eBay sale to buyers outside USA
Eugel Yeo
I've noticed many US ebay sellers restricting shipping to within USA.
I live in Singapore and have always wondered about this.
If a foreign buyer agrees to make full payment to
the seller in the US, and the seller ships the instrument
only after payment is cleared, what is the risk to the seller?
Maybe I just don't understand how this auction thing works....
Cheers.
- Eugel
mark
Well, I hope that I'm not attacked as an arrogan american for saying
this, but I'm sure I will be anyway....
The reasons I prefer not to ship outside of USA (CONUS, really) are:
1. Uncertain shipping charges
- When I sell on ebay (or harmony-central.com, etc) I don't package the
item up in advance. I wait for it to sell. Nor do I have a suitable
scale to weigh it in advance. Nor the inclination to measure it out in
advance. In fact, I normally just have my local Staples store pack it
($5 flat fee no matter how big). I've sold and shipped enough amps, for
example, which are pretty heavy, to know that the most it costs is about
$40 to ship a small (< 30 watts) tube amp from the east coast to the
west. That includes insurance. I have no idea what it would cost to ship
to Singapore. And spending 15 minutes on the UPS.com site guesstimating
what it would cost is a bit risky. For both buyer and seller. I hear of
guys paying $200 and $300 to ship a guitar across the world. Man. That's
crazy. I would never do it.
2. Almost all of the scams I've heard that have occurred on ebay have
been due to 1 of two things (usually both):
- foreign bidders paying with hokey forms of payment - why ANYONE would
accept a cashier's check nowadays is beyond me. I hate taking personal
checks and although I used to take them I no longer do. When I did take
them, I'd tell the bidders in advance that it takes a *minimum* of 10
days for the check to clear before shipment. That seems to be the
standard line on ebay from sellers. I've never had a bank take more than
5 days for a check to clear, but either way, what if that check bounces?
I'm still out the bounce fee from my bank. If it's not PayPal (to a
confirmed address and *not* from a credit card) or a USPS Money Order
then I don't accept it. I've had over 150 transactions on ebay and have
never ever been burned. Not even a slow shipment. Not even a broken
headstock! : ) Obviously all of this can happen just as easily if the
buyer was in Tennessee or Utah, etc. But somehow I'd feel a lot better
getting on the phone with a local Utah police department than the French
or Sudanese police.
If I did happen to get burned, I have enough frequent flyer miles,
balls, and lack of a brain that I would jump on a plane and find the
bastard who did stiff me and extract reparations one way or another. But
not outside of CONUS : )
3. Inconvenience...I shipped a book a while back to Canada. I have
shipped books from time to time to California, Chicago, etc. Never to a
foreign country. Naive me, I take it to the post office and the lady
snaps at me that I need to fill out a special customs form and that the
address has to be listed a certain way yadda yadda yadda because of 9/11
and new security yadda yadda yadda. So I have to get out of line, go
find the form, fill it out, and then wait back in line. Pain in the ass.
And that was to Canada. I can't imagine what I'd have to fill out if I
was shipping to Sudan! Oh, and before Johnny Asia starts spouting off
about how the problem is our right-wing government's security
policies....spare me. please.
All of the above can be summed up in two words: security and
convenience. Is it fair to foreign bidders? No. But I don't want to ever
be left holding the bag due to a buyer not agreeing with the shipping
costs, or a buyer sending me a $10,000 cashier's check, or even a $39
cashier's check or personal check that bounces or is fraudulent. So I
mitigate that possibility as much as possible from happening.
No offense intended whatsoever. I've been to Singapore. Beautiful place.
mark
Pt
<mark2741@six_string_theory_dot_com.com> wrote:
> why ANYONE would
>accept a cashier's check nowadays is beyond me.
Why not?
Pt
Eugel Yeo
No offense taken. Thanks for your comprehensive and considered reply.
It's a fair position, of course. Any seller is free to sell to whomever and
wherever he pleases. Indeed, why indeed with the hassle of international
transacations when the CONUS market is enough?
Glad you enjoyed your visit to Singapore. And, yes, it's a beautiful place.
