera lens, for example, you can always just bring your camera body, if it's a camera body, if you're meeting locally, you can, hey, let me take a few shots, just make sure you can inspect it and make sure that the front and rear elements are clear.
00:27:21
Speaker
So yeah, the yeah, so that's So Facebook marketplace and then eBay which you kind of talked about I mean, yeah, you've got to do it the right way on eBay there there still can be scams on eBay there's I forget the I forget the rundown there's this thing where You they you you ship it and then they pay you and then I don't know
00:27:47
Speaker
There's still ways to get scammed there. Yeah. In some cases, PayPal will not release the funds until the tracking number is marked as delivered, which always bothers me. Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
And then what happens is they give you an address that's not their address. Yes. And that's how they get around this. There's scams on PayPal, eBay. There's still ways to get scammed on eBay. But like Brian said, you really don't try to skirt any of the fees.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, reputable, reputable sellers, all those things, return policies, you know, like you said, use PayPal. So that way PayPal is owned by eBay. eBay is owned by PayPal. I don't know who owns what, but they all, isn't PayPal owned by eBay? PayPal is owned by eBay. And I, but I can't remember if eBay is still using them. Um,
00:28:51
Speaker
if they have their own payment system. But it doesn't, here you can rest assured that there will, you will be paying a fee. But I mean, with eBay, there's a listing fee. And I think there's like you pay based on a percentage of what you sell for. And then there's the credit card transaction fee, which is usually 2.9% or something like that.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, there's always going to be fees on top of it. Yes. All right. So I made a couple of small things because I was going to break it down as we finish up to say things to watch out for and then things to do if the deal is going to go through.
00:29:33
Speaker
Um, so I would say, you know, you've got the list there of things to watch out for if you can add to it, but I would say things to watch out for. Um, we, we, you know, especially, uh, especially somebody my age, I think my kid would wonder like what the heck a cashier's check is, but I was raised to always think like, Oh, cashier's check is good.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right. It's like cash. Somebody gives you a cash. Yeah. It's as good as cash. Cashier's check is so far away from cash. The word cashier's check should not even be allowed in it. It's so far away from cash. So don't let anybody say, I'll give you a cashier's check. A cashier's check is as good as you letting the person say, I promise I'll pay you. Yes.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yes, I mean for me like you brought this up and this happens to me especially on Facebook marketplace where the customer is a dream customer.
00:30:37
Speaker
You list and in minutes you get a message. I'll pay whatever you want. Just do it on my terms. The payment's gonna come from this person and I want you to mail it to this place. No, no, no. Sorry. This is where the whole you need to be okay with backing out of a deal. This will benefit you big time because
00:31:06
Speaker
the rate of scams like that where someone, they're just like, yeah, I got you covered. You want $200? I'll give you $200. Let's just do this right now.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yep. I don't want to, because I could talk about this because I've tried to sell a car recently. I did it through autotrader.com, which is a very reputable place. Sure. But I was getting messages from people that want to take it off of Autotrader. So that's a big red flag there. Sure. Huge red flag.
00:31:41
Speaker
But during the paddleboard sale on Craigslist, I actually memorized the script. And to be totally honest with you, I kind of started having fun with them.
00:31:56
Speaker
The script was, they're ready to buy immediately. Or no, here's with the car, because I did put the car up too. Here's a good one. I put the car up. They're ready to buy immediately. They just need you to go to this website to verify the VIN, and this is going to come to a lesson in a second here.
00:32:13
Speaker
to verify the VIN. And I was like, well, I already have the Carfax report on it. I'll just send that to you. No, Carfax doesn't tell me this, this, and this. This report, I can get scammed through Carfax. This report, I can't. It's all a scam. You pay your money, you do this thing, and they walk away with your money, and they got your credit card and your personal info. It's all a scam.
00:32:34
Speaker
Um, and I, I found that out. I knew that in the beginning, but I would start having some fun with them. I'd be like, Hey, yeah, when can we meet? Oh, yeah. Perfect. Oh yeah. Give me the website where you want me to send the VIN member. I'll go in and pay right now. Yeah, exactly. I just started having fun with them. But yeah, anybody that any, here's the thing. If the buyer tries to make you feel bad for, for being paranoid, they're the wrong buyer. Yes.
00:33:03
Speaker
Be, I said it in the beginning, be the most paranoid person you know, and if it takes, take it off of you. Just be like, listen, I don't know anything about this stuff. My wife will never let me go through and meet with you if you haven't done this, this, and this. If you haven't sent the money, if I can't find your profile on social media, whatever, my wife will never let me go, or my husband will never let me go, my brother will never, whatever it is, they'll never even, like, take it off of you.
00:33:32
Speaker
I don't know anything about this, so I just have to listen to my friends. If the buyer tries to make you feel bad for being paranoid, and if they don't understand your paranoia, they're the wrong buyer for you.
00:33:46
Speaker
I think we covered a lot of that. No, don't fill out any forms. Don't let somebody send you a link and you fill something out. Again, it's not all about getting scammed with the camera. It's not all about they get the camera and never pay you. That's not what all scams are.
