I have been buying and selling on eBay, Kijiji, Craigslist and various gun sites for almost 20 years and I will say that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the transactions face to face have been extremely positive. We are talking at least 600+ face to face meetings selling everything from computer equipment, cell phones (and previously PDAs), collectibles, books, golf stuff, clothing, kids' items and firearms items. I always meeting people in a public place where possible. A couple of times for cell phone stuff, my spidey senses tingled when the apparent buyer said they have no car but can meet me at a location of their choice and they will give me $30 for gas...and when I pull up the location and see it is near Jane and Finch, I am like uh, no.
One time I am pretty sure I walked to a Russian mob meeting. And then there was the time a lady was buying a video card from me and was short $80 or so and offered to "help me out" in my car to make up for the shortage. I ran (literally ran) from that one.
Aside from that, everything else has been fine. I think it's a bit odd people would allow me to meet them at their homes, but a number of people have and I meet their spouse and kids, etc. I personally have never had anyone show up at my home, even repeat buyers. Everyone has their own sense of risk aversion and there's really no right or wrong answer here. But I will say that if someone is so apprehensive to meet people in public, it's maybe better that they just do the shipping thing.
Part of the joy of face to face meetings for me is the invariable opportunity to shoot the breeze and chit chat with someone new. My lady friend thinks I am weird for talking to absolute strangers sometimes for a couple of hours during a transaction, and she thinks I am lonely and need to get out more, but I tell her when you come across others who are of like mind and values, the fact that we didn't know each other before fades very quickly and it's like you are chatting with a buddy now. Honestly, there is such a richness in face to face transactions, and sure, if a person does not have the personality for this, maybe it's not for them, but I personally love meeting people and shooting the breeze, griping about Trudeau and being encouraged that there are others who are decent, salt of the earth people who just want to live life and be left alone by the government.
I recently (last few months) bought some stuff off a guy on another gun site. We hit it off big time and I totally lost track that I was late getting to my club that afternoon for target shooting. Turns out the fella's story is similar to mine insofar as divorce experiences, and just other life things... He recently contacted me, said he is moving out East and he would like me to have the remainder of his ammo. I was happy to accept it and showed up thinking it would be a couple of boxes of random stuff. I ended up carting home two produce cases (like for oranges) full of various old rounds of this and that, some of it custom loaded by his grandfather. Very cool stuff. I wasn't expecting this at all but he said that he so enjoyed our chat when we did our transaction and he knew the stuff would go to a good home. This kind of stuff would unlikely happen with the anonymity and arm's length nature of EMT and shipping type of transactions.
As for safety...sure we hear stores like that infamous Kijiji one with the guy who ended up dead/burned, etc. but just like mass shootings, these events are such an outlier and an exception to the rule that we need to remember that if we live life based on outlier scenarios, we will be constantly freezing and be unable to make any decisions. I think for most people, God gave us enough common sense to realize what smells like a weird situation and to avoid it. It also helps to see a feedback record for the counterparty. While not guaranteeing a successful transaction, past history can provide glimpses of habits, and a general sense of what to expect. That said I have met tons and tons of new users who have been totally fantastic, and I am glad I was not adverse to meeting someone without any feedback. As with anything else, good communication beforehand and even a phone call or video chat may alleviate some of the consternation that some people may have in meeting up with a stranger.
