Safe buying and trading in the babywearing world

Have you ever been burned in an online transaction? Babywearing items, usually wraps and ring slings, are often bought, sold and traded online through Facebook groups and forums. Our local babywearing communities are often too small to support babywearing lust and we are drawn to bigger and better pools, often involving thousand of members from all over the world. How are we to navigate this international market with our wallet and our sanity intact?

I was almost burned twice in an online transaction. The first one was in a trade, the second in a purchase. Even seasoned babywearing addicts can get caught in a bad deal, so where does it leave new babywearers as they dip a tentative toe in the ebb and flow of babywearing FSOT (for sale or trade)?

There is no sure fire way to avoid being burned in a transaction but a few best practices can ensure that you won’t get scammed by an amateur.

1) When joining a FSOT group online, take some time to get familiar with the group. Who are the administrators? What are the rules? Who is posting regularly? Are items moving quickly or slowly? Unscrupulous buyers and sellers count on people making snap decisions without thinking. Familiarity with a group’s dynamic will help to highlight the misfits and the shady dealers. For instance, I am a member of a FSOT group on Facebook where a certain seller has several very attractive wraps for sale but nobody is interested. The dead silence around her items for sale is making my spider sense tingle. Her wraps may be simply overpriced but members might be weary of her. Either way, I prefer keeping my money.

2) Check feedback! All reputable FSOT groups require members to post feedback. Don’t accept a sob story about absent feedback. Take note of who has written feedback. If you have headed rule # 1 above, you should expect to see familiar names on someone’s feedback link. Many new babywearers are tempted to accept any sob story about missing feedback, especially if they don’t have feedback themselves. Start building your feedback by joining a local babywearing community and ask people who know you in real life to vouch for you. My first feed-backers were friends from whom I had borrowed wraps and people who had attended my babywearing meet-ups. I also left feedback for people who had hosted a traveling wrap and returned it promptly and well looked after. When I conduct a transaction, I offer my partner to leave feedback on other groups we are both members of and on TBW. There are ways to build feedback even if you don’t have a long B/S/T (buy/sell/trade) history. If your transaction partners have not figured this out, maybe you shouldn’t be dealing with them. Scammers are looking for a quick buck. Feedback is a hurdle. Don’t clear it for them.

3) When you are selling, don’t offer or accept payment plans. In my experience, payment plans gone bad are the source of 90% of the problems with BST. Either someone gets a carrier and never finishes paying for it, or someone pays for a carrier and never receives it. If you need to save your money before buying a wrap, why save it in someone else’s account? If you accept a payment plan, make sure you receive all that is owed to you before sending the carrier. Don’t get caught in the hype: if the wrap you want-but-can’t-afford sells before you can save for it, other wraps will do just fine. If you can’t sell a carrier unless you offer a payment plan, maybe you overpriced it.

4) If you are dealing locally, use cash. If you are not, use PayPal. Bite the service charge and do not pay “friends and family” (also known as “gifted”). The PayPal fees are your protection: if you pay for an item and don’t receive it, you can contest the charge and PayPal almost always errs on the side of refunding money.

5) As a seller, always request a receipt from the Post Office with a tracking number. Purchase delivery insurance, especially if you are dealing with someone unknown or with no feedback. Unscrupulous buyers often pretend that the wrap never arrived and file a dispute with PayPal, knowing that PayPal almost always errs on the side of refunding money. Be prepared with proof that the wrap was duly shipped and preferably received as well.

6) If a dispute arises in a FSOT group, notify the administrators as soon as possible. I am an FSOT admin on Facebook and there is not much we can do: we can only ban the offending member and warn others to use caution. I once had to warn a member to complete a transaction — she had a carrier she had not finished paying for. When she received my message, she left the group and blocked me. At that point, I had exhausted my range of interventions.

7) When you sell a carrier, disclose everything and make sure that you take pictures of the carrier before sending it off. In my first international transaction, the buyer sent me a message stating that the carrier was badly stained. I knew that it was in perfect condition when I shipped it but I had no way to prove it. I asked her to send me pictures of the stains and added that I would get the FSOT admins involved to determine proper compensation. I also offered to refund the carrier if she returned it to me at cost. I never received the pictures and never heard from her again.

8) Keep your head on. Don’t make snap decisions. The hype surrounding highly sought after carriers can get the best of your better judgement. Trust your instinct, especially if you are new and hesitant. I, for instance, tend to mistrust people who can’t spell. I’m a bit of a snob that way. And I’m not talking about typos, I’m talking about “imma locking for I dunno a wrap I can wear or a sling. I donut have a budget maybe $100 appreciate” type of posts. Or the sellers who can’t spell the name of their wrap: “Garusol wrap, rainbow colour for sale…” I don’t trust people who can’t use their spell-checker with knowing how to use PayPal and a post office. We all have our limits. Other carriers will come up for sale. Don’t worry.

What are your babywearing FSOT best practices? Share them in the comments!