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01/11/2004 02:31:13 PM · #1
I'm selling a camera on ebay and got these 3 emails from different users, each about a day apart;

1. "Dear, I'm an Australian bidder and looking for Graduation Gift for my friend who has staying in Indonesia, would you sell your item and help me send it to Indonesia, please? I will be responsible for the additional shipping/handling cost. And I will pay in fully total amount promptly. Glad to hear your reply regarding this question and many thanks for your help and attention."

2. "Greetings, I'm an Australian bidder and looking for Graduation Gift for my friend who has staying in Indonesia, would you sell your item to me and help me send it to Indonesia, please? I will be responsible for the additional shipping/handling cost. And I will pay in fully total amount promptly. Glad to hear your reply regarding this question and many thanks for your help and attention."

3. "Hi, Dear ebay seller, I'm currently looking for a present for my friend who lives in Ukraine (European country). I really enjoy your unit and I'm ready to bid on it but there are several questions to be answered before that. Unfortunately his address is unconfirmed with my paypal account so I would like to inquire if you could ship to him directly to Ukraine. Will that be ok if the shipping address will be mine (confirmed) when I send paypal payment but you will ship to him to Ukraine directly? Please respond asap so that we will have a great deal! Let's make this transaction successful! Have a nice day."

None of them have made any transactions and have no feedback ratings. I replied to the first and they wrote back with where they wanted it shipped to and asked me to give the shipping cost. I did and they bought the item using "Buy it Now". It's very suspicious.

I was wondering if anyone has seen this before or knows anything about it. Of course, I won't send anything until the money is in my pocket.

Thanks for the help.
01/11/2004 02:36:47 PM · #2
Hi fluxn.
I got the same email but the wording was a little different. It was in September when I sold my E-20. I emailed them but they didn't answer. I have heard from other sellers that it's a rip off. Rumor? I don't know for sure, but be careful I just moved on and sold to someone else.
01/11/2004 02:36:51 PM · #3
I think most US sellers wont send overseas, as it's expensive, risky and more trouble. The first two look a bit strange, or could be the same person, but most likely, if they pay, be sure to require insurance, at their cost of course, and like you said, send nothing until you have the money in your account, including shipping and ins.
01/11/2004 02:40:58 PM · #4
I would recommend reporting this to E-bay, if you haven't already. Otherwise, I agree with the others.
01/11/2004 02:43:51 PM · #5
Thanks for the suggestions. I just checked out some of the ebay forums and found a post that said to use extreme caution when asked to ship items to Indonesia and the Ukraine, among others, as they have a high rate of credit card fraud. I think I will move on and try sell it again domestically.
01/11/2004 02:44:16 PM · #6
The problem I see with the 3rd message is that you are not shipping to the address that you are telling Paypal you are shipping to. The buyer could (I think almost certainly would) claim that they never recieved the goods, and make a claim from Paypal. You would wind up losing your $$.
The first/second messages are very suspicious in that the wording is nearly exactly the same, but (I assume) came from different bidders.
I would report to e-bay and see what they say. I would be very wary of selling to an international buyer, with "drop shipping", and no previous feedback.
01/11/2004 02:58:56 PM · #7
One of the things that can happen is that they'll pay you via credit card and then once you've sent the item, they'll cancel the charges, denying either that they ever purchased the product or that they received it. Since you didn't send it to a confirmed shipped address, you don't have much recourse.

If you have any doubt, try putting "ebay ship to indonesia" or "will not ship to indonesia" into google and see how many other sellers are refusing to ship there.
01/11/2004 03:17:52 PM · #8
Yes, it's a scam.

I received very similiar messages when I auctioned my E-10.
01/11/2004 03:28:27 PM · #9
I'm not selling it. Thanks everyone for confirming the scam for me.
01/11/2004 04:24:53 PM · #10
Yeah, you should put in your auction listings that you'll only ship to a confirmed address through pay pal, or the address on the actual check you get (after a check clears of course.)

