Overseas Ebay Problems ?

Hey all....

Has anyone had any problems with Ebay buyers from Thailand or Malaysia ?
I have a potential buyer, for an item ending in about 4 days, and he has emailed me twice now, asking about shipping and insurance...
Here is my concern.....He has never done business before on Ebay.....his rating is 0.....he gives his name (let's say it is a anglo-saxon name..) and a yahoo.com email address.
I am slightly suspicious....and have a bad feeling....
He hasn't won it yet, and I replied to his email saying that I would ship it however he wants...(says he is willing to spend..."whatever it costs" to ship), but that I would not do so until his payment was safe in my account.
So my quesitons are these..

1) Are my feelings correct ?
2) If I take PayPal, and transfer the $$$ to my personal account...can it still be reversed by the bank if it is fraud.. ?
3) Are the Thailand / Malaysia Ebay fraud stories true ?


Thanks for any help / advice you can offer....

hps

 

It doesn't matter where/ who you're dealing with. eBay is a crap shoot. You win most of the time but one big loss can sink your boat.

And Paypal is a joke. A friend of mine sold an engine and was paid via Paypal, a little over 6 months later he had the money taken out of his account. I also read/ was told that Paypal is only a promise to pay. The buyer has up to a year to cancel the transaction.

Be wary of anything,

 

I've been doing business back and forth on Ebay both as seller and buyer. The Thailand/Nigeria scam is to win a high priced auction then the 'buyer' will proceed in one of the following two scenarios:

(1) they will e-mail you that their bank will contact you with confirmation that they have paid for the item; subsequent to which you are supposed to send them the item and wait for the money to be released.

Needless to say that the e-mail you will receive it from their 'bank' is something a 10-year old kid could put together and it's a fraud. Then they threaten you with a couple of e-mails saying that they have paid and the bank is waiting for your confirmation of shippment so funds can be released.

(2) they will e-mail you that the 'paypal' arrangements have changed, and usually ask to pay for the item with a bank note/cheque/money order drawn on their bank. They may send you the actual value OR a higher value money order and (if higher value) they expect you to immediately courier the item and the difference in cash or Paypal them the difference. The money order turns out to be fake/etc. but you don't find out about this for ~30 days once the bank discovers it.

These are the two I've seen most common; there could be others...

 

What kind of item is it? I noticed when I was shopping for a guitar that most guitar auctions say "no bidders from Indonesia". I never looked into it, but I'd assume there's a fairly common scam out of Indonesia involving guitar purchases on eBay.

 

Maybe use an escrow account with the guy. The terms being the deal is finalized once you get the money and you show proof of shipment.

 

Nothing is safe, they have fake cashiers checks and money orders. Most of the time their credit card #'s are stolen, if you give them your account information to wire the money, they steal your account info. Just take my advice and don't deal with anyone out of country unless it's someplace like Germany/England/Australlia,etc. Not the Nigeria/Indonesia, etc places.

Good Luck,
Kevin

 

Trust your instincts. If you feel iffy about the situation, then don't do it.

 

I've never received funds through paypal. If someone sends money to you can you transfer it directly into a bank account? If you do that can they still take it back later?

 

Yes, you can transfer it to your bank account. You'd link it to your bank account. It's been a while, but what I remember, is they'll deposit an odd number, say... 61 cents into your account. And you must enter in the amount that they transferred.

They cannot take it back like that, but paypal can hold funds from you if they believe something is fraudulent or beyond their acceptable use policy.

 

HPS,

I have heard that these areas are ripe with scammers. I would not consider this at all. Do you have other interest from other bidders?

BTW - I've been on Ebay since '98

 

Thanks for the advice guys...

the item is a pair of Porsche Design Sunglasses, so not a huge $$ amount relatively speaking. I have about 12 people looking at them, and the auction ends in a few days, so I hope another person outbids him.....I just feel something is fishy about this guy......

Anyway...we'll see......

Thanks for the help !!

hps

 

I think this is incorrect. If you sign up for "direct deposit" with ANYONE, it is a two-way street. They can deposit AND withdraw funds. I had an issue before with PayPal and I wanted to change it so they could deposit but not withdraw. I was told by my bank that there is no such thing and any DD'er would be allowed to withdraw and deposit. It sounded suspect but I checked with a couple of other banks (Fleet, Bank of America) and was told the same thing.


Regarding overseas transactions, unfortunately buyers in the far east are often scammers. The scam can take any number of shapes, one of which is they use PayPal, ask you to ship Airmail (or whatever), then claim they never got it. EVEN IF you request tracking, it's up to the local postal service what they will provide. PayPal is very purchaser-friendly so unless you have some pretty solid proof, they will likely side with the buyer in a dispute and you lose.

Transferring the money to your bank is not a safe option, as I mentioned above PayPal can direct withdraw the money just like they can direct-deposit it. If you move the money to a seperate account, and PayPal tries to take it, now you have a debt with PayPal. It would be like a bill in collections - it doesn't mean you are in the clear.

I would not use Paypal at all for this. The safest way is to have him do a wire transfer. If you are not comfortable with this (since you likely need to give him your bank account number), tell him to use Western Union. You can go to get the money almost anywhere, it's totally scam proof, it's not linked into any kind of account, and he absolutley has a western union office in Thailand/Malaysia.


FYI, I process a fair number of credit card transactions. Some very high percentage of transactions are fake from countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Ukraine, Slovakia, Russia, most of Africa, The Phillippines, etc, etc.