Where to safely sell a rMBP in the UK?

[Elmzeh]

Hey Guys,

I'm currently looking to sell my 15" Retina MacBook Pro to upgrade to an iMac and wanted to find out if you know of any safe places / ways to sell it for a decent price in the UK as I've heard quite a few horror stories about eBay and PayPal.

I'm based in London and have thought about using Craigslist or GumTree but then again I'm not 100% sure if it will be any safer in person.

Any advice here would be great as through Apple's recycling programme I can only get around £600 for it which is crazy considering it retails at £2,000+

 

[Sammilux]

If you are selling in person, I would say any public place should be fine. Chances are you will not be robbed in broad daylight. Bring a friend if you do feel insecure about it.

As for Paypal and eBay, refuse to sell if the buyer is not paying by Paypal, since you do not get seller's coverage if it is paid in some other methods than Paypal. eBay does charge quite some money for selling fee, which you should bear in mind.

 

[bigeasy_uk]

I've sold on gumtree loads of times with no problems, but I can understand your concern, it's an expensive item.

Make sure you meet the buyer in a public place, take some friends too if you are nervous, they don't have to crowd around you, just have them sit at a nearby table. Ask for the buyers full name via email so you can write a receipt out ready, then google them, make sure they are legit. There's not many people without a facebook page these days and most people have a digital trail.

 

[chrisrosemusic1]

Hey Guys,

I'm currently looking to sell my 15" Retina MacBook Pro to upgrade to an iMac and wanted to find out if you know of any safe places / ways to sell it for a decent price in the UK as I've heard quite a few horror stories about eBay and PayPal.

I'm based in London and have thought about using Craigslist or GumTree but then again I'm not 100% sure if it will be any safer in person.

Any advice here would be great as through Apple's recycling programme I can only get around £600 for it which is crazy considering it retails at £2,000+

I was in a similar position with my rMBP 13" a couple of weeks ago, however I did list it on eBay with the sole position of not allowing collection or cash.

After a day or two I was flooded with offers to pay cash etc and I got sceptical about it all. However, after a 10 or so email conversation with someone I bit the bullet and invited them to come to my house as a cash buyer. I hid up some stuff and was a little apprehensive but a young woman turned up and I invited her in. Showed her the condition of the Mac etc and she handed over £800 cash.

So for me it went extremely well but I can understand from other peoples stories that it is a risk. I would recommend meeting in a public place, probably somewhere with CCTV etc and, as someone else mentioned, go along with a friend if you're worried. I'd say 9/10 buyers are genuine but there's that 10% who are out to try and get something for nothing unfortunately.

Failing that, ignore the eBay requests for cash and collection and only accept paypal from a verified UK buyer. The only issue here is you'll lose a hell of a lot of cash for the Final Valuation Fee and paypal receivers charge.

Good luck.

 

[Glasgreat]

Hey Guys,

I'm currently looking to sell my 15" Retina MacBook Pro to upgrade to an iMac and wanted to find out if you know of any safe places / ways to sell it for a decent price in the UK as I've heard quite a few horror stories about eBay and PayPal.

I'm based in London and have thought about using Craigslist or GumTree but then again I'm not 100% sure if it will be any safer in person.

Any advice here would be great as through Apple's recycling programme I can only get around £600 for it which is crazy considering it retails at £2,000+

If using gumtree ensure you check that cash is genuine. I had someone hand me fake cash for an old dell xps laptop. Lucky for me I spotted it. I used to sell on gumtree but now avoid it due to previous bad experiences.

I sold a macbook on ebay and buyer paid by bank transfer. Trusting individual he was. I sent the macbook that next day. Always a option to say on ebay ad that bank transfer is preferable and offer a good price.

It is very hard to sell, to many scammers and ebay always sides with the buyer.

If you do sell on ebay, always send item to a confirmed PayPal address and use a good courier such as dpd or collect plus. Avoid anyone who is looking to pay with PayPal and then collect from you.

As a last resort, you could try CEX. Better prices than most second hand dealers.

Good luck.

 

[SpinalTap]

FWIW, I'm in the final stages of dealing with Apple's own 'Reuse & Recycling' scheme. They provided a fair price for my Mac Mini, and provided free return to base shipping. Their estimated price is the actual price that will be paid into my bank account sometime over the next week.

Sure, you may not get exactly what you would like on the open market - but there are no transaction charges or shipping charges to worry about - and minimal risk of the whole process going wrong.

Recommended.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/reuse_and_recycle

 

[benjai]

Gumtree is the best (in UK) for a seller for numerous reasons:

1) No fees. eBay and paypal fees on this item will be well over £100.

2) You know exactly how much money you'll get as long as you do the haggling in advance over email. Unlike random eBay bids.

3) You can sell the item for as much as/probably more than you think you'll get. If you're in no rush, just set a high price and wait. I waited for over a month and got over £500 for a 2007 iMac that was really only worth about £400.

4) No buyer protection. So the buyer can't make up something stupid and screw you over. This is a huge plus point for me.

5) No hassle with postage.

Probably more points which I can't think of. In short, eBay really sucks for sellers.

You can generally tell if a buyer is genuine from their tone over email. I don't really have problems with people coming to my place but you could always do the deal/testing in a public place with a macbook.

Just buy a money testing pen over ebay/amazon to check the notes you get.

 

[Ifti]

Gumtree - sell in a public place. Let them test the laptop in McDonalds or somewhere, where there is also free wifi. Take the buyer to the closest bank and have them pay the money straight into your account before handing the laptop over.

 

[CASLondon]

Hey Guys,

I'm currently looking to sell my 15" Retina MacBook Pro to upgrade to an iMac and wanted to find out if you know of any safe places / ways to sell it for a decent price in the UK as I've heard quite a few horror stories about eBay and PayPal.

I'm based in London and have thought about using Craigslist or GumTree but then again I'm not 100% sure if it will be any safer in person.

Any advice here would be great as through Apple's recycling programme I can only get around £600 for it which is crazy considering it retails at £2,000+

From my experience, Gumtree attracts scammers and attempted nigerian spammers as much as ebay or anything else.

After starting with gumtree, I later sold one of my 17" MBP to a photographer friend of a friend. If its in really good condition, I would consider trying to do it through photography/video/computer forums. Or, things like HardForum, TomsHardware, or http://www.reddit.com/r/appleswap/

Smaller forums, ones for focuses likely customers, or ones that use heatwave rankings or other ways of establishing trust, make it more likely to attract a knowledgable and trustworthy buyer over the general public stuff. I've discovered this, in trying to source components for my Mac Pro on the buying side

 

[lumencreative]

FWIW, I'm in the final stages of dealing with Apple's own 'Reuse & Recycling' scheme. They provided a fair price for my Mac Mini, and provided free return to base shipping. Their estimated price is the actual price that will be paid into my bank account sometime over the next week.

Sure, you may not get exactly what you would like on the open market - but there are no transaction charges or shipping charges to worry about - and minimal risk of the whole process going wrong.

Recommended.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/reuse_and_recycle

Apple's Reuse & Recycle site offered me £240 for my quad core i7 Macbook Pro...complete and utter joke.