And of course, I must say that I would NEVER attempt this type of short sale agreement with a stranger. Short sales should be used as a cooperative measure to help P1 and P2 simultaneously. Attempting this with someone you don't know can swing all of the risk onto you if you're P2 (since you'd be giving product to someone you don't know for "free" up front). Attempting this with a stranger as P1 is much less risky. But if P2 doesn't fully understand the concept, it can get messy as they may accuse you of cheating them (meaning they don't get how it works) or they could start demanding a larger cut of the profits since they loaned you the item (which destroys their chances of you helping them short sell in the future).