eBay sale

keitarou · Dec 7, 2012

Hi guys,

I put up my iPhone 5 up on eBay and the bidder messages me that he wants to pay xxx and have the phone shipped to NY. However the registered user is located in India. Is this wise to do? Shipping to a place in NY but the address is not his own?

Advice anyone?

isephmusic · Dec 7, 2012

you can email paypall if his email is verified and secured. obviously only proceed with shipping after the sale ends and the money is good to go in your paypal

ChrisMan287 · Dec 7, 2012

It sounds like a scam to me.

YsoSerious · Dec 7, 2012

Ship only to a CONFIRMED ADDRESS. If there is a charge back, it protects you in the long run Also keep all shipping confirmation or tracking info for at least 6 months.

Mrbobb · Dec 8, 2012

You mean he's bypassing eBay normal procedure and wants to do business with you privately and is paying you extra$ for this one-to-one? RUN! (away)

Of course you can always say, Send me a cashier check, when it clears, I will send it. How much you wanna bet he's gonna go for it?

old-wiz · Dec 8, 2012

If they send you a fake cashier's check and you deposit it the bank may call the cops and you could be prosecuted for a fraud check.

pooleman · Dec 8, 2012

keitarou said:
Hi guys,

I put up my iPhone 5 up on eBay and the bidder messages me that he wants to pay xxx and have the phone shipped to NY. However the registered user is located in India. Is this wise to do? Shipping to a place in NY but the address is not his own?

Advice anyone?

DON'T DO IT. I sold my older iphone to a person that I thought lived in New Jersey. I only sell to the lower 48 states. The buyer apparently lives in Ukraine and had some intermediary shipping company accept delivery from NJ and then they ship it abroad. After receiving the phone he said it didn't work (it did btw) and eBay sided with him and paid him the money with the instructiuons that he is to send me the phone back. Well, it's two weeks later and no phone, and since he created a shipping label eBay just tells me to wait for the phone to deliver. UGH.

Now I can't use ebay or my PayPal account until this is resolved.

sulpfiction · Dec 8, 2012

Total, 100% scam. If u follow through with the transaction u will be very, very sorry. Put the phone on Craig's List. You will sell it quick. But be careful with CL too. Only sell to a person you can meet in person, and then meet them in a public place. I've used CL to sell all my phones (most recently yesterday) and its gone totally smooth every single time. Good luck. eBay nowadays is just littered with problems. Not to mention expensive fees. Stay away.

Vetvito · Dec 8, 2012

Try Swappa

keitarou · Dec 8, 2012

sulpfiction said:
Total, 100% scam. If u follow through with the transaction u will be very, very sorry. Put the phone on Craig's List. You will sell it quick. But be careful with CL too. Only sell to a person you can meet in person, and then meet them in a public place. I've used CL to sell all my phones (most recently yesterday) and its gone totally smooth every single time. Good luck. eBay nowadays is just littered with problems. Not to mention expensive fees. Stay away.

With him the only one that bided on my phone, how do I not sell it to him if he wins the bid? How are sellers protected against fraudulent buyers? Thanks for all the helps guys. Really appreciated.

sulpfiction · Dec 8, 2012

Tell him you were packing it up and dropped it and cracked the screen. Or, tell him to email u and start a conversation. Chances are he will disappear. They look for suckers and quick transactions. If u start to drag it out a bit and start to ask questions, he will most likely go away. Just would hate to see u get beat. And u will if u go through with it.

keitarou · Dec 8, 2012

sulpfiction said:
Tell him you were packing it up and dropped it and cracked the screen. Or, tell him to email u and start a conversation. Chances are he will disappear. They look for suckers and quick transactions. If u start to drag it out a bit and start to ask questions, he will most likely go away. Just would hate to see u get beat. And u will if u go through with it.

I did start to ask questions and asked what his relationship to the address was and he responded by saying to keep my phone.

Now how does it work? How do I ignore his bid? Can I end the auction now and not send it to him who is the only bidder?

Givmeabrek · Dec 8, 2012

Cancel due to non payment and relist. Good job catching it. Be very careful.

Defender2010 · Dec 8, 2012

keitarou said:
Hi guys,

I put up my iPhone 5 up on eBay and the bidder messages me that he wants to pay xxx and have the phone shipped to NY. However the registered user is located in India. Is this wise to do? Shipping to a place in NY but the address is not his own?

Advice anyone?

Simple: tell this bidder to **** off!

Mrbobb · Dec 8, 2012

old-wiz said:
If they send you a fake cashier's check and you deposit it the bank may call the cops and you could be prosecuted for a fraud check.

There are no fake cashier checks, that's why they got those holograms and everything. If the clerk accepts it, it's his fault, not the user. Worst they cancel the deposit.

