eBay Fraud Question

I sold an item on eBay this past weekend for under 200.00. The buyer is in Europe but I said in my listing I would only ship to the USA.

He paid via PP and gave me an address here in the USA to use for shipping but will not change his eBay ship to address to the one he wants me to ship the item to as he says it is a one time thing.

Is there a scam in here somewhere or am I just paranoid?

Scam. ONLY​ ship to a confirmed Paypal address with a tracking number. If you do not and someone files a chargeback you will lose your money.

You aren't paranoid at all BTB. Never ever ship an item to an address that is not matching
to their PayPal address. In my opinion it screams fraud and it would be best not to even
deal with this guy.

When it comes down to tracking proof etc you need everything to match up.

Bass, make sure that the address that they have on PP is the right on and to prevent getting scammed, print off the label via Paypal then take it to the Local USPS or UPS store and get the items verified, that you put in the box, so you have proof of what you shipped from your house is the actual item. I also take photos of the item and the shipping label next to it for added proof.

If I was you I would contact Paypal and tell them the situation so you can get confirmation before you ship it to be sure. There are lots of scammers on eBay/Paypal so be careful.

Most ebay sellers state they will only ship to a verified paypal address for this reason, it's too easy to scam.

Refund the guy and tell him if he wants it shipped to a different address he has to pay from a paypal account verified at that address.

BassTrackerBoats said:

Is there a scam in here somewhere or am I just paranoid?

Click to expand...

Of course it's a scam. But a buyer asking something to ship to an address that is not verified is one of the few instances where paypal/eBay will side with the seller.

He's refunded, thanks to all above.

I've had where the Paypal verified address was a US one, but the buyer was in Europe. Seemed scammy, but did some research on it and found that some people run a middleman business selling on an eBay equivalent in other countries and source from eBay US. They have it shipped to their address in the US, then they must ship it out from there.

Advice here is solid, ship only to a verified Paypal address, and buying shipping through them is a good double precaution. Paypal will be on your side, if your package tracking shows delivery to that address.

Ebay can say you sent it to a different address then what was on the invoice to be sent to so he never got the product. They will refund him, and you lose your product.

This is in theory of course because I never ship to an address outside of the ship to on the invoice.

BTB... Seems you already got the answer to your question. Never ship to an address other than the confirmed one attached to the buyers account as that voids any seller protection in Ebay. I always state clearly in my listings as well as in the payment instructions that I only ship to Ebay/Paypal confirmed address. No exceptions!

I also always state in my listing that it is the buyers responsibility to ensure that there address is current and correct upon checkout as occasionally items will be returned due to insufficient or incorrect address... a restocking fee may apply. This happens with new Ebay users. If you ship the item and it is returned as such you will have to invoice them to pay to re-ship the item or deduct the shipping cost from the refund as a restocking fee if they dont won't you to re-ship. You probably knew this.

In your OP you said you stated that you only ship to the U.S. Was just wondering if you knew that Ebay has a global shipping program. If your item qualifies... you simply pay normal U.S. shipping costs to send it to their hub in Ohio and they send it wherever for no extra cost. I shipped a 2 lb. package to Australia for 6 bucks. Same as it was to ship anywhere in the U.S.

Good luck and look forward to seeing more helpful posts from you......

Of course if the buyer have enough feedbacks and he is from a big EU country, this can't be scam. Electronics and many more items in EU are not a cheap as in NA, also many items are NOT available in the EU countries or can't be found anywhere. So that's why there're tons of US mail forwarding companies that are doing that job - buying items from Amazon, eBay, any US store (that ships only to "US billing/postal/shipping addresses" and then forwards to the real buyer's location). Nothing strange and nothing new. I personally do this when buying items from DE for example (just changing the PP's address to the DE's mail forwarding company's office). Have received the items without any problems, of course not used eBay tho (item's were from a .de domain that ships again only to DE addresses), but I'm sure I won't experience any issue with a German eB seller doing the same, as long as I have solid feedbacks behind and registration.

So always ask the buyer IF he will use a mail forwarding address company, which is that company in order to confirm the address and the company's address (warehouse) matches the buyer's US location address where he wants to be shipped (or changed his PP address, and/or eB address + country, it's not so hard, 3 minutes job both address on eB/PP to be matching).