Almost everything that goes wrong in a rental goes wrong at the meeting. Choose the place, and you've already won.
Busy, lit, and with other people around. A petrol station forecourt, a bank entrance, a supermarket car park, a carrefour during trading hours. If they insist on somewhere quiet, that is the answer to your question.
Send a friend the listing, the name, the place and the time before you leave. Tell them when you expect to be back. It costs you one message and changes everything.
Arrive before the agreed time and look around first. If the place feels different to how it was described, you still have the option to leave without ever making contact.
A house, a hall, a generator, a car. You go to it. Ask for the quarter and a landmark in the chat beforehand, and check on a map that it exists. Never accept a detour to "my brother's place" to collect it.
Inspect, photograph, agree, pay, leave. You are not obliged to explain where you live, where you work, or what else you own.
If they change the meeting place at the last minute, postpone. Never follow a new location you haven't checked.
Good meeting points people actually use: petrol station forecourts, the entrance of a large supermarket, a bank with a security guard, or the front of a busy market during the day.
Be careful with a moto drop into a quarter you don't know, especially after dark, because you lose your way out. If the item is heavy, agree who is paying for transport before you arrive, so nobody is negotiating in the street.
