advice about international shipping

[mominwestlake]

I have been selling a few things on ebay. I sold an item recently and then the winner of the auction contacted me and said he wanted to send it to Nigeria as a gift for his cousin. He will pay me with paypal. I was wondering if any of you have shipped internationally? He wants it to go via UPS. I didn't say I would ship anywhere other than the US so I don't know why he bid on my auction in the first place. And he really should have emailed me during the auction to see if I would consider doing this. Anyone have some advice for me? Thanks.

[bgeurtz]

I would get a quote from UPS and then make sure the buyer has the money in your paypal account before you ship. I don't know if there is a difference between the cash transfer from his bank or the credit card type of payment, but the money would be mine before I shipped anything. [img]wink.gif[/img]

[bee3]

This is most definitely a scammer trying to defraud you. Do NOT give out any information to them and report them to Ebay ASAP.

[StephanieS]

This is a SCAM- don't do it! Tell them you'll ship it to the US and then they can mail it themselves to Nigeria.

[mominwestlake]

So you all really think it's a scam? He was willing to pay the $211 shipping charge for a $60 item! I agree that it's nuts. But I can't see how he was scamming me if he was going to pay me through paypal. My husband isn't willing to go through the extra effort of shipping to Nigeria though anyway.

[rockstar91]

I don't have enough experience to detect a scammer as quickly as some, but I would agree with the above poster- tell the buyer you'll ship it to them and they can ship it to Nigeria themself.

[pajamarose]

I had the same thing happen wanting me to ship to Japan. I told him the auction stated US Ship Only and he apologized and I was able to dispute it through eBay and they took care of it and did not charge for the fees. I relisted the item and made more than the first time around. This happened last week.

Lea [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]

[linaka54]

I would be very leary of shipping to Nigeria. And I believe Paypal has a rule about their own coverage if you ship to an address that is other than the one they have registered. I don't think they offer protection if you choose to send to some place else. Nigeria is the place those emails originate from that ask you to open bank accounts for nationals who can't get their money out of their country. It is a very old scam. I am not sure if your buyer has anything like that in mind but I would check with Paypal before altering where you are shipping the item to.

Linda

[Kenshinchan]

Someone paying too much for an item is a very classic scam. There's a good chance he'd PayPal you an amount way over even the actual shipping, and then ask you to send a cashier's check back to him with the difference. Then he cashes your cashier's check, his PayPal account turns out to not have funds (don't know how that works but I'm sure there's ways, just like checks can bounce), and you're out a lot of money.

I've never heard of it using PayPal, but I know people do it with checks all the time, where they give you a large, bad check, your bank says it clears (they'll tell you it's cleared before it REALLY has, and you're still liable for the money!), you send money to the scammer, check actually bounces, and you're out the money. It's often associated with foreign countries where Internet cafes are plentiful and enforcement is particularly lax.

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure it's a scam, and I wouldn't ship to him. Why wouldn't he just take the item himself and reship? It just doesn't make any sense, unless he's trying to pull something.

[danaspillar]

As a consultant for Creative Memories, we are constantly bombarded with these scams, and they are almost always to Nigeria. Tell him, US only. Period.