Q about trusting ebay and paypal

fatsmoker

I have a new Armani watch on ebay that's worth about £110. Got PM'd by a bloke who wants me to post it to South Africa. He'll pay £100, I pay the postage. Seems like a decent deal, as I can't see it going above £60 in the auction. It seems a bit suspect that he is in South Africa and is prepared to pay almost what you'd pay in the shop. Can I trust that I will receive the £100 sterling through paypal?
One worry is that if it gets lost in the South African post he'll be claiming the money back from me, even if I send it by royal mail tracked, royal mail can't control the post there.
Any thoughts on this?

finchy

Never trust anyone. They're all out to get you.

finchy

Can't Royal Mail provide proof that they've got it as far as S. Africa? Is there anything in terms and conditions about it? If you've posted it and can prove that you have, are you covered?

rolf_f

Google it. I'd have thought it is probably a fraud of some description. Even if it doesn't hit your wallet, do you want to help someone to steal?

1) as you say, why pay nearly full price particularly when, from what you say, he can just bid and probably get it for much less
2) is he prepared to buy it via Ebay - or does he want you to buy it outside of Ebay thereby losing a lot of protection? You could put a bin on for £100 easily enough.
3) If you wanted a presumably fairly ordinary, common watch, would you source one locally or try to buy one from the other side of the world at an unneccessarily high price?

To me, it sounds like he is effectively trying to bribe you to help him commit fraud.

fatsmoker

Cheers Rolf, just googled 'ebay buyers from overseas fraud' and it seems likely to be a scam. With PayPal the risk is with the seller, if the buyer says its damaged or not received they refund the buyer from the seller's account.
Does anyone want to buy a really nice looking watch? I would have kept it, but I got two very ones, so kept the one I preferred.

twoshots

Paypal is biased towards the buyer and buyers can issue a chargeback which will immediately freeze the money. The onus is then on the seller to prove to goods were as described and delivered to the buyer, so make sure you have proof. This can be a big hassle and genuine sellers can get stung. Personally I don't use Paypal for anything. Make sure you go in with your eyes open.

r3hxn

there are also a fair few countries where Paypal will offer no protection. I dont know if South africa was one of them, but Its probably very likely.

I personally do not post out of the country.

There are a number of scams, quite often very many of them wont even get to the stage of you posting out the item. If you deal outside of ebay(something else to avoid) What will happen is they will ask you for your paypal address, and then tell you they have paid, send a fake email to your paypal email address which claims to have made the payment, "click here to check "

at this point you either 1) mistakingly post the item without checking your paypap account 2)click the fake link in the email and log in, thereby giving your password to the scammer 3) work out something is up and cancel the transaction

Never give out the main email address that is associated to your Paypal account, you can make an alternative payment email address. This one is safe to give out, any emails going to this address would not be from paypal.