Question on instrument sales - Scams?

[Kctuba]

I have sold countless horns over the past three or four decades. I’ve purchased just as many. Although lately, I have one thing that has me kind of concerned. I put two instruments for sale on marketplace and I’m going to put them on here fairly soon. Within 24 hours on Marketplace I have a bout 10 or 12 interested people that are all from South America. Maybe I’m just old, but that sounds a major red flag that I’ve got five people from Brazil immediately interested in my instrument. Just asking if there is some sort of scam out there that I’m not aware of or whether I’m just being a little bit too quick with the trigger.

[Sousaswag]

Keep it local. You don't want to bother with the shipping even if it is legit. Unfortunately, most of the time it isn't.

[bort2.0]

I have sold countless horns over the past three or four decades. I’ve purchased just as many. Although lately, I have one thing that has me kind of concerned. I put two instruments for sale on marketplace and I’m going to put them on here fairly soon. Within 24 hours on Marketplace I have a bout 10 or 12 interested people that are all from South America. Maybe I’m just old, but that sounds a major red flag that I’ve got five people from Brazil immediately interested in my instrument. Just asking if there is some sort of scam out there that I’m not aware of or whether I’m just being a little bit too quick with the trigger.

Nothing that I've experienced or heard about. However, that much interest from anyone in a short amount of time would be a red flag.

All I can figure is:
* Higher proportion of SA tuba players on the place where you posted
* Maybe tubas are really hard to come by there, or are excessively expensive in SA, to snapping up the NA horns is the best thing for them
* Or, it's a scam. I'll sell to anyone anywhere, as long as they are legit and $ comes to me before tuba goes to them. There's ALWAYS an element of trust needed for a tuba sale, but you've done this plenty long enough to know the ins and outs of that! :)

[BopEuph]

My favorite is when they use the phrase "consider that product sold" or "I'll pay you top dollar for it." Really cementing that too good to be true feeling.

[LargeTuba]

A lot of them are legit. I think there’s a boom in tuba players in Brazil right now, and there’s just not enough quality instruments for them. I know a couple of my FB friends in Brazil go crazy over American made big tuba; the big Conns and Holtons.

They have these crazy church services with wind-bands reaching the thousands. 40-50+ tuba players.

[Grumpikins]

I agree that there seems to be a boom in latin america. If you look for it on u tube there is a lot of marching band, latin/rock fusion, and classical/university stuff going on.

Sent from my SM-J327VPP using Tapatalk

[Igor]

A lot of them are legit. I think there’s a boom in tuba players in Brazil right now, and there’s just not enough quality instruments for them. I know a couple of my FB friends in Brazil go crazy over American made big tuba; the big Conns and Holtons.

They have these crazy church services with wind-bands reaching the thousands. 40-50+ tuba players.

Can confirm. There's a huge market for tubas in Brazil.

[Schlepporello]

Currently, I have 2 tubas for sale on Marketplace. On day 1, I had 2 hits. The first one said they'd pay me $100 over my asking price on one of my listings to help cover shipping costs. I told them to read my listing again so they would see where I had typed "local pickup only". I then promptly blocked them.

The 2nd person contacted me shortly after. They said that they had a friend who would be right over to pick the horn up. I told them to make sure that they had cash because this was the only way I'd release the horn. Oh! But they were gonna pay with VENMO! Nope! Go back and read my listing again, no sale! Yesterday I had two legitimate nibbles that were different. Both took the time to ask specific questions concerning the horn. Both were answered correctly and honestly. Maybe something will turn up with these.

Then today I had a nibble. A guy whose name he chose is Roger Bartropp. He wants my horn! Not even gonna worry about play-testing the horn, he happens to have a daughter who lives here (miraculously) and she'll be right over to pick the horn up! I said "Make sure that she is carrying cash or I won't release the horn to her." He then responds "Got Zelle?" I responded "What part of "Cash only" was I not clear on in my ad?" "Ok" was his reply. He just got blocked.

[matt g]

Coming back to the Brazil question, I get about one or two DMs a month on the Tuba Forum Instagram account from Brazilian people asking about buying tubas.

Per the demographics, they are also the second largest country following that account.

[bort2.0]

Brazil is the 7th largest population country in the world, well over 200 million.

Even if only 1 in 10,000 people is a tuba player, they're still going to need 20,000+ tubas.

[bort2.0]

I used to chat somewhat regularly with a tuba player in Brazil. One of the things he would say is how difficult it is to get various things in Brazil, it's not like you can just walk into stores or look at local ads and find everything you want.

More often, you (or a friend or family member) bring stuff back with you from visiting the US, and/or stuff whatever you can into large moving/shipping containers if/when someone moves from the US back to Brazil. Part of that, too, is just the extreme cost of shipping something like a tuba to the country. Better to wait it out and tag along with a container.

Besides availability, import taxes are exorbitant (which is a major cause of the lack of availability). Brazil does not have a reserve currency, so they depend heavily on the import taxes to fund the government and keep things stable (or something like that)... And when very few people ever can (or do) buy new tubas, then there definitely aren't many used tubas either. And apparently, Weril ain't the solution either...