How to cover myself when dealing with a suspicious buyer

[jbma35]

I just sold an item and usually after I sell an item, I look up their address. But as soon as the shipping address popped up, I thought that it looked a bit suspicious. I did a quick search for them and they seem to have a reputation for using stolen cards and stuff so I am wondering what I should do to cover myself if something were to go wrong. Should I do that or should I cancel the order as the buyer hasn’t payed yet. 

[a_c_green · Accepted solution]

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@jbma35 wrote:

I just sold an item and usually after I sell an item, I look up their address. 

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Before they pay, it doesn't matter what their address is, because all you're looking at is the address that they used when registering their eBay account. After they pay, you will see the address to which you will be shipping the item. If PayPal shows the payment in your account and says that it's time to ship, then you ship. 

If you encounter any weirdness after payment is received (e.g. a request to send the item someplace else instead), get back to us here before doing anything further.

P.S. I see it's a quad-core processor being sent to a computer shop, so that alone doesn't raise any red flags. If the buyer did a chargeback on their credit card for some reason later on, your only obligation would be to show that you shipped to the address you received with the payment.

[jbma35]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@jbma35 wrote:

I just sold an item and usually after I sell an item, I look up their address. 

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Before they pay, it doesn't matter what their address is, because all you're looking at is the address that they used when registering their eBay account. After they pay, you will see the address to which you will be shipping the item. If PayPal shows the payment in your account and says that it's time to ship, then you ship. 

If you encounter any weirdness after payment is received (e.g. a request to send the item someplace else instead), get back to us here before doing anything further.

P.S. I see it's a quad-core processor being sent to a computer shop, so that alone doesn't raise any red flags. If the buyer did a chargeback on their credit card for some reason later on, your only obligation would be to show that you shipped to the address you received with the payment.

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When I googled the “computer shop”, a bunch of seller beware posts come up. That is why I’m concerned.

[turquoisetulips]

When I googled the “computer shop”, a bunch of seller beware posts come up. That is why I’m concerned. jbma35 

Yikes !  I hope AC comes back on . 😞  tulips 

[fashunu4eeuh]

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@jbma35 wrote:

I just sold an item and usually after I sell an item, I look up their address. But as soon as the shipping address popped up, I thought that it looked a bit suspicious. I did a quick search for them and they seem to have a reputation for using stolen cards and stuff so I am wondering what I should do to cover myself if something were to go wrong. Should I do that or should I cancel the order as the buyer hasn’t payed yet. 

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Hi and welcome. If this were a high value item, I might take pause because scammers have been known to target expensive items sometimes, especially from new sellers. But for a modestly priced item, it is much less concerning and less a chance to be defrauded. It could happen but I'd say the odds are in your favor it won't.

There are risks to selling online that are difficult to mitigate. It's the nature of the platform. Your best course of action is to assess your risk tolerance prior to listing the item. (But that's of no help to you now, i know.) The dilemma that sellers face when canceling a transaction is that eBay has the power to levy a defect on their account for doing so. Defects can hurt an account: thru higher fees on up to suspensions of selling privileges. So you are better off deciding if you can stand to lose money and time on a listing before it goes live on eBay, and to have a plan for shrinkage just like a brick-and-mortar retailer.

At this point, you have an obligation to ship the item when payment is received. If you find completing the sale too painful, and you are willing to risk the defect and possible negative feedback, only you can decide if canceling is worth it. One defect won't hurt your account, but you'll have to be extra diligent in avoiding a second. Good luck to you however you decide. Should the transaction go south, come back to the boards--there is always someone here to help.

[extrememobility]

You did not state if this was an auction or buy it now item? if it was but it now ? in your listing there is box for you check off (require immediate payment at checkout) should be checked . when the buyer if and when pays you make sure the PayPal account has the same ship to delivery address. you are NOT required to complete the sale if they ask you to ship somewhere other than the Ebay buyers registered address and if so should be canceled. Good Luck!

[a_c_green]

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@extrememobility wrote:
You did not state if this was an auction or buy it now item?

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It was an auction that yielded two bids and sold for $34. 

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@extrememobility wrote:
when the buyer if and when pays you make sure the PayPal account has the same ship to delivery address. you are NOT required to complete the sale if they ask you to ship somewhere other than the Ebay buyers registered address and if so should be canceled. Good Luck!

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Sorry but that is not accurate. Before payment, the address showing on the invoice or sale record is the buyer's eBay address, for the simple reason that there is no other known address at that time. The Ship-To: address will not be known before the payment arrives. 

When the buyer makes their payment, they can select an alternate Ship-To: address if desired. They can have several different addresses stored in their eBay account, and choose whichever one they want for that purchase. (I have three different ones myself.) The key point is that you must ship to the address received with the payment.  It doesn't matter whether it matches the eBay address registered to the account.

What they cannot do is ask you to ignore the Ship-To: address and manually change the Shipping label to someplace else. You give up your seller protection against an Item Not Received claim by not shipping to the City and ZIP code received with the payment. (Yes, technically you could change the street address as long as the City and ZIP remain the same, but let's not go there.)

One common scam is to ask the seller to change the address after payment, to ship it someplace else as a "gift" or because the buyer's father is in the hospital (that seems to be a popular scammer line) or some such thing. Once the item arrives at that other address, the buyer may file an INR dispute and win a full refund, because the seller cannot show a Delivered status for that tracking number at the payment's City & ZIP address; he sent it someplace else instead.

It may not even be the buyer making this request. Scammer scripts exist which use throwaway eBay accounts to automatically fire off  address-change requests to any seller who has recently (i.e. within the past hour or so) sold some big-ticket, high-scam item. If the seller either doesn't notice that the message isn't coming from the actual buyer, or believes some excuse about why the message isn't coming from the buyer's own account, then the shipment is basically hijacked before it ever leaves the house, and the true buyer knows nothing about it. 

Any on-line business is likely to have someone making on-line complaints about it, but Googling the address won't give you any context. For example, people are always shrieking about reshipper addresses because that address is used for all purchases by the reshipper's customers, which might include a scammer as well. That has nothing to do with any of the reshipper's other customers; it just means that there was a problem with that particular transaction.

So just ship the package to the address received with the payment. That is the only place where it is expected to go.

[fern*wood]

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@turquoisetulips wrote:

When I googled the “computer shop”, a bunch of seller beware posts come up. That is why I’m concerned. jbma35 

Yikes !  I hope AC comes back on . 😞  tulips 

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Maybe they aren't very good at repairing computers, so their customers are unhappy.  I don't see that as a problem for the OP, though.