Posts Made By: Christiana Arrott

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Kirby, This can be a lengthly response for your question raises the issue of using Paypal and Shipping costs. I can give you my best advice from experience shipping telescopes and other items. Firstly, The buyer always pays the shipping costs in advance of sending the item. In order to do that you must research what it would cost to ship your item depending on your choice of service in which you will ship the item ie, USPS, UPS or FedEx. And the location in which you are willing to ship your item. I can give you personal advice of shipping a item within the US or the lower 48. Outside the lower 48, can cost considerably more and if shipping outside country you may encounter customs fees which you or the buyer may need to consider. In any case either can be done just more paperwork and in most cases more money. I can tell you from my experience, I have always favored FedEx ground service for shipping telescopes they are reliable and in most cases much cheaper than the other two. The first thing would be to properly package your item for shipment, find a box and packing material and have it all packed up ready to go. Next weight your telescope, you can do this by first standing on a scale noting your weight and then doing the same with the package and deducting your weight. This should give you a fairly accurate shipping weight if your home scale is accurate. Next go to the web page of the service you plan to use and you can generally calculate the shipping costs there. This will require correspondence with whom you plan to ship to. You will need their address/location to calculate the item. Then let them know the total of the shipment costs and add it to the final cost of the item. This by no means is a overall view of all the variations of shipping methods available and there are many depending on what you are shipping and the service you are using. Hopefully this method will help you get your package on its way to a new home when it sells. Hopefully others can also give you their advice but this is a popular question not just for beginners and probably should have its own Forum.

"There is a 6" on the classifieds here in my state, but hubby is nervous about buying used since we don't know what to look for. However, buying used, we could get a good paid of binoculars as well as a few accessories for the same price. Downside is, if somethings wrong with it we could be out a bunch of money."

Look at your telescope purchase like anything else you were going to purchase, lets say your upgrading a new TV, would you buy Used or New? Both new and used items can have problems. The most important things to factor in decision making is warranty and customer service. Look at each item individually, Don't consider package deals a steal if those items haven't been each researched individually as something wanted. Again warranty and customer service in decision making.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Also most credit card scammers are not out dodging everyone to get an account on Astromart. I would imagine if they used a fraudulent credit card that they would look for a more untracable source to use it. ie a quick purchase of some kind of merchandise. Not $12 to sell a scandal on Astromart. The only other point would be that if someone has to re-register to become an Astromart User because of policy change, or policy enforcement, that they be allowed to keep former rating status. That would also help current members when making transactions with re-registered users. If in fact that is how it will work.