So I just sold my VCI-100 Arcade in an ebay auction, and I sent a message to the buyer asking if he wanted to pick it up, or me to ship it out to him.
And this is the response I got:
'Hello, Thanks for your quick response, I am very happy to be the winner of this Item on the auction today. I am currently on the ship due to the nature of my work, I’ll be paying you with my credit card via my PayPal, If my offer is accepted.. The payment will be made through PayPal, But you will have to get back to me with the following information so that my pick up agent will come and pick up as soon as possible…However, I’m ready to pay now into your account… Your Name and address: PayPal email: Contact email: I will also prefer to contact you directly through your email because i don’t check my eBay account everytime.. Make sure you get back to me so that we can arrange for pick up as i will like the item to be picked, So no shipping.. Await for your swift response. Gina.’
To me, it seems a little fishy. But if he’s paying me I don’t quite see where it could go wrong. So, anyone got some advice for me?
Seems alright to me. If you get paid no big deal. Because s/he mentioned the nature of their work, maybe military or overseas, and there’s nowhere to ship to? Get the money, and then its easy street for you.
eBay clearly states that you should never deal with buyers via personal contact outside of eBay. There’s a good reason for this - eBay communications are tracked, stored, and act as a 3rd party in any sort of dispute. Also, the fact that there’s a pick up agent (like photojojo said) is VERY fishy.
Yeah, makes sense for someone to pick it up for them if they are working on a ship. Maybe its the way the message has been typed up, that makes me feel a bit suspicious about it.
Would it be possible for him/her to pay via paypal, and then say that the item was not picked up or whatever, and then claim the money back through paypal’s buyer protection?
Also, a few things…The grammar/English is really off.
“I am very happy to be the winner of this Item on the auction today”
“I am currently on the ship…”
Capitalizing random words much?
“…i don’t check my eBay account everytime..”
The fact that she wants specific information about you that is unnecessary for an eBay transaction.
“..arrange for pick up as i will like the item to be picked, So no shipping..”
“Await for your swift response.”
7 things that jumped out at me on a second read. Not feeling legit here, sorry.
Again, PayPal scams are SO easy to work when you are not operating under some sort of protection policy. It’s as easy as filing a dispute saying you never received said item. I’ve had it happen to me and I was out $500. Shit sucks, but it happens.
This is smart on your end. You can probably get your listing fees back from eBay (if there were any) if you show them the correspondence this person had with you.
My suggestion would be to try and contact customer support about something like “Contacting the buyer” or “Report and item or listing”. Something along those lines. You can get a number to call if you go through it (they should send you a PIN or something like that), and when you get on the phone with someone, you can pretty much explain the situation and work it out with them.
If you can’t get a phone call in, there should be an option to contact someone via email or message within eBay itself. But I would start with:
Whenever people start typing formal looking letters in emails with forced english asking strange requests and giving strange circumstances stay the hell away, nothing about that makes any sense.
You should run with it, lead him on, and see what he tries to pull. I bet he tries to use some sketchy courier service, pays with a compromised paypal account which will get charged back and you screwed, sends an official looking paypal payment receipt that isn’t paypal which is possibly a phishing scam to get your paypal login info, or something along those line.
Even if he did pay with a semi-legit paypal account, if his ‘agent’ picks it up you have no tracking number to prove you shipped it and he will win the dispute he will file. Have his ‘agent’ come by and give him a box packed with a paper and cardboard cutout of a vci-100.
You probably could, yeah. And you could also limit the buyers to those with certain feedback score or whatever. I know you can setup certain stipulations in your bidding options.
Good luck with this man! Xonetacular and nicoga have you covered though and said exactly what I was going to say: NEVER deal with an ebay transaction outside of eBay! but yeah, good luck man! It’s a shame there’s so many dishonest people out there nowadays…
I have been on Ebay since 2000 and lately it has become full of scammers. Just this year I bought a Shure mic and even if the address was in the US it was made by someone in China and when I paid what I got was some pirated disc of Microsoft Office 2007.
I was like WTF?!?! I had to go thru the buyer protection and give them a tracking number in other for them to refund my money. I spent like 3-4 weeks in that shit.
Then more recently I sold a GFX card to some guy in Italy. The thing is that I shipped the card with tracking number and insurance. The thing is that buyer claimed that he never got the item and the money was deducted from my paypal having it in negative. Even if I had to call like 4 times to Paypal (not the most helpful persons) and explain that I had tracking number, receipt stamped by the USPS, regular sales receipt, EVERYTHING they told me that they cant give me my money back and rule in the favor of the italian guy althou I state I dont ship international thru Ebay (buyer just bidded anyways and won) and the guy didnt had 100% feedback like me among many other things.
I had to gwet my money thru the USPS insurance. I spent like 2 months resolving that.
What this buyer/seller from Ebay learned? When selling ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use a tracking number and insurance. NEVER ship to Italy since, as a USPS postman told me, they have a different system of tracking packages and seems to be VERY problematic with the USPS. Even I have seen auctions that sellers wont ship to Italy and Nigeria.
Also that information: "Your Name and address: PayPal email: Contact email: " #1 is irrelevant to the seller PLUS they dont have to ask it since on the Paypal receipt you get that info. Sounds to me like scam or someone not experienced with Paypal. Check the buyer feedback. Less than 15 and I’ll be reporting that ASAP to both Ebay and Paypal (althou they are the same company I prefer to raise notice rather than wait for their internal handshake).
