International buyers & 3rd party shipping

-Corey-

-Corey-

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Joined
May 29, 2015
Messages
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I've had two potential buyers today from overseas that have wanted me to ship to an address other than their confirmed paypal address. The first sent me a payment that had a Chinese address and in the "purchase details" requested that I ship to a third party handler in Oregon. I replied back with an offer to refund their payment and let them resubmit a f&f payment and explained that if I'm being asked to forfeit my seller protection, then I'm requiring them to forfeit their buyer protection. I was told "don't worry, trust me, I've bought $10,000 (join date April 2017) with no problem". I promptly refunded that payment.

On the other one, the buyer has the US address as their "confirmed" paypal address, but the zipcode is wrong. They mentioned that if I ship it USPS, the zipcode will need to be changed, and gave me a different zipcode, but again that would leave me without seller protection since paypal relies heavily on the zipcode associated with the tracking number. If I can't get them to change their confirmed address to match the correct shipping address, I'll be refunding that one as well.

I like to give people that live outside the US the opportunity to buy my stuff, but please, if you're a legitimate buyer, understand that there are scammers out there that use tactics like this to circumvent any protection that a seller has. If you're wanting to use a third party shipper, set up your paypal account to where a seller can ship to a confirmed address, otherwise, it's just not worth the risk.
 
Another option to consider is to require them to change payment method entirely. Require them to pay by Western Union or something. That way you're not unintentionally screwing Paypal out of their fee and you end up with cash in hand before the knife ships.
 
That is something I thought about after the fact. I still haven't heard back from the second person yet, but I'll give them that option if they can't get the address straightened out.
 
I'm pretty confident that the second person is legit, but I still don't want to put myself in that situation. The first one was way too sketchy, plus that one was over $500 and USPS requires signature on anything above that value. I don't know if that would've worked out even if the guy did have a confirmed address.
 
While I have made deals with international buyers with US mailing addresses, my rule of thumb is if it doesn't feel right don't do it. You don't owe anyone a knife and if your willing to wait for another buyer that is fine.
Second buyer should just correct his PP mailing address rather then tell you to change it. The way the mailing system works these days , the address and zip must match up. I have had a couple people give me the wrong zip recently and the clerk always catches it.
That's my 2 cents on the matter
 
I had one sale to a freight forwarder and the deal went fine but the amount of agita I experienced over the deal made it not worth it to do again. There are legitimate buyers from Hong Kong and mainland China using these services and some are heavily active on these forums so I hate to turn away a sale but PayPal is so punitive and unforgiving I try and take as little risk as possible. Also consider that if you F&F and they file an unauthorized transaction with their credit card or bank I think you have zero protection since you circumvented the goods and services. I'll consider the Western Union approach but I have never received money that way and wouldn't even know where to begin.
 
blanco112 said:
I had one sale to a freight forwarder and the deal went fine but the amount of agita I experienced over the deal made it not worth it to do again. There are legitimate buyers from Hong Kong and mainland China using these services and some are heavily active on these forums so I hate to turn away a sale but PayPal is so punitive and unforgiving I try and take as little risk as possible. Also consider that if you F&F and they file an unauthorized transaction with their credit card or bank I think you have zero protection since you circumvented the goods and services. I'll consider the Western Union approach but I have never received money that way and wouldn't even know where to begin.
Click to expand...

I've done several deals in the past that had me a bit on edge. Lately though I've been getting a lot more picky about how I conduct my end of the transaction. I've seen too many bad stories here in the GB&U and just want to do everything I can to prevent myself from falling into a trap. Also, your advice about the unauthorized transaction reversal on a f&f payment is something I hadn't considered. I'll have to keep that in mind as well if something similar comes up again, thanks.
 
I think you made a wise choice Corey ... and I have noticed more nightmare situations recently where deals have went wrong and think you have to be a little pickier and be sure to protect yourself.
 
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