OP, only he bidded? There is something wrong with your listing then, because I've scoured eBay for iPhones and man, is a bidding frenzy and I finally gave up.

Next time, specify you will ONLY accept bidder with say more than 20 transactions and 98%+ score for example. They (scammers) will still bid but you simply say "you did not follow rules, adios."

Look at any eBay iPhone bidding which just ended. See all those (0) transactions (just signed up) bids? U don't want to deal with those crazies.

matttye · Dec 8, 2012

As long as you ship to the address shown on the PayPal account I'm pretty sure you're safe.

Arnezie · Dec 8, 2012

old-wiz said:
If they send you a fake cashier's check and you deposit it the bank may call the cops and you could be prosecuted for a fraud check.

Very poor legal advise. You obviously don't have any understanding of the laws your referring too.

dictoresno · Dec 8, 2012

for what its worth, i sold my old iphone 4 on the XDA website to a guy who i presume was in india. he had me ship it to some 3rd party shipping company based out of JFK. i was skeptical about the strange address so i looked into it more. apparently is very common to have these 3rd party shippers do this for people operating out of india. i guess these people rent a stall or something at the airport or near it, accept delivery, then flip it to india for them. i was thinking scam all the way, but after some googling, i found lots of people on the internet on all sorts of forums who shipped items to this same address, but with different unit numbers. some were positive, some bad. i spoke with another person on XDA who recently did a transaction with the same person and confirmed the guy was legit. he had all positive feedback so i went with it. i worked through paypal, so i made sure he input his shipping address in the transaction details and i updated all shipping info in the transaction as well so there was a paper trail. the phone was received and signed for. a day later, i got positive feedback from the guy and that was the end of it.

bottom line, it could be hit or miss. if you feel sketched by it, dont do it. but i did want to say that these 3rd party shippers are legit to some extent.

keitarou · Dec 8, 2012

Mrbobb said:
There are no fake cashier checks, that's why they got those holograms and everything. If the clerk accepts it, it's his fault, not the user. Worst they cancel the deposit.

OP, only he bidded? There is something wrong with your listing then, because I've scoured eBay for iPhones and man, is a bidding frenzy and I finally gave up.

Next time, specify you will ONLY accept bidder with say more than 20 transactions and 98%+ score for example. They (scammers) will still bid but you simply say "you did not follow rules, adios."

Look at any eBay iPhone bidding which just ended. See all those (0) transactions (just signed up) bids? U don't want to deal with those crazies.

It's only been a day so I guess it's not over yet. Still have 6 days left. Hopefully more will bid and bring the price up. Next time I will set a reserve price so that if its not met, a good reason to not sell.

The guy does have 100% positive feedback but only 9. And most of them are from people who has no feedback at all. That's what made him fishy as well as international location. It's not easy to sell that's for sure.

JayLenochiniMac · Dec 8, 2012

keitarou said:
It's only been a day so I guess it's not over yet. Still have 6 days left. Hopefully more will bid and bring the price up. Next time I will set a reserve price so that if its not met, a good reason to not sell.

The guy does have 100% positive feedback but only 9. And most of them are from people who has no feedback at all. That's what made him fishy as well as international location. It's not easy to sell that's for sure.

Your OP made it sound like that guy was the high bidder. Ignore him. I frequently get requests like that asking if I can end my auction early for a specific price (usually low ball offers). I just tell them to bid on the item if they're interested.

Spink10 · Dec 8, 2012

keitarou said:
It's only been a day so I guess it's not over yet. Still have 6 days left. Hopefully more will bid and bring the price up. Next time I will set a reserve price so that if its not met, a good reason to not sell.

The guy does have 100% positive feedback but only 9. And most of them are from people who has no feedback at all. That's what made him fishy as well as international location. It's not easy to sell that's for sure.

You will get more bids.

keitarou · Dec 8, 2012

JayLenochiniMac said:
Your OP made it sound like that guy was the high bidder. Ignore him. I frequently get requests like that asking if I can end my auction early for a specific price (usually low ball offers). I just tell them to bid on the item if they're interested.

He was the first within a minute of me posting it. But yeah, sorry about the confusion.

Mrbobb · Dec 9, 2012

keitarou said:
Next time I will set a reserve price so that if its not met, a good reason to not sell.

Reserve Price turns off lots of bidders.

Read the paypal fine prints, you are only protected if certain things happens.

bandofbrothers · Dec 9, 2012

You already have a gut feeling about this hence creating the thread in the first place.

Some great feedback for you to make use of.

My impartial advice.

Don't proceed.

keitarou · Dec 10, 2012

bandofbrothers said:
You already have a gut feeling about this hence creating the thread in the first place.

Some great feedback for you to make use of.

My impartial advice.

Don't proceed.

Thanks for all of your advice. I took the bid down. Will try CL and see if any takers. If not, will try ebay again.

eBay sale

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