Alarms bells ringing - cash on collection item

J_J_Carter

I sniped a bicycle for a good price off t'Bay, and will do cash on collection so I can walk away if it's a lemon (used my buying-only account)

Contacted buyer and arranged collection on Friday, but he added "I'll send you my address nearer the time"

Maybe I'm paranoid, but isn't that rather peculiar? Maybe seller will be a dead-beat and bike will mysteriously be 'lost'?

pinkshoes

You could request his address from ebay? Or perhaps the bike is valuable and stored somewhere safe?

I sold a bike ages ago (in Oxford) and had it stored elsewhere, as I had nowhere secure for it, and also didn't want someone knowing the address of where a semi-expensive bike was kept!

(bikes in Oxford are stolen to order)

Oliver14

Agree with Pinkshoes the seller maybe worried about potential theft.

go_cat

Some people are a little nervous of giving out their details earlier than necessary .... wait and see if he sends them nearer Friday .... if he doesn't and you cannot contact him you can always go down the NPS route

hermum

I don't think it's odd, why do you need the address several days before you're going to collect?
I generally don't give mine out for collection items until a day & time has been arranged.

mikey72

I can't understand why sellers who advertise collection won't tell you where they live, it sort of defeats the purpose really.
I had one that wouldn't give me their address either.
I needed the address so I could plan the week and if I was passing organise the pickup, rather than set a time by guessing where they where.
In the end I told them to keep it, and bought off someone else.
In this one, if they won't trust you enough to tell you now, it'll be another 3 days lost before you find out if they're for real on Friday.
So you'll be looking again next week.
(Or then again, just tell them 9am tomorrow, then when you get the address, email back with the real date and time, if you really need whatever they're selling)