Buyer Wants Me to Use His Fedex Account when I Ship the Item

[erickh_32]

Hello all, I am in need of help. This is my first time encountering this issue. A buyer wants me to use his Fedex account number for shipping since he can save money for shipping. I provided him a UPS Next Day Air quote of around $330 but he said that if I put my listing for free Fedex Overnight Shipping ($0 charge for buyer), and when he buys the item, I then go to FedEx post office and use his Fedex account number(not sure how it works) for shipping when I go to the post office, the shipping gets charged on his account for a cheaper price (around $140). I am not sure if this is a scam but this is what he wrote.

Me: So am I supposed to login with your Fedex account to ship the bag?

Buyer: "No there’s no logging in. You walk in, say I would like to ship this, tell them you have an account number and they ask for it. You give it to them and then provide the shipping info. They charge my account, and give you tracking info and all that which obviously you just upload here on eBay. It’s really really simple. Since I ship all the time I get a really good rate with FedEx. Hence it being 200$ cheaper than that UPS quote that you got."

Please let me know what I should do. If you can answer this, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

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[tdumonde2014]

Never do this, buyer could reroute package and you would not have proof of delivery to the buyer. Without tracking proving delivery to the proper address you would lose your money.

[toysaver]

New sellers with expensive items are targets of scammers.   Anyone who has over $3,000 to spend on a bag will not be worried about the extra hundred for shipping.    Fedex has account numbers for online shipping.  You log in with a password.  How would that work at the PO?  They will want the credit card directly.  The Post Office will not even give PO Box contents without ID. 

If it were me I'd cancel the order citing something is wrong with the buyers address.

[toysaver]

How would it work when you give them the account number, every person behind you in line would charge their shipping to that account number.  Would you be comfortable giving this buyer your credit card number???? Doubt it....

[friskya]

Not a good idea. 

If anything goes wrong with the delivery, you are not FedEx's customer - the account holder is and you won't be able to get any information out of them that would be useful to you if eBay should inform you of a problem with the sale.

Personally, I would tell the buyer that for both parties protection, I ship only with eBay labels (or with an account on one of the third party shipping purchase sites, whichever applies) and offer to let them request cancellation with full refund (if they've paid) or let the sale "time out" if they don't.

[justafemster]

Absolute NOPE!  

The fedex account is probably stolen.  Or was set up with a stolen credit card, this has been going on for AGES.  

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-met-shipping-fraud-20100805-story.html

I bet they want to pay you by check too, then you have to send the overage back to them.  It's the nigerian scam, but with a more moderish twist.

Just move on, this "buyer" isn't anyone you want to GIVE your product and your cash to.  And you will if you continue communication or continue the "sale".  

[chapeau-noir]

I've done it for clothing - just shipped it out with the buyer's fed-ex account.  No problems and I didn't have to give out any sort of personal data.  Just plopped the box onto the counter, gave the number, and the clerk there did the rest.  Not sure I'd do it for an expensive item, though.