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Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

If you're in a decent sized city, you should be able to find a local buyer on Craigslist or FB Marketplace... Beyond that, for higher value, smaller items like your M3 Ultra, I would talk to your local police department and/or library to see if you can do the exchange there. Larger libraries usually have a police officer on site or nearby, and the PD office near you may also provide a "safe" exchange location... I'd bring a monitor/keyboard/mouse so you can demonstrate the system working properly.

YMMV but between your nearest PD office and Library, you should be able to use one or the other for your exchange of goods/money. The biggest thing I've sold is a mid-range video card during late covid (I managed to get a better one via newegg shuffle) so I sold the old one (RX 5700XT -> RTX 2080) to make up the difference a bit. I just did the exchange at the Starbucks near me for that.

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Something is very wrong in some countries if you have to get police protection to sell a f* computer. I get it’s on the expensive side but still….

You don't have to... but it's a matter of a safe location for both parties. If it was more expensive, I'd probably work through a broker (like a car or house).

The buyer doesn't know who the seller is, and vice-versa... the level of trust you can bear depends on how much you're willing to lose. My advice is only in that there are safe venues you can use to make such an exchange.

See e.g. https://www.murphytx.org/843/Safe-Exchange https://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/community-safety-and-crime-pr...

Police "safe trade zones" are basically a parking space outside a police station, with a sign.

Not really. Every country has a nonzero number of criminals. It's entirely a matter of the risk/reward tradeoff. A small consumer item over $10k is well into dangerous territory.

Are we talking about a cash transaction? If so >$10k is dangerous as the police may want to steal it themselves.

If it is an electronic payment, I'm not sure how completing the transaction in front of a police station will help any. Well, it will help the buyer to see it working, but the seller gets no additional protection besides seeing "a person."

Why would the seller worry about ... himself? The seller worries that the buyer might not have any intention to pay for the small, expensive, easy to fence item to begin with. Conversely, the buyer worries that the seller might not have brought an item at all.

> If it is an electronic payment, I'm not sure how completing the transaction in front of a police station will help any.

That's not the point of going to the "police safe exchange zone".

The point is to hopefully prevent the possibility of the buyer showing up with a .38 in hand, and demanding to be given the easy to fence "item" unless the seller wants to get a .38 slug embedded in their gut.

The risk of a "hold up" increases with dollar value and with items that are easier to fence.

I love that it never occurred to you that the "buyer" could just steal the item. Be safe out there.

Ask a question, get a condescending answer.

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