As the internet has grown and expanded over the years, it’s become more and more common to buy and sell things online. The business of buying and selling things locally is just as significant; Facebook Marketplace, which is a local buying-and-selling marketplace, just reached over a billion users. However, the question of how to buy and sell online safely isn’t always as cut and dried. Here’s how you can meet up with someone to buy and sell online more safely.
1. Meet in a Public Place If Possible
One of the safest ways to meet up with anyone is to make sure you meet in a public place. This may be a local park, a coffee shop, or just about any other place where you’re certain to find other people. This also means you have to meet up during the day, as many of these places have far fewer people walking around during the night.
The main problem with this is that it might be difficult to arrange a meeting with someone in a public place. If they’re the buyer, they may be just as likely to meet up with you at a park as at your home, but if they’re the seller, they may just want you to come to their home. In this case, you’re going to need other methods of staying safe.
2. Have Friends or Family Around
This is another way you can stay safe when buying or selling online. Whether you’re the buyer or the seller, having friends and family nearby makes it much less likely that there will be any funny business surrounding the process. Even if someone was planning to do something shady, the fact that your friends or family members are there can dissuade them.
This is a good tip for buyers and for sellers. If you’re planning to buy something, take someone along with you when you go purchase the item you’re looking for. If you’re selling something, make sure someone else is with you, whether you give the person your home address or you go to a local public area.
3. Tell Someone Where You’ll Be and for How Long
If you want to be even safer, a possible option is to tell someone else where you’re planning to go and for how long. Then, once the buying or selling is done, you can let the person know everything went well. That way, if you don’t notify the other person within a specific amount of time, they can know that something may have gone wrong.
For a bit of extra security in this situation, you may want to share your location with the person you’re keeping in contact with. It’s a built-in way to stay in touch with important people in your life, so if anything bad happens, they can get in touch with the authorities and immediately start looking into what may have happened.
4. Get Information About the Other Person
Last, but certainly not least, you might want to get some extra information about the other person who’s interested in buying your product or selling a product to you. This is especially helpful on a platform like Facebook Marketplace, where you have built-in access to information like someone’s full name, and many people will give you their phone number to contact them about the deal. You can use that information with PeopleFinders to gather important safety information.
For example, say someone gives you their phone number to text them more information about an item of clothing you’re interested in buying. You can immediately perform a reverse phone lookup on that number to learn someone’s name and details, owner data and even criminal history. That can make you feel much more confident about meeting up with them in person.
Conclusion
Even if you’re not usually concerned about the safety of the people you buy and sell from online, taking some common-sense steps to avoid danger is always a good thing. From meeting up in a public place if possible to getting extra information about another person, you can keep yourself safe no matter what. Check out your buyer or seller with PeopleFinders and save yourself some worry.
Image Attribution: ultramansk – stock.adobe.com
