Many years ago now, I finally ”quit my job”. I have to say “quit” because I´ve never stopped working per say, I just became my own boss, which is another story of ups and downs for another day.
Anywho. When this happened, or more accurately for this to happen: I had to find a way to make income in a somewhat predictable way. This, when you are independent is never truly achieved, but this is what I was shooting for of course.
Like many people who try to pay their bills by themselves, and since I had a lot of experience in musical instruments; I began buying and selling them. I would fix them up sometimes, sometimes just switching hands, but it was working, at least for while.
Then, the scams began. As soon as the ticket items got pricier, I was dealing with a lot of people trying to scam me. This was tiresome to say the least, and truthfully made me dread the choice I had made to sell online.
What kind of scams, you may ask?
Too many to remember them all, but I remember two in particular that made me quit the online sales altogether. Why? Because ebay and paypal screwed me on both occasions bigtime.
Stolen Accounts.
On the dark web, and this can be researched easily, you can buy paypal-ebay accounts for not a whole lot of money apparently.
The idea is that the owner of the accounts won't know, in time, that someone has made a rather large purchase and sent said purchase to a weird address. Usually a courier that sends the product to an undisclosed country. An international courier mailbox so to speak.
It was this method that got me on a Neuman u87 microphone, and no matter how much I fought with ebay and paypal that they verified the address, and that it qualified for protection, I was out the money and the microphone.
Refunds-Returns months after
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and it was not long after this that I walked away from online sales.
Apparently, according to paypal (not ebay) you can file a claim for a purchase after 180 days. Yes, you read that correctly. You could buy a guitar from me, use it for six months and then decide you want your money back. And, this is precisely what happened.
Did I get the guitar back? Yes, yes I did. But it was destroyed. Dings all over the place, headstock cracked, and the case was scratched to hell.
Why am I sharing this today? Sunday? I don't even use ebay anymore, right?
Randomly, a twitter thread showed up on my feed, and I decided to do a search for “fun”. The rabbit hole led me into reliving those gut punches, and here I Am typing this up right now.
I should clarify that the second incident, the one with the guitar being returned after he probably dropped it, was not necessarily a career scammer, but more of an asshole who got away with being an asshole.
But… I'm at a crux right now. I need to do something to ramp up my earnings, and as we know crypto aint cutting it at the moment, so I'm looking online for real options, finding nothing that would work down here (Ecuador), without exposing me to being scammed (it might even be worse in a 3rd world country after all).
I've got no choice. Is either that, or go back to the US to work for six months out of the year. There are little to no jobs down here after all.
MenO
I have bought stuff on Ebay, but never inflicted selling stuff there on me. Seems I made the right choice from your experience. I deeply empathize with your plight. I am generally able to work on a given day because there is a demand here for what I do, but lately I have been working for two specific clients that had a lot of work for me, which was nice because I like them and the work. However, as of Friday, I had finished both jobs and didn't have anything lined up.
I felt a sense of panic that kept me up til the wee hours in the morning, despite knowing I would find work. In fact, I am again booked into the foreseeable future now, and have three jobs going tomorrow, LOL. Despite I am on firm footing presently, not having work on the morrow gave me the heebie jeebies, so I deeply empathize with you and dunno how I could maintain my sanity in your circumstances.
You're facing a hell of a commute. Have you thought of becoming a streamer, like producing video of the step by step process of making a guitar? There might well be a lot of interest in the specifics of how it's done right, and I know you do it right from my Aladdin. That's the best suggestion I can throw at you from my distant perch. I hope you don't have to travel for work, if you don't want to.
Thanks!
I just gotta take some steps forward... lets see what happens. I finished the Speaker, so Im going to sell it. See how it works out.
I immediately believe the scamworld of ebay is just really tire-some. People are swines and thst does affect you somewhere along the line. Not cool
But going back to the us for a hussle? It seems like there should be another way right? Other online hussles?
Hope all is well with you, not at hivefest this year I expect?
couldnt possibly afford it at the moment. I mean, I could, but it would not be responsible since there is very little money coming in. Im not starving or anything like that. How have you been?
There are a lot of scammers out there. I've been fortunate not to fall foul of them so far. I do hear some horror stories with ebay. I gave up selling there as they took too much in fees. I've sold a few things locally via Facebook and generally met people to do the trade. Most people are honest and just out for a good deal. Just get a few wanting to pay hardly anything for decent items. They are timewasters.
I do wonder if more of a market could build up on Hive. People here can build a reputation that gets them some level of trust.
I would hope you can make something from your guitar business.
!PIZZA
If I can pump out a guitar a month, and sell it within two months or so, I think I would be doing good. But, thats not easy. They take a lot of time to build. Hence why Ive been branching out, making speakers and whatnot. I need to find something I can build in a week, tops, and that the ROI is good enough.
A luthier who built a guitar for me had a side business making various other craft wood items, some of it with scrap from the guitars. If you have good skills I expect there are lots of possibilities, but then you have to find a market for whatever you make. The speaker is a nice piece that people may prefer to something made of plastic.
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