Scam or Not?

[colilammer-0]

Maybe I'm just paranoid because I don't sell much. But I just sold an item and the buyer asked me to include a letter and send it to a weird address with a weird name. "8 McCulloughهم‌‌Dr. U233930; New Castle, DE, USA"

Now, I did receive payment but it just seems off to me. Am I being paranoid?

[lamber9347]

You can only ship to the address on the buyer's account. It is against policy for you to send to any other address. You will lose your seller protections if you do. You can always cancel the order using issue with buyer's address, than list it again and ask buyer to make address changes prior to purchasing.

What are you supposed to write in this letter? 

[lamber9347]

@colilammer-0 You are also selling high priced electronics with only two sales in your past. That makes you a magnet for scammers. What you need to do is acquire FB as a seller quickly. Start selling small items from around your house. Price them cheaply just to sell them quickly. Always leave FB for each of your buyers too. Many times when a buyer receives FB first they are more likely to reciprocate. As you begin to accumulate FB as a seller, you will stop seeming like an easy target and scammers will move onto the next inexperienced seller. You can do this but you need to put in some ground work first. Best of luck to you....

[nobody*s_perfect · Accepted solution]

If that's the address that was attached to the payment, then go ahead and ship. It's a popular forwarding service.

 If you ship to any address other than the one that was attached to the payment, then you have no seller protection against a fake 'Item not received" claim.

If that address was sent to you in a separate message, then it might not even be from the actual buyer; did you check who the message was actually from? There are scammers who try to divert packages. Some of them will even send vague notes about "the item" that they bought without specifying what it was.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Sounds like it could be a freight forwarding service.  Most of these are not scams, but some are.  

[gracieallen01]

Perhaps a scam, perhaps not.  The address looks like a freight forwarder, with the U2........ being the client ID.

It may be a drop shipper sending something off to a buyer overseas that can't buy directly, or it may be a scammer who is sending it to ????

Flip a coin - you have a 50/50 chance of being right.

A frequent mantra on ebay: "If you can't afford to lose it, pay to do it and shipping both ways, don't list it."

[albertabrightalberta]

My concern lies in the result of a google search of the address. Only "scam" warnings come up. 

And that the winning bidder is a (probably newbie) 0-feedback buyer just cements my suspicion.

[soh.maryl]

1. That's the well known address of a freight forwarder.

2. What kind of letter?

3. You have to ship to the address shown on the invoice when the buyer pays.

Do a little more reading please. 

[jayjaspersgarage]

Good luck.  You listed a high scam item (for over $600)  with expensive shipping.  I would be concerned too but what can we say?

The name of this game is Source, List Sell & SHIP.   Your feedback as a seller shows you are comfortable rolling the proverbial dice and sell electronics.  Since this is your first sale in quite some time with feedback you need to be prepared to have your funds held for several weeks if the buyer pulls a fast one and makes some kind of claim.  

They want a letter?  If a letter isn't shown in the listing and not part of the description what purpose would that serve?  Are they asking you to lie about the sales price in the letter?  

[colilammer-0]

Yeah the buyer joined in 2021 with no reviews

[itsjustasprain]

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@colilammer-0 wrote:

Maybe I'm just paranoid because I don't sell much. But I just sold an item and the buyer asked me to include a letter and send it to a weird address with a weird name. "8 McCulloughهم‌‌Dr. U233930; New Castle, DE, USA"

Now, I did receive payment but it just seems off to me. Am I being paranoid?

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No. First of all make sure that the question actually did come from the ID of the buyer and no one else. The 'letter' you are supposed to include sounds like a definite red flag for a scam.

You must ship only to the address you received with the payment itself. Messages requesting a change of address that come from a different ID than that of the buyer are scam attempts from others and can be ignored. If it is definitely the buyer himself asking for a change of address then you will need to cancel and refund (choose 'problem with address' as the reason for cancellation) and then re-list so he can send payment again with the correct address showing.

The address you mentioned is a popular reshipper for buyers elsewhere in the world to buy from sellers who do not ship internationally. Unfortunately if you Google the address it will come up with stories about scammers using that address - for the simple reason that no one who has a successful sale through the reshipper is going to go on-line to loudly announce that. Its only the problem sales that get written up and publicized.

[colilammer-0]

I'm a newbie. Message isn't from the buyer. I feel dumb, thanks for the post!

[itsjustasprain]

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@colilammer-0 wrote:

I'm a newbie. Message isn't from the buyer. I feel dumb, thanks for the post!

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Okay then - that particular scammer can be ignored. If everything else is as it should be then its time to ship.

[colilammer-0]

Is it worth reporting the account trying to scam?

[reallynicestamps]

Only "scam" warnings come up.

That's fairly normal.

The good transactions go unreported.

It's like Yelp reviews of a restaurant. I left an unhappy review for a local pizza place two years ago. They are still in business, and mine is the only review they have ever received.