I just sold an item on eBay to someone in California. The item was about $2000. The buyer first requested my contact info through eBay. First time that’s happened, but I only sell occasionally, so maybe that’s not unusual. Then he requested I send an invoice, which I did. The shipping the invoice calculated was $34.50 with USPS. The buyer then texted me directly (not thrilled about that, but my phone number was in my eBay contact info.) He was nice, but he asked me to use FedEx instead and to overnight it to a different person/address in NY. He said he would add $200 for the FedEx shipping. Maybe I’m paranoid, but that sent some red flags up the pole.
Does this sound legit? I can;t think of anything nefarious that might be happening, or what the angle might be, but it just seems a bit odd to me.
It is ABSOLUTELY against the terms of Paypal’s seller protection guarantee, and if you ship to a different address from the one that he registered with PayPal, and you get stiffed - you are SOL.
ETA: I bought an expensive camera body from a zero-feedback seller, and he took my $1,000 and shipped me an empty envelope - to a location in my city with was not my address. When I immediately filed a claim, PayPal refunded my money because, in part, he was unable to show that he had shipped to my registered address.
Go with your original plan, then tell the buyer he can do whatever he wishes to ship it elsewhere after he/she receives it. My bullshit detector is going off on this one.
Thanks. He would pay me through PayPal before I shipped. But yeah. Seems off. I’m wondering if I would be covered against a claim if I responded to him through eBay, confirming the address he wants it shipped to?
I just did some quick research and while PayPal does require the item to be shipped to the address on the payer’s account; there is a way to add an ad hoc address while paying that satisfies Paypal’s protection terms. I will request the buyer do that or cancel the sale.
There are procedures to handle this if he buyer is legitimate. For example cancel this order and the buyer re-orders with the correct address. I’m sure some regular eBay seller knows the best approach.
This is exactly what someone who has hacked into an eBay/Paypal account would do: buy an expensive item with someone else’s money and get it shipped elsewhere.
Contacting you through an “out of band” contact method that doesn’t hit paypal/ebay’s logs adds to it.
I personally would contact eBay and Paypal’s fraud department and refuse to ship to this buyer at all until they had responded.
I don’t suppose you will. If there are still ways to report buyer non-performance, I would get one of those cases started now (cancel it later if necessary, in the unlikely event the buyer turns out not to be a scammer)
The change of address is the main red flag. All the rest are normal precautions for anyone ordering an expensive item. I’ll change the delivery address as a favor if someone orders items for 100 or so but for 2000 no way in hell. USPS Priority is 1 to 3 days paying $ 200 more to save a day or so is also weird.