Seller Says It Works — How Do You Actually Verify That Before You Pay?

"Works great, no issues" is the single most common line in a used-electronics listing, and it's also the least verifiable. It's worth being specific about what actually counts as evidence versus what just sounds like evidence, because the gap between them is where most bad purchases happen.

Three levels of "proof," only one of which proves anything

Level 1 — the claim. Text in the listing. Costs the seller nothing to write, true or not. Not evidence, just a starting point.

Level 2 — photos or a video the seller already had. Better than nothing, but you don't know when it was taken, whether it shows the specific function you care about, or whether it was filmed on a good day before a problem started. A photo of a console's home screen doesn't tell you its analog sticks don't drift.

Level 3 — a fresh, specific, timestamped test. Something performed for this transaction, checking the specific function that actually tends to fail on that device (not a generic "it turns on"), close enough in time to your purchase that it reflects the item's current condition, not last month's.

Level 3 is what actually verifies anything. It's also the one sellers almost never provide on their own, because it takes real effort — which is exactly why buyers keep getting burned by Level 1 and Level 2.

What to ask for, even without any tool

You don't need a platform to move toward Level 3 yourself: ask the seller for a video, recorded now, showing the one specific thing known to fail on that device (stick drift, zoom motor, network sign-in — whatever it is for that category), not a generic walkthrough. A seller willing to do that in the next hour is a good sign. One who stalls, sends an old photo instead, or gets defensive about a specific ask is the actual red flag — more than anything about the listing itself.

Where TestPass fits

This is the exact gap TestPass is built to close: instead of asking a seller to improvise a video and hoping it actually shows the right thing, TestPass gives them a specific, guided test for that device's known failure mode and timestamps the result to the session — Level 3, structured, instead of hoped for.