Hard to find chewing gum though.
- Eugel
Phil T
to the US, I understand this quite well. From the US sellers end,
preparing all the necessary customs paper work can turn into a real pain
in the ass. Plus they often discover just before shipping that they may
have to cough up extra money that they didn't know about before and
haven't been paid for.
On the receiving end, the buyer will often have to pay unexpected
brokerage fees plus taxes and perhaps duty. Naive buyers will often
blame the seller in the US for not telling them that this was coming and
then want reimbursement. When an argument starts over this, the seller
then often gets negative feedback from the buyer, and a complaint lodged
with eBay. If payment was done through PayPal, the buyer can complain to
PayPal that he was stiffed (which he really wasn't), which can result in
money being removed from the seller's PayPal account. Some combination
of the above is usually what has happened to US eBay sellers that
declare they will not ship outside the US. There's just too much
potential grief. I don't blame them a bit.
I'm fortunate in that I live only 20 minutes from Canada/US border and I
have my US purchases sent to a rental mailbox address on the US side in
Niagara Falls, NY. Even with 7 or 10 bucks in gas cost plus the $3.50
bridge toll, it's almost always cheaper than having it sent right to the
house from the US.
Phil
Dave M
>> accept a cashier's check nowadays is beyond me.
Because of the scams: you deposit the check, thinking you've
got the $ (after all, it's CASHIER'S CHECK), you ship the
item, only to discover after a time that the check is bogus.
Winston Castro
Or genuine, but had a stop put on it or been canceled mid process.
Most don't know this is possible, but these scammers have ways.
Michael Tueller
> I hear of guys paying $200 and $300 to ship a guitar across the world.
If you'd ever seen the prices for say a bad setup factory new es175 in
a typical guitar store over here in Europe you'd eventually understand
why we are that crazy to pay such high shipping fees.
BTW it's also about availability not only good deals. A lot of guitar
models (especially archtops) are just very rare in a lot of regions.
I'm not a big fan of ebay as a company but it really opened a market
for me that I could only access in the past by flying to the US.
There are also dealers like Jeff Hale who offer their used guitars
to non US-bidders. I'm very thankful for that.
Mike
Dave M
Last summer somebody tried to scam me. Pretty standard
scam, I guess: I was selling something for $300, but they
wanted to send me a MO for 2 or 3 grand, out of which I'd
deduct my fee, plus $100 for my trouble, then wire them the
difference. Yeah, right.
oasysco
When I first started on eBAY - and even prior to that on
Harmony-central, I sold to places liek Singapore, Germany, UK, Taiwan
and others.
Never had a bad experience and I always used the USPS. Sent many
shipments of amps and gutiars via boat. Took 6 weeks to get there, but
never had a mishap.
There was no risk to me as a seller once the item was paid for. The
reason UI stopped was that it was work on my part for adequate
packaging, cusotms paperwork to ship outside the US, and waiting 6
weeks to make sure the buyer was happy before I could respend the money
he paid.
Greg
ts...@hotmail.com
are seeing . Over the years I have worked some of them out by having a
freight forwarding company act on my behalf as my US address .or will
have merchandise shipped via fed ex, billed to my account.
I can see how it would be a hassel for a lot of people who are not used
to international transactions,as there are customs forms, foreigh
currency , and even wire transfers or cashier cheques to deal with.
Skip
Joe Montgomery
photographed the guitar from every angle, I photo'd the packing
process...I personally took the packed instrument to the ramp facility
at Fedex. I even photo'd the airbill...
As I was filling it out, I asked the counter clerk (who was on the
phone and speaking a foreign language) about every line...do I have to
check this? Yes...what about this? No. Etc.
The guy paid $300 for the shipping in order to track the instrument at
every step...when it arrived in Paris I was quite relieved.
Then the next day, the web tracking marked the package "Exception."
Neither buyer nor I knew what this meant...
It turned out that there was an entry tax on the declared value of the
item ($2500) to release it into the country. It was around $430 USD.
The seller arranged for Fedex to pay the tax to French Customs, then he
was to reimburse Fedex, since the delivery was over 3 hours from Paris.
