shipping wheels betweeen friends/members, lessons learned

[Rockcrawler]

Guys, just wanted to help others learn from a recent transaction that had way to much murphy in it (Murphy's law).

Not my first rodeo, been buying and selling on line for over 15 yrs. for a while I was manufacturing hardcore jeep stuff and was usually shipping open account to other jeep guys, never got burned.

my intent is not to make either of us look like dummies.... just a few things went wrong and figured we could save someone else the heartache.

made a deal on 4 sport mounted balanced TPMS pristine with 3 k miles, agreed on a shipped price. Agreed to use paypal. Another member here

first hurdle was I sent the money in advance (they were still on the car) to close the deal..... except I left one "S" out of his account name..... I was positive I sent the funds and he was positive it did not post to his account. I was traveling, took me a few days to figure out my goof. I was humbled

Second hurdle was when I sent the funds, he was surprised that Paypal took their 3% (which is what paypal takes from the seller by default as a cost of doing business). So we discussed and agreed to go with the normal paypal default system.

A few days later he shipped, but he could not find boxes the correct size, so he paid more out of pocket to break the wheels and tires down and more to ship (ouch). It also meant I would have to spend time and money to remount and balance. I found this out after they shipped. I would've waited another week to find boxes given the choice.

once I had the tracking number, he asked me to "confirm receipt" which was new to me. Not sure if this is new in general or triggered by the dollar amount. I logged in and began to do that. Then the system asks me to verify I got the goods and they are as advertised. I was not willing to do that as it appeared I would have "compromised" my protection if something went wrong. I explained this, he said his friend told him i could just confirm anyway.... I explained I was not going to lie about it and be exposed if something went wrong. he was agitated.

so all shows up on monday instead of friday.... I'm on a biz trip but have my 18 yr old son inspect, he's on the race team and has worked in body shops so he's qualified. 3 of 4 wheels were packed with soft covering on the face and were fine. The 4th wheel had nothing soft protecting the finish and chafed on the cardboard to the point that the paint was worn to bare metal in a small spot on 3 of 5 spokes. going rate to refinish is $100 and we worked that out between us. He was going to try to file a claim with the shipper but I doubt he will succeed as the boxes were fine.


so a lot of us buy sell trade amongst ourselves..... be carefull, eyes wide open, don't overlook how the messes can happen. Mod's, if this should be moved to another forum, go for it but I thought the info would do the most good here.

Peace