00:34:04
Speaker
sometimes the scam is to get your information or your money or your credit card by filling out a form or whatever that that happens to be so or your bank account, you know, so just I think that's an important I think that's actually a really good tip. Remember, not every scam is meant to try to get your camera gear away from you without paying. Yes. And just to close that section out really quickly. And this applies to eBay. This applies to Fred Marin. Basically, this applies to anything where you're probably going to be using PayPal as your
00:34:34
Speaker
the clearing house to pay for the transaction. Things like PayPal, there's a PayPal verified address. So when you have your account, you can put your address that's verified. When I sell, so on eBay, I don't do auctions. I only do buy it now. Meaning if you want to buy it, it's like checking out. And the nice thing with that is they have to pay. The buyer puts out the,
00:35:04
Speaker
I make it a point and eBay even instructs you.
00:35:08
Speaker
only ship to the PayPal verified address. That's the other thing. That's what I was talking about before with the scam. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. So, and make it clear. This is more important really for Fred Miranda because Fred Miranda generally, they recommend PayPal.
Payment Security and Verification
00:35:28
Speaker
And again, the PayPal, not the PayPal friends and family. I tell the buyer, listen, I will only ship to whatever in PayPal it shows.
00:35:37
Speaker
If you're asking me to ship to a different address, it's not going to work. Yeah. I forget the specifics of how that works, but that's a scam. That's in and of itself a scam, differing addresses and all that stuff. And I know people. I know people that have fallen victim to that scam.
00:35:55
Speaker
I think actually I fell victim years ago to that, I did. So, yeah. Yeah. It's the same with cashier's checks. People think like a cashier's check is good. It's not. That money gets deposited into your account because banks are kind of pushed to deposit the funds into your accounts very, very quickly. Their customers demand it. And then what happened just because it got deposited into your account, when that check doesn't clear, that money gets taken out of your account. Now you're out the money and you're out the gear. Yes.
00:36:26
Speaker
All right, I think we can wrap up with, so let's say things to do if the deal is gonna go through. And I think this is mostly, I think we talked about if the deal's gonna go through online, we talked about PayPal, we talked about only shipping to the address. I do think there are times where you, like you sold your smoker, there are times where you might have an in-person deal. What's to go through, obviously meet in a public place.
00:36:56
Speaker
Absolutely, and be smart about it. I would say don't meet it, unless it's unavoidable, but at 9 p.m., meet during business hours and park in front of, I would say, a store where there's traffic, or foot traffic. The other thing is, and this kind of goes both ways, if I'm gonna sell something online where there's gonna be a local meetup,
00:37:25
Speaker
I act like a detective. I'm basically one step shy of a background check, a criminal background check. I look up their social media profiles, try to see if I can paint an avatar or get a dossier, so to speak, of that person, just so that I know that they're legit. Yeah, listen, like I said, 2024,
00:37:55
Speaker
Don't mess around. No. I said it in the beginning. Be paranoid. If this person texts you and says, hey, I'm in the back of the parking lot at the, I'll use our grocery store as Publix here. I'm in the back of the parking lot of Publix. Great. I'll be in the first spot near the store. And in fact, I'll get out of the car and I'll be just off the side of the entrance.
00:38:18
Speaker
Does that sound paranoid? Absolutely sounds paranoid. They walk up, sorry. If you're a legit buyer, you'll actually thank them. Yes. If you're a legit buyer, you'll be happy it's done in the most public way. Even then,
00:38:34
Speaker
In this day and age, there's nothing to stop them from grabbing the camera and running. And sadly, probably very, very little consequence to it. But you're taking as many steps as you can with it. Yes. Bring somebody. I mean, great idea. Even as a male, I'm still going to bring somebody. And to be honest, does it sound paranoid to have that person lurking in the parking lot, not around? Yeah, it does.
00:39:00
Speaker
And guess what I'm going to do? If I can, I'm going to have that person lurking in the parking lot, not seen.
00:39:06
Speaker
Again, you gotta be paranoid. Bring somebody with you. If it's cash, try not to accept large bills. I was doing some research on that on Amazon for like 15 or 20 bucks. You can look up like fake note detector kit. Oh, okay, I see. And they sell these cheap kits. They're not that expensive, or you can check it.
Proof of Product Condition
00:39:28
Speaker
I sold years ago, I sold a car and the guy paid me.
00:39:34
Speaker
in $20,000 of cash. And I said, I said, listen, I said, I hate to do this to you. I know it's an extra trip, but we got to go to the bank. Absolutely. We have to go to the bank. I don't know that it's not counterfeit, you know? Absolutely. And then here's here's a really good one for you that I'll finish up on. And that is take video of the product working the day of.
00:40:01
Speaker
Absolutely. Take video of the, whether you, and this is good, no matter how you sell it, whether you sell it online, whether you sell it in eBay, wherever it happens to be, take video of the product working before you hand it over. I think that's a really important one. That, so there, there's so much there and I know like, there's so much there, Matt, that's important of doing that. For example,
00:40:26
Speaker
God forbid, yeah, you meet someone, they steal it from you.