Like a C.O.D.
When the delivery guy got there the buyer got the instrument into the
house, then closed the door and never paid the money.
Fedex went after the guy for a few days, to no avail...then, I got a
call from Fedex Memphis that since line such and such was not checked
when I originally sent the package, if they could not collect from
buyer, they informed me I would be responsible...
This dragged out over 5 weeks with daily phone calls, memos, e mails to
the seller, etc...
Finally, they somehow got the guy to pay for it. By the time it was
over I had pretty much had it and vowed never to ship overseas again.
JM
Joe Montgomery
zip
><mark2741@six_string_theory_dot_com.com> wrote:
>> why ANYONE would
>>accept a cashier's check nowadays is beyond me.
>
>
>
I can't speak for mark, but I'm through with cashiers checks, until the
security is improved, because today's sophisticated printer are of such
high quality that cashiers checks are fooling even the bankers. The
bad news arrives a couple days later.
A friend of mine got burned with a fake postal money order. I'm through
with those too, for now.
I'm also untrusting of any concert of sports ticket that has changed
hands.
Until I submit to paypal's greed, or a future secure system, I'm
accepting only personal checks from ebay buyers, usa only, with the ten
day delay after deposit.
T77
1. The stories go that foreign buyers (in certain countries) are more
prone to hijack the seller with negative feedback.
2. They may make claims with Ebay or Paypal that the item was never
received.
3. The certified check or money order may be fake. The sellers
doesn't cash the money order and ships right away. This was a recent
scam in the Phillipines.
4. Finally, some sellers don't want to deal with internation shipping.
It may cost $100s of dollars to ship an item. Even if the buyer pays
for it, it can be a pain paying that much out of one's checking
account.
david morley
fake from New York as it does from Guatamala. This shouldn't be an
international selling argument.
The Export documents maybe...
If you want a secure system.....
I just wish everyone would what we do in europe.
Bank Transfer
Free, fast and 100% safe for the recipient. I do it online and it
usually takes a day or 2 anywhere in Europe.
Still, I guess that's "old" europe for you ;)
If the banks didn't try and rip everyone off for international tranfers,
there would be no problem.
ps: I have bought from loads of happy US sellers.
Some seem to have got a system together that works. Good for them as
they make more money.
David
zip wrote:
>><mark2741@six_string_theory_dot_com.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>why ANYONE would
>>>accept a cashier's check nowadays is beyond me.
>>>
>>>
>>Why not?
>>
>>
>>
>
>I can't speak for mark, but I'm through with cashiers checks, until the
>security is improved, because today's sophisticated printers are of
>such high quality that cashiers checks are fooling even the bankers.
>The bad news arrives a couple days later.
>A friend of mine got burned with a fake postal money order. I'm through
>with those too, for now.
>I'm untrusting of any concert of sports ticket that has changed hands.
Bill Williams
>usually takes a day or 2 anywhere in Europe.
I agree its fast and safe, once we have the sellers IBAN and Swift
code, David, but I have had to do it through my (Portuguese) bank and
end up paying about 40 euros in fees for a transfer from euros to
sterling which is a bit of a pain. Our online transfers seem to only
work in-country, unfortunately.
Bill Williams
dunlop212
1. Significantly increases the number of bidders, so you get more dough
for your item.
2. I figure that the chances of a nitpicking buyer wanting to send it
back are much reduced because of the shipping costs. (I have 100%
positive feedback and have never had an item returned, but I still get
nervous on every transaction).
3. The USA buyers almost always win, anyway. International bidders who
win often come up with a domestic address to ship it to.
4. I always make it clear in my shipping instructions that I won't
misrepresent the contents in order to avoid taxes or duties, which are
the responsibility of the buyer. This sends an appropriate message to
folks I may be dealing with, and may help keep the quality of bidders
up.
5. The bank check clears before shipping.
I have always enjoyed the e-mail traffic with international bidders,
who are unfailingly knowledgeable and courteous. Queries that start
with the word "Dude" and ask questions that were clearly answered in
the ad are always domestic.