And I'll just say from personal experience to never use Western Union.
01/11/2004 05:26:19 PM · #11
who would wite letters like that?
secondly, how dare they use australia in there scam :(
01/11/2004 06:05:39 PM · #12
NEVER, EVER ship anything to Indonesia. It is a known credit card fraud hot spot. Also, never ship to a holding address. Do some research to see if you can find out who you are selling to.
I've been stung before on Ebay, I sold a PS2 to someone, they paid by CC through ebays OWN CC processing co. I sent the console off using a parcel company (not realising they deliver without signature). 6 weeks later I got an email off ebay saying they had received a chargeback on the credit card used to pay for the goods and they wanted their money back, and they took it! I managed to claim from Royal Mail as they couldn't prove it HAD been delivered.
Now I am extra vigilant, you need to be really careful. Recently I 'sold' a DVD writer on ebay, after the auction ended the guy paid straight away with PayPal and sent his address. It was a business address so I did some checking and it turned out it was a 'mail forwarding company' which means they'll take deliveries for you and ship them on (no questions asked), normally to foreign countries where they cannot be traced. I returned his PayPal money and he never contacted me to ask why but since then I've been getting some pretty nasty spam in my inbox (coincidence?)
Please, please be careful when selling stuff on ebay and the like, I've sold 'loads' of stuff on there and the majority of people are good but you need to be careful.
Don't forget, if someone uses a stolen or 'cloned' card to pay for YOUR goods it'll be YOU that loses out, not PayPal.

Take care.
01/11/2004 06:20:35 PM · #13
Definitely some good advice here. A blanket ban on selling your kit through E-Bay to Indonesian, Ukrainian, Nigerian, and other fraud-intense countries is essential for every private seller. International recovery of goods / cash will get costly, time-consuming, and is often pointless. You should get enough real interest in your equipment in your own country's E-Bay so that you can accept only domestic bids - and this avoids any need to ship overseas. However, interest in your kit from UK buyers may be high at the moment due to the exchange rate. This means UK buyers can sometimes bid more generously in dollars than a US-based bidder. Fortunately, the UK is not a fraud-intense country (though, oddly, Australia is). If you sell via Paypal you should get some financial protection. However, one of the best protections is common sense - check out the bidder's E-Bay "Feedback" and number of transactions, and length of time as an E-Bayer. I have bought Canon stuff on E-bay from private US sellers, so international sales do work. If in any doubt, cancel a suspicious bid - don't be greedy. Always add a note on your Auction Page that you reserve the right to cancel any bid from a bidder with, say, less than ten feedbacks, and at least 90 per cent must be positive. And that (if you allow international bidders at all) you reserve the right to cancel a foreign bid without giving a reason.
01/11/2004 06:25:48 PM · #14
I had the same experience, I still have the letter and here it goes:
Dear sir/madam,
What you send for worldwide also? I'm from Indonesian, Im so interest with your item at ebay, i like to buy it for your best offer and I'm willing to pay it for US$950.00 for my highest price and about the payment methode I would like to use creditcard directlly charged using your merchant or a charge machine only.
I really hope that you can understand about my term of condition here. Its my appreciating me to for your understanding about whole this bid. Please let me know your responses details asap.


My auction clearly states no International Bidders Please and Credit Cards thru Paypal Only as I have no Merchant Account. I went to search for the buyer on eBay and found out that he/she is Not a Registered User. Just one indication that I didn't even bother responding and I would have cancelled his/her bid if I see him/her bid on my auction.
01/11/2004 06:27:36 PM · #15
Btw, is the bidder's name hitam78?
01/11/2004 09:40:07 PM · #16
Originally posted by rj324:

Btw, is the bidder's name hitam78?


No. It's jennifer.b25 and erin.s78 and g0dman.
01/12/2004 12:10:24 AM · #17
Originally posted by fluxn:

I won't send anything until the money is in my pocket.


Originally posted by deafwolf:

send nothing until you have the money in your account,


These are not the same thing.

It is safe to sell to anyone and ship anywhere if you set it up so that you have cash in hand before sending the item. Don't put yourself in a position where you need help from eBay or PayPal.
01/12/2004 09:18:23 AM · #18
I had some emails similiar to this a while back when selling an item on Ebay. I found out after alot of emails, and talking with Ebay customer service, that sometimes people find out someone elses paypal information and will then make purchases but wanting the item shipped to a different address which does not belong to the person whom the paypal account belongs to. What it actually was, was someone with stolen information buying things and having sent to their home or an apt. building general address, and they were picking up the items later. This shipping address was about 45 miles from where the paypal account originated, but was a stolen account. Thankfully I did not sell to this person. I won't ship to anywhere but the actual address of the confirmed account..I don't want someone who has had their information stolen to pay for something they never get!
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