Five red flags
- The price changes on arrival. The single most common complaint in this industry. If the boxes match the photos, the number should not move.
- Nobody asks anything about the boxes. A buyer who quotes without asking whether they are sealed or whether the date has passed has no intention of honoring that number.
- No paperwork, no receipt. A compliant buyer logs the transaction, box by box, and hands you a copy. One who does not is leaving you with no record that the sale happened.
- Payment “after inspection at our facility.” For an in-person pickup, you should be paid before the buyer leaves. Anything else is an unsecured loan of your property.
- Pressure to hand over the whole lot at once. A real buyer is happy to price it line by line while you watch.
What a normal transaction looks like
Photo, written quote, agreed time, ten to fifteen minutes of inspection you can watch, one page of paperwork, payment in hand, done. If what you are being offered differs from that in any material way, ask why before you agree to meet anyone.
Also worth saying
Meet in a public place if you would rather. Every one of our city pages lists local spots we use for exactly that reason. No legitimate buyer will object.
What the record shows
Everything below is quoted or drawn from a primary source, linked so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it. Full list on our sources and regulations page.
-
The Better Business Bureau has run ‘We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’ as a consumer scam warning, and BBB offices have logged hundreds of complaints against individual resale operations.
— Better Business Bureau, BBB Scam of the Week: ‘We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’, reported.
-
Local reporting has documented an active secondary market in diabetic testing supplies across metro Atlanta, operating with little regulation and wide variation in what buyers pay.
— Atlanta News First, Inside the booming underground economy of diabetic testing supplies, 2023.
Related
Price list · Is it legal? · How it works · Find your city