Shipping overseas, Is this a scam?

hutno

hutno

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Presently I have an auction on ebay for a joystick. An ebay member emailed me and asked how much it would be to send it to Spain. I'm always hesitant to deal with anything that leaves the clutches of the USPS and have actually got one request like this in the past and just said no. Is this a scam of some sort? Thoughts?
 
Personally, I would not send anything overseas. Just too risky. I have had a few requests from folks overseas and I just told them I only ship within the US.
 
I have shipped internationally multiple times and never had any problems. In fact, I probably made a little bit extra on the shipping end of things. However, I do have to add that all of my international sales came from buyers with excellent feedback ratings.
 
Same as the poster above me, I've dealt with international buyers before and have never had a problem. Just make sure to check his feedback.
 
Unless they have high feedback (100+) and have been buying stuff recently(this part is key) I wouldnt ship it overseas. If the account hasn't been used in a long time it could be that it was an account someone no longer uses that someone finally managed to hack into. I've had 2 scams this year that were based in spain just as an fyi it seems that spain is new the nigeria or wherever it used to be that they all wanted things shipped to. A lot of what the people do to scam you is refuse to pay the customs until after they have filed a dispute with paypal and won because you can't show that its been delivered due to it sitting in customs. After they get their money back they promptly go down and pick up their new free item. The way you can cover all your bases (according to paypal) is you have to ship it either fedex or ups and must pay for insurance,tracking,and delivery confirmation. You can't use usps because they just throw it on a plane to spain and its no longer in their hands so they offer you 0 protection.
 
i agree with mrright4you4now and i also add,
unless your a power seller, i wouldn't deal with international or over seas (Alaska or Hawaii) in general.i would stick to continental united states, also avoid low or negative feedback. I have my settings on paypal only buyers and also no negatives. Not that your not protected by paypal or ebay if you do, but again unless you have so much business going on like a "power seller" that you wont be affected by a bad auction to allow for the wait of resolution than go ahead but always pregame and avoid potential problems that may leave you without your product or money. Example i am always being offered via email through ebay "Can you ship to XXXXX?" and they turn around and offer way more than what you expected or wanted " ill Offer you XXXX$" than they send you a fake paypal email stating that once item is ship PayPal will pay you because its on hold, yet when you check you paypal account there is no hold or record of any sort... you know the old saying if its too good to be true it probably is.
 
Well... I could say I've had better luck shipping outside the US than within it, despite my percent of sales being US ones is so much higher. Not one overseas buyer (including Canada) has given me a neutral/neg or claimed they didn't receive.
 
I wouldn't rule out hawaii and alaska from your auctions. I was born and raised in ak and it angers a lot of people up there that their treated like their not part of the country when it comes to online stuff. If their willing to pay the shipping then you shouldn't rule them out just because their not physically connected to the lower 48.
 
I was Stationed in Hawaii for 4 years during one of my tours in the marine corps, so, i understand the whole concept that it isn't fair for U.S. citizens not shipping there. It's more the postal services fault because they lump those 2 states with overseas charging more $ to ship to. They are part of the U.S.A., so, there really isn't any risk but still I personally just don't ship to them as a rule of thumb. I do make exceptions from time to time for those 2 states but outside the USA is a big "no, no" for me.
 
Ive done it multiple times never a prob. But i would watch the Third World countries thats prolly where you would have a prob. Also dont get burned on shipping something like a Joystick can get pricey international
 
[quote name='hutno']Presently I have an auction on ebay for a joystick. An ebay member emailed me and asked how much it would be to send it to Spain. I'm always hesitant to deal with anything that leaves the clutches of the USPS and have actually got one request like this in the past and just said no. Is this a scam of some sort? Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

I ship items overseas almost daily and the only time i have problems is if there is no tracking. I would recommend printing a shipping label through paypal so you get free tracking. Even US buyers are scamming any Ebayer not using tracking.
 
Its not a scam, but its a little dumb in my opinion. Shipping takes either no time at all or an insanely long time. There is no gray area. I have ordered things from Ebay from overseas, sometimes it came in 3-4 days (faster than a lot of domestic sellers), others came in literally 2 months.
 
Living overseas, I normally side with going ahead and doing it, but the Spanish postal service is notorious for theft and, even if it makes it through, enough Spanish people know it is that they will often file claims anyway. I would recommend against Spain.
(Also steer clear of Italy.)
 
As dv8mad said.. Spain has become the new internet fraud place.. Sorry for anyone in spain that is legit but blame your neighbor.. And no not just the one across the road that you know is trouble blame the ones to your left and right because their probably just as horrible..
 
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