Im buying a piece of MF equipment from a guy who lives in Turkey. I've bought tens of thousands of dollars of equipment over the last decade but find myself in a bot of a quandary as I'm spending 10K and this is a situation I've never quite been in. He's been a member here for 9 years, has under 50 posts. I spoke with him tonight, my gut says he's a stand up guy, very nice gentleman. Any suggestions on how to proceed with this purchase and keep my self protected and at the same time he needs to feel protected also.??
Sorry if this is in the wrong forum...
Don
Firstly, I'm a huge believer in "reputational risk".
Does he have a long-standing website where he shows his work? How about social media accounts - LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc etc.
What you have to ask yourself is "does this look like the kind of guy who would throw away everything in order to rip me off for $10k".
The more connected he is; the more connections he has between his own accounts/online presences; and the more of "himself" that he shows online, the more he has to lose.
The second thing to check is that he actually is who he claims to be. Again - this is much easier to do if he has multiple online presences. You will want to ask for copies of personal ID - at the very least a passport. If he has a website, get him to prove he has control of it by uploading something to the site for you to check.
If you're really paranoid, check his social media accounts. Find out when/where he has traveled overseas. Ask him to provide a copy of the visa entry stamp for that trip.
And be prepared to offer him the exact same things in return!
Kind regards,
Gerald.