00:40:32
Speaker
That right there, for a police report, that's helpful. You have that proof. Two, for insurance. Whether it's personal, if you're not a working photographer, you have just homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance, that's huge. I mean, they will more likely than not want that. Same thing with business insurance. If this is gear that you are selling and you're gonna take it off your books, having that kind of, Matt, that's actually huge.
00:41:01
Speaker
I cannot recommend that enough. And then I will, I'll close out my last thing, and this is just to maximize the value, the listing value. And my wife, it drives her crazy, but I keep my boxes. I keep the boxes and the materials when I buy a lens or a camera or something, unless it's something that's like $100, like just an accessory.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, but I have still every single lens box, every camera box, my MacBook box. When I go to buy, if I'm looking to buy something and I'm okay to buy it secondhand, and there are two people, one of them is $100 less than the other, but the one that's $100 more comes with the box. I'm going with that listing. It tells me something about the seller's psychology.
00:42:01
Speaker
Like it's it could be one of the best points that we've made this whole podcast. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I mean, I didn't even think of it and I do I do it for the most part like I you and I bought the same monitor. I still have that box and I I hate it because it's massive. Yes, can't stand it. But that's I didn't the guy I bought it from on Fred Miranda
00:42:26
Speaker
he didn't have the box. I was really bummed about that, Matt. But Fred Miranda, again, he had a good score, a good social score. I feel like we're, nevermind. So let's talk about social scores. Think about, if you are a seller, put yourself in the position of the buyer, and what can you do to kind of, one, justify the price you're asking, and two, make the buyer feel comfortable.
00:42:56
Speaker
And I'll throw one onto this too that I just thought of, which is take good pictures. If you're selling something, take good pictures. There's a fine line between, I have to decide how much time I'm going to dedicate to selling whatever this is. So I'm not going to set up a lighting studio. But I've got a white desk. So I'm pretty good about turning my lights on here and everything. And I'll put something in this nice white area.
00:43:24
Speaker
Just to go show I went that extra step above grabbing my cell phone. Yes. In crappy light and taking pictures on the couch. And they're, you know, they're not color corrected. Like, oh, God, that burns me. You know, you see that they threw it on the couch or the bed and they're all yellow. Yes.
00:43:43
Speaker
you know, it's just this yellow incandescent light that's around it. And they didn't even like take the, you know, the eyedropper and click with the white balance to neutralize it like that. I just it looks low rent to me. Yes. And so we're talking about photography gear. Again, don't go crazy, but take a decent picture. Right. It goes into the psychology of the seller like
00:44:05
Speaker
don't make it seem like this was something you just thought of like last minute you grabbed your phone and just like oh there it is and it's like diet crooked and part of and if you're selling a camera go the extra step and determine what the shutter count of that camera is you can do that by just taking take a photo oh god
00:44:23
Speaker
No, it's gonna say so cuz somebody's gonna ask you someone's gonna ask you. Yeah, cuz it's important there's a cameras rated for certain number of actuations It's like a car a car you look at the speedometer like oh, it's not speedometer the odometer The one thing I'll say that is these days with your mirrorless cameras and with your electronic shutter So here's my this is my a7 r5. If I pulled the shutter actuations off of it, it would say zero
00:44:48
Speaker
That's a great point. Because since day one and I took it out of the box, I put it on electronic shutter. Yes. So it would, the electronic shutter doesn't, it's electronic. There is no number. There's no wear and tear. So there you go. And that's, I have a Facebook ad that shows me shooting in a high burst rate. And, and, and I have to go in and delete comments all the time. Cause somebody will leave a stupid comment and say, Oh yeah, you're going to wear out your shutter like that.
00:45:14
Speaker
You're not going to wear out an electronic shutter. Help me understand how. Try again. But yes, if you do have a DSLR or something like that, or again, I wouldn't fault anybody for asking me what the shutter count in the A7R5 was, because it does have a shutter. It's just, I turn it on electric, so it wouldn't even show a number. Yeah. Good point though. Definitely a really good point. Cool. Where do we find out more about the man, the myth, Brian Mateusch?
00:45:45
Speaker
Man, oh man. Well, the easiest way is just my website, which is Matias.com. That's M-A-T-I-A-S-H.com and sitting on YouTube. Are you kind of transitioning your stuff over to LightroomEverywhere.com? Yeah, LightroomEverywhere.com goes to a landing page to sign up for the newsletter. Okay. Because yeah, there's the course, there's the newsletter, now there's the live stream all under that live layer everywhere.
00:46:14
Speaker
answer is eventually. But for now, just go to my website, Matish.com, and click on if you're interested in the course. Sounds good. And I am over at MatK.com. And I've got Photoshop, Lightroom, photography courses, lots of presets, lots of free tutorials, all that stuff. So any way you need to get a hold of me or see any social media or that stuff you can find over on the website.
00:46:36
Speaker
All right, man. Well, thanks so much for joining me on this. I hope we help some people out. I know that this is something that people do. I've never really had a good answer for them, and that's why I wanted to do it. And I'm glad I got to do it with you, because I know you're probably the person I know that sold the most. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on, man. All right. Thanks again, everybody. We'll talk to you again real soon. Bye.