I'm currently negotiating a fairly large deal with a local collector who is getting out of collecting. If this ends up happening this will be one of the largest purchases I've made in years! I'd say there's a 50/50 chance at this point it's going to work out. I just wish he'd message me back more consistently 
Facebook, I'd assume. In the few experiences I've had using it to buy things, people are insufferable on there. A total lack of basic communication skills and etiquette. They'll stop talking to you mid conversation, leave you hanging after making actual plans or dealings, and generally just don't give a crap. I had to wait like 45 mins after driving an hour, in a parking lot while the seller was inside of a grocery store after they changed the meet location on me, and decided to do all their shopping before they'd come out and meet me to sell me something we met up for. Not so much as an acknowledgement or response when I told them via Facebook that I had arrived at the parking lot, and they were completely aware the whole time.
This is exactly what happened. The guy has been jerking me around for 2-days despite me offering a very reasonable amount for what he was selling. I'm like 99% sure this isn't happening now. Yeah, it was on Facebook lol
This can apply to just about any local sells apps like Letgo and Craigslist. Some people communicate no problem and all is good. Then there are others who have no business selling anything. I remember wanting to meet someone to buy their copy of Nioh with the letter opener that came when you pre-ordered the game and all was find at first. I told them I was going to pass by their place after picking something else up on the way and they said no problem. Fast forward and I arrive at the meeting location, I parked and told them I was hear and didnt hear anything back like at all. Im pretty sure I was there for like 20-30 minutes top and in between sent another message and no response which at the point i was like fuck it and left. Needless to say I wasnt happy especially considering the distance wasnt exactly the closes to where I live. Maybe they already sold to someone before I came but say that instead of making make waste my time. People suck sometimes.
There is also an option called shipping to avoid all that waste of time?
Fuel costs and 2 hours or more invested to go back and forth + wait time to pick something up how much does one actually save?. I rarely pick stuff up only if it's fairly close or at a flea market. even if it's only 30 or 20 minutes away it means also going 20 30 minutes back even in those cases you waste over 1 hour to save almost nothing or lose money thanks to fuel I just say fuck it and pay the 4 to 7$ shipping with tracking my time is far more valuable than saving a few $. picking stuff up is always a time sink. Only if it's super pricy as in 1000$ or up might I consider picking stuff up. If it was a guy I bought stuff from before I'll just pay for insured shipping for 20$ not to mention that for under 500$ in my country there is an option to insure upto 500$ for just 9$ for up to 10 KG's. again you rarely save money by picking stuff up if where talking fuel costs alone let alone the time.
still though out of all the local pickups that you guys had? do you guys really not trust for those same people to ship the items out? I mean the guy has the items if you payed before hand he can't sell it anymore, also in the sellers perspective for a local pickup a buyer can also just ditch the meeting place so there is no guarantee wich could result in some people selling it to somebody else. Modern stuff especially consoles sure tons of scamming, retro games especially obsecure stuff way less and you could just pick the actual scammers out. but that's just my experience.
Also if you don't believe the guy to have the items ask for particular pictures of said item, or with note with the correct date of today + the sellers name to guarantee that the guy actually has the items that he is selling. or say you bought a bunch of items to ask a picture of that bundle of games before you pay.
Shipping never crossed my mind and since I had done local pickups without an issue then this didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary and honestly with apps like letgo and Craigslist, I don't trust shipping. Obviously if it's something like ebay that's a different story since if anything goes wrong then they can step in. PayPal can also apply but you have to make sure the transaction is for goods and services. Point is I have good reason to be hesitant about shipping in that manner. Nowadays I'm not really buying much so local pickups via these methods isn't something I'm doing much of anyway. I just wanted to share one bad experience as illustration of some sellers lack of communication.
That's pretty interesting everyone has a different experience with collecting after all.
Personally on sites like craigs lists in europe I have a pretty nice experience with shipping. retrogaming has some scammers but it's pretty rare and I could filter those out pretty easily the scammers are fairly obvious. I could not even count the amount of deals I would have missed if I where to only do local pickups by car. It's usually all well over 1 hour of drive time not to mention traffic increasing that time.
Haven't been scammed in forever. only in the beginning few years 3 times in wich it didnt matter much since deals where plentyfull and I lost only a couple hundred $ wich was kinda small stuff compared to the great deals such sites provided at the time part of the risk and a valuable lesson I guess. Kinda made some big rookie mistakes at the time even the pictures where stolen and the prices where not that much of a bargain plus the seller had to much knowledge I should have known better. most scammers never seem to sell for actual bargain prices. 50% of the more hyped items usually from what I've noticed. there has to be some effort there. rarely with obsecure stuff pretty much all hyped stuff wich even than pretty rare from what I've seen. nothing in comparison to modern stuff wich is far more popular for scammers to make money with. far larger audience aswell. Let alone anything non nintendo related. why would a scammer waste it's time with ps1 ps2 or anything sega atari haven't seen any of those.
I will say though your not wrong it's not that uncommon for people to not like shipping if it's not ebay and when they don't trust a seller even in my country in wich people only do local pickup or not. Wich I appreciate quite allot since naturally the best deals are not from long time experienced well known sellers wich a sizable chunk of people might skip as a result
Ebay can sometimes have some great deals from time to time but you rarely find someone who doesnt know the value on there. Ebay requires far to much effort to list stuff for a person to not to research or to skip on stuff with old prices or insane deals. especially for newcomers or people that just sell sometimes ebay is a real turn off.
My mentality with shipping online is like this, if the pictures are legit amateur like or so unique, plus such a low price, It's pretty hard for the seller to be a scammer, or if the guy provides extra pictures of those particular items on request like the backside of the 2 asked manuals It's pretty hard to say that the guy doesnt own the items If I don't trust it and see some red flags asking for those specific pictures will easily see if the guy is a scammer or not. a scammer would search ebay listings for those manual pics wich means different backgrounds in the end instead of the 2 manuals on 1 picture or ofcourse ignore the question. worked out for me at least, but the US could be different in that regard but that's just in my experience.
