selling to international people on ebay

**neynme** · 09-06-2007 04:34 AM

Is it safe to sell to someone in another country outside of US through paypal? can they scam me?

**joe_hensonn** · 09-06-2007 04:45 AM

Originally Posted by neynme

Is it safe to sell to someone in another country outside of US through paypal? can they scam me?

how could they scam you ?? by sending fake dollars through paypal??

**neynme** · 09-06-2007 04:46 AM

don't know,i'm just wondering if there are alot of internation scam that's all. They could repor to paypal i sold them wrong stuff and such.

**crunchingnumbers** · 09-06-2007 04:59 AM

You're being paranoid. The paypal system works as well for international users as US based users.

**maxh** · 09-06-2007 07:04 AM

http://answercenter.ebay.com/thread....=1188507775610

If you sell internationally and you accept paypal payments, you are opening yourself up to being scammed. Paypal has their "Seller Protection Policy" which requires 3 things, one of which is shipment to a "Confirmed" address, which is only possible for the US, Canada, and UK.

What can happen is that the buyer files a claim saying he didn't receive the item (even though he did) or that it was significantly not as described, and does a charge back, and paypal takes the money from you and you're screwed. You automatically lose if you don't follow the requirements for their Seller Protection Policy, which is impossible to do with an international buyer.

That said, I sell things, including phones from time to time, on ebay internationally. Most of the items are small and only $10, so I don't worry about it, and after 300-400 sales, I've only had one person scam me. Big deal, 10 bucks. But I sometimes sell phones or computers. I sold an iphone to some guy in China for $900 when they first came out and he wanted to pay via paypal. We went back and forth for awhile and I even talked to him on the phone. Finally I decided to take a chance and accept paypal payment and ship it. I didn't get scammed, but I think I may have just been lucky. The guy's ebay identity was erased soon after that, so maybe his paypal account was suspended, as well, just before he could charge back!

I sold something else to a guy in Malta for $820 and explained to him nicely why I didn't feel comfortable accepting paypal, and he sent me the money via Western Union, leaving himself completely open to be scammed. Of course I sent him the item.

Use your judgement, but be very paranoid!