Yard Sale Scams

Scams at a yard sale, your kidding right? Most of the time you won't have problems when running a yard sale but yes, there are people that visit your yard or garage sale that may try to scam you. Here's a few tips that may protect you when you have your next yard sale.

Watch Your Money
If your running your garage or yard sale alone it's best to use a fanny pack or a carpenters apron. Never use a money box, someone will need your assistance at a table on the other side of your yard and their accomplice will walk away with your money.

Keep your larger bills out of sight. If your using a money box place the larger bills under the tray. When using a fanny pack place the larger bills in your pocket. When you get a break and you don't have any customers around, go inside your home and stash your greenbacks (money) somewhere safe, then lock your door and go back to your sale. In the unlikely event you do get held up the crook won't get much.

Got Change For a $50 or $100
There's counterfeit money changing hands all the time, don't get scammed. Get one of those counterfeit detector pens and learn how to use it.

Someone has a few items they want to buy and they say do you have change for a fifty or hundred dollar bill, here's what you do. Take the money from them and say, your paying with a $50 or $100 etc, let me get your change. Check it with the counterfeit detector pen and place half of the bill under the corner of your money box, by this time you can see if the ink from the counterfeit detector pen changes to the right color. Then give the customer their change and make sure you count it out. Never just hand them the bills without counting it out. The customer can say you shorted them and if that happens how can you prove you gave the right change back? Some crooks will flash a big bill wanting change then quickly puts the money back in their pocket and holds out their hand acting like they already paid you. Like I said always take their money first.

Check Inside The Boxes
Some crooks will take a box with a lower price sticker, dump out the contents and fill it with more valuable items. If a customer questions why your looking in the box just say your making sure all the pieces are there. Only crooks will object (Busted).

If they're holding something that can conceal other items (like a backpack) and they hand you money it's smart to first ask them to hand you the item. Look at the price, set the item down on the table then take the money. This way you can tell if other items are inside. If the weight doesn't feel right just open the item and take the stuff out and say these things don't come with this. It sounds easy to do right, you just need to do it, don't get ripped off.

Can I Get Your Jewelry At A Discount
One way to sell smaller jewelry is to place them in those small zip lock bags and put a price sticker on them. What scammers do is take out the cheaper jewelry and put more expensive jewelry inside. A simple way to prevent something like this from happening is to get one of those paper staplers and staple the opening shut. Also instead of using a price sticker use a magic marker to mark the price on the zip lock bag. Another tip is to place the smaller more valuable items close to where someone can always keep an eye on them.  

This Bag Of Items Total $15.00, Here's My Money
Whenever someone brings a bag of items to you always take the items out, add up the prices then bag the items back up. If they ask, don't you trust me, just say you'd like to see what items are being bought. Only a crook will put up a fuss.

Other Tips
Here's a few other tips that can protect you when having your yard or garage sale.

Cell or Cordless phone.
Have a cell phone or cordless phone nearby. You never know when you need to call a friend to help with your sale or in the unlikely event you need to call the police. Also never leave your cell phone laying around, just think of the charges someone can rack up on your cell phone bill.

Web cam.
Web cams and yard sales, how do these work together?  
Web cams won't help while your having a yard or garage sale but if you were robbed or later realized someone ripped you off it would sure come in handy wouldn't it. First make sure you have enough room on your hard drive to record your yard sale. Hard drives are cheap these days, a 1 Terabyte hard drive sells for under $100 online. Wondering what 1 Terabyte (1TB) can hold, think of this:
1500 hours of VHS-quality video
424 two-hour DVD-quality movies
880 days of around-the-clock MP3 audio
373,000 digital photos

From what I've read you can record video but it's against the law to record sound. Recording people on your property is as far as I know legal but check your local laws. Just don't upload the video to the Internet. If nothing else you can watch your first yard sale on your TV and wish you didn't sell this, and that, and that lol.

Pepper Spray
When things get out of hand and your in danger a little tube of pepper spray sure comes in handy :)

Don't forget to stop by our Yard Sale Strategies Forum for more tips.