The downside of buying used gear via Glyde

Growing up in Rhode Island, the way to buy and sell used stuff was in the local newspaper, the Providence Journal. We had something in the classifieds called The Yankee Trader, where you could sell stuff in tiny, one- or two-line ads. You clipped out a form from the paper, filled it out and sent in $1 for the ad to run a few days later. You would contact the seller and meet to make the exchange. 

These days, those types of ads are dead in the water. I mean, it took 2-4 days just for your ad to run. Now there’s eBay, Craigslist and a host of electronics resellers to buy and sell stuff immediately. Unfortunately, when buying from strangers all over the country, there are potential pitfalls—as I keep falling into. 

My bad iPhone 6 Plus buying experience via Glyde 

I had a little extra money and decided to splurge on an iPhone 6 Plus. With the release of the iPhone 7, the iPhone 6 had dropped quite a bit in price despite being a satisfactory phone. After waiting for prices to stabilize, I picked up one for $357 in “good” condition. 

The purchase was made on December 16, but I didn’t get it until January 3 thanks to the holidays. I made my purchase via Glyde, as I’ve found their prices to be best. Like eBay and its many competitors, Glyde is just an intermediary. It holds your money for the purchase in escrow until what you purchased is delivered and you declare it acceptable, at which time the money is released. 

Well, I didn’t do that. After getting the phone, updating the OS and going through the lengthy restore of a backup from my iPhone 6, I found a severe problem in the Plus. The speaker was blown out, as though it had been played way too loud. Everything from ringtones to games were scratchy, distorted and generally unacceptable. 

So, I informed Glyde that I was refusing the phone and wrote why. I have no recourse with this person beyond sending it back, and Glyde has to send me a return box rather than let me use the one it came in. That means more days of waiting to ship back a defective phone while my money sits in limbo and then I decide if I want to roll the dice again on another. 

No way to rate Glyde sellers 

This is the drawback to services like Glyde. With eBay, I can give negative feedback on a seller. I have no such recourse here. My anonymous seller is in Georgia, I don’t know who it is, and I can’t ding him/her for a bad sale on Glyde. He/she could turn around and sell it again without mentioning the speakers, and some sucker might accept it before realizing the problem. 

It sort of begs for a return to the Yankee Trader way of meeting the person. Certainly there are plenty of iPhone 6 Pluses for sale on the Orange County Craigslist. And Orange County is one of many areas jumping on the bandwagon for creating safe spaces for Craigslist transactions. Police departments all over the country are setting up spaces that are monitored by cameras or even patrolled by police for people to meet and make their exchanges in safety—or at least know they will be caught on camera. 

Then again, had I made the purchase via Craigslist and went home to discover the blown out speaker, I’d be in the same boat if not worse. That person would have my money and could simply refuse to take my calls from that point on.

Sometimes, buying used equipment isn’t worth it.