Originally Posted by
theblackbullet
How does a facilitation usually work out?
Does the potential buyer do all of the talking and set up a time for the facilitator to check out the bike, or is it more along the lines on pm'ing a guy and asking them to go check something out for you?
Funny you should ask, I facilitated a CL bike for a member about 13.5 hours ago
This is how it worked for last night:
- Member contacted me, I said sure, anytime.
- Member contacted the seller, asked for pics, made sure that it was worth my going out to look/at purchase.
- That being true I gave the member my cell number, he passed it to the seller. He passed the seller's number to me.
- Since I didn't have the cash on hand for this the member PayPalled me the $$$ Sunday. I immediately transferred to my back account.
- The member arranged with the seller to hold the bike until the funds got to my bank account. I contacted the seller, introduced myself and what the process was. he was fine with the whole deal.
- Funds arrived yesterday, I withdrew cash, arranged with seller to view the bike that night.
- Went out, met the seller, examined the bike, all good...purchased and brought home.
- I talked to the member today, we discussed shipping, etc. I'll be boxing it up over the weekend and shipping it out Monday hopefully.
The process can take whatever form you like. I usually want the buyer to do all the question asking, price negotiating, etc. prior to my getting there. I view my purpose when I get there as a final gut check on condition and presence of everything advertised AND as the buying agent. I usually have a prior discussion with the buyer about what condition is acceptable, anything particular they'd like me to look for, etc. I ALWAYS recommend that the buyer be available by phone at the time of the meeting in case there should be something I need to discuss. I've even sent cell phone pics on the fly while on the phone.
I hope that answers your question. Do take a look at the guidelines I posted in the first post of the thread. Again, GUIDELINES and what has worked for me in the facilitation of about 8 bikes now and more small items.
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