I was selling a $ 900.00 notebook on eBay and I very emphatically said
When I put decent notebooks up I always get a few mails asking if I will ship it to Indonesia or Russia if they pay full price. I always politely decline as these locations are hotbeds of online fraud. The current buyer has 15 positive feedbacks, but only one purchase over$ 20.00, which was a camera for $ 770 several months ago.
I get this odd email from the auction winner, a “US” buyer listing a New Hampshire zip code, with a Russian email address “xxxxxxxx@list.ru” (see below,) and to be honest it’s kind of worrying me. If I ship to a verified paypal address I have some degree of protection, and if I get a check or money order, I assume that (once cleared) the money is solid. If I insist on verified paypal or check/MO before shipping to a US address, is there any way I can get screwed over on this deal?
If you’re accepting a money order, tell the buyer that there will be a three week clearance delay - it’s possible for a fake one to appear to have cleared, add funds to your account, then be revoked when the bank realises the truth.
Specify USPostal Money Orders only. They are just like money to you at the branch PO! Cash in one end and out the other into your hands with no delay to clear.
My auction on ebay for my notebook just closed last night, for $900. I also got a couple of emails asking if I would send it to Russia. One said it was a wedding present and the other was for a business partner. I declined both. I also got an email from Nigeria asking how much it costs and how much to send to Nigeria. I guess he didn’t know how auctions worked. I emailed back some obscene number, $10,000. I just got $10,000 paypaled to me. I almost fell out of my chair. I emailed paypal and they are looking into it. I figure if it is legit I will just buy an identical laptop to the one I just sold on ebay and send it to him.
I don’t know whether the e-mail address is enough to be suspicious – after all, it’s possible that the would-be buyer is simply a Russian who hasn’t bothered to open up a non-Russian e-mail address. But the part that would make me suspicious is that computer prices in Russia are super-competitive, and so with shipping added, I can’t imagine how it would be cheaper to buy one in the U.S. and have it shipped to Russia.
OTOH, now that I think about it, there is one way: the guy is trying to avoid Russian import duties, which are substantial, by having someone he knows (or freight forwarder with connections in the Customs Ministry) get it through Russian Customs. When I worked in export sales administration to Russia, I’m sure our customers did this all the time – they would ask us for very specific wording on commercial invoices. Once I believe we even shipped the batteries separately, because the battery, which made up about half the value of what we were selling (UPSes), were taxed at a much lower duty rate.
If you want to email me I’ll send you the link. All I’ve got from the guy since Monday morning are mailbot replies like the one I quoted when I asked him for payment status and shipping address. I’m about 80% of the way towards cancelling the sale at this point. The item is expensive, and I’m not going to put up with buyer flakiness for a highly salable item at this price point.