If you want to trade with 2 items between 2 people...
Directly invoice each other over paypal for the amount agreed upon.
DO-NOT release the item until you've received payment..
Use a verified bank account and you don't have to pay the 3% surcharge
This makes little sense. Scammers gonna scam...
They can use a credit card and do a chargeback, etc.
as long as you go through paypal, you'll have RECEIPTS..
The problem here is LACK OF RECEIPTS, and LACK of CONTRACT
If you want to trade with 2 items between 2 people...
Directly invoice each other over paypal for the amount agreed upon.
DO-NOT release the item until you've received payment..
Use a verified bank account and you don't have to pay the 3% surcharge
This makes little sense. Scammers gonna scam...
They can use a credit card and do a chargeback, etc.
^^ TP jd knows whats up.
And this has happened here in the past. Guy gets disgruntled goes on a chargeback spree....sometimes you can work it out with Paypal but usually not. And people will turn to there CC companies and just say it was fraud if they are intent on scamming.
Ok the back and forth CAN happen..
That is why you NEED a 3rd party in here who HAS INSURANCE..
If all else fails... paypal will go to their insurance, and say ****.. it didn't work.. pay me.. so I can pay for these failed trades..
But 9/10 times PayPal will just throw there hands up and side with the buyer.
TP maybe you can start up a service where people can just send you there stuff and you can handle the trades 
my time is expensive.. I calculated this already.. I'd have to charge you guys 5-20% depending on the cost of the item..
There's no way for me to personally do this... I would need a huge volume to charge a flat rate, and an even larger one to get below 5%...
If I lived at the post office, maybe that could work.. but as is, I'm too far away.
Just schedule pickups? Don't you watch the USPS commercials? 
This might be ok for small packages that fit in my mail box.. but would you leave 2 kmacs or a bag of clacks at the door with no receipt etc etc...
No....this would have to be your full time job, the mailman would just come to the door. I mean you could really make some money with this opportunity.
Spam there's a reason this service does not exist.. because the cost is significantly increased due to additional shipping and turn around time.
The best way to get the safety is just paying for insurance coverage..
Insurance for what?
I mean...if I send you my clacks for your ergodox....what insurance is there to buy?
if we did transaction through paypal... paypal purchased a large insurance plan to cover a certain percentage of the deals going sour..
Ultimately all the defaulting is packaged into securities and sold by the US government.. so morally, insurance is not totally morally right..
But the point is... at least YOU get ur trades in at lower risk.
wut? How is insurance immoral?
Insurance is ultimately a betting pool.. it is a huge place to get money "lost in transaction" because of the existence of the complex derivative market..
Some where, some how.. all the movement is sponsored ultimately by a Debt based economy.. because the debt is never paid back and always increasing, that means the cost is shouldered by people outside of this nation...
So.. if you track it down the line.. it's not all accounted for, because someone some where will be holding securities at the time of their death.. and those numbers will simply go p00f if it is not recovered..
The purpose of the economy is generating debt faster than the p00f... to help the flow.. but you can rest assure that in the end.. not everyone got paid before their demise.
dude, seriously, you are conflating international finance, social security, US government bonds, and insurance. You seem to have a general idea of the concepts involved, but have confused them into one big jumble.
I think first of all you meant to say something about the "moral hazard" problem created by insurance, which is where people engage in irresponsibly risky behavior, when they are sure that their losses will be covered by insurance, or in some way borne by others. However, this applies to CEO's of global Wall Street banks betting a substantial portion of their assets on a single risky financial trade, because they know that if they win they get to keep all of the profits from the trade, but if they lose, we the 'Murican taxpayers pay for their losses (this really happened to Jaime Dimon the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and the legendary "London whale" trade, which occurred after the crimes committed by the other Wall Street scoundrels during the banking crisis of 2008. Crimes were committed but nobody went to jail).
But that moral hazard problem
does not apply to GH'ers trading their Clacks and keyboards. Every GH'er should always insist on USPS priority shipping with tracking number AND
insurance. This is not immoral behavior or bad economic policy. Please do not give out such bad advice. Failing to pay for insurance is bad idea.
Also, tp4, you have mixed in the perpetual deficit spending of the US Govt. This is a complicated issue, and will take a very long discussion to explain, that nobody wants to read. However, in brief, deficit spending is not always a bad thing, and in fact in a recession, it is a good thing. However, the current deficit spending in the US is probably a bad thing, and our current problems were created by the Bush tax cuts, and the two Bush wars, which occurred at the same time. However, all of the current financial problems of the US Govt. can be solved with simple changes to the US tax policy, as they were in 1997-98, when the Clinton administration ran budget surpluses. However, 'Muricans will have to stop voting for crazy Republicans.
