Should my Mom Accept South African Payment?

If she is going to get a cc, get a signed authorization to use the card from them. Seriously though... After all this discussion and advice, you have to ask yourself one question. If you are asking these questions, perhaps this is not a good idea.

If you are going to go through with sale, these IMO (10 years in business) are your only safe options:

1. Get certified funds FIRST.
2. Walk away.

Hope this helps.

BTW, it is not unheard of for someone to pay an enormous amount on shipping or customs, etc, to get something they really desire. I know I have paid through the roof some times for everything from Wine to Star Wars memorabilia.

 

This sounds more and more like fraud. A guy willing to do a wire transfer? It's no safer than a credit card. It can be disputed as well. IMHO, you've spent too much time on this. Dump this sale and move on. Yes, selling things to people in other countries can be fun. But take a step back and look at everything here. This is fraud, pure and simple.

 

alright, here's a little twist and I'm not sure what it means. It's either very good or very bad. He gave his phone number in his email in case we needed to give it to the shipper and said that if he isn't able to answer then his colleague would should be home. So, I haven't been able to find this guy in the south african white pages online. BUT, if i type in his colleague's name then I get an address and phone number that are the same as this guy is giving me and the same that's in the paypal.

I'm not sure what to make of this. It does seem good that the address and phone number match up and are the same in the email, paypal, and white pages. The fact that it's under this other guy's name isn't great I guess.

I lived with 2 roomates a couple years ago and I just did a white pages search for all of our names and I'm the only one who came up as living at that address. So if their roomates (or a gay couple) this would make sense.

So if the credit card and this address match, is there a way this card could be stolen? I don't see how it could be, but maybe someone can enlighten me. My main concern is a credit card scam, and not a chargeback. With enough evidence you can fight a chargeback right? (tracking, terms of agreement)

Also, earlier on when we refunded the guy's paypal payment, he misunderstood and thought we weren't shipping and were holding onto his payment and he got into a bit of a huff. He asked for a refund (even though we had already processed it) and mentioned his lawyer. Would that make sense if the card was stolen?

 

Is 1 sale worth this much work? I don't think so.

 

HAHAHAHA That's a good one. This forum is a little too open, so I won't go into it.

 

lol and i'm not even making it, i'll let you know what happens.

 

Buying online from overseas companies can indeed be a pain. Many of them don't ship to SA or if they do you have to send them copies of your ID, and other forms as well. Not to mention that for most items the minimum postage amounts to around $50-$100. Then if the item gets here you have hassles with import tax etc. Not a very pretty situation.

You might want to also ask the guy to fax/e-mail you a copy of the CC with his signature as well as a copy of his identity document. That way you could see which bank issued the CC and contact them directly to check if there is any issues. The ID no (provided that it is legitimate) can be used to track down the person if issues arise and you should also be able to see if the name on the CC and ID match.

 

Move on dude. It's not worth the headache. Sounds too fishy.
A bank wire transfer would be the way to go if you absolutely want to proceed this. Once the bank wire transfer is made, contact the bank and asked if the transfer was authorized by the owner.

 

Depending on the country; this is meaningless information, though.

 

Very true. South Africa as a very good banking system, every account has to be FICA approved, (https://www.fnb.co.za/personal/findsolutions/homecomers/ficaFaq.html).
There is fraud, but it is the same in every country.

As you said, the same scam could happen anywhere in the US.
Western Union, escow, credit cards, all those scams can, (and do), happen in the US.
If you are not happy with the deal, (the reason why you are here in the first place), just tell him, sorry, 'US customers only'. No point in giving him the run around.
Clearly whatever he is doing 'seems fishy'.

Never!, most salaries around 3K are for the lower income earners, certainly not the ones with Paypal accounts and not one wanting antique lamps.
3K is close to minimum wage.
A teacher earns around 10K and a computer programmer around 25K, (much more in JHB).
So someone who wants an antique lamp he is likely to be middle class and earn around +20K.

The OP mentioned that he got the address from the phone book.
Without giving all the details we can easily tell you if it is an affluent area of South Africa.

6K, (total), for a lamp sounds like a lot to me, but I am not a lamp person, maybe it is a bargain here.
Give us a link and I will look around to give you an idea of a similar kind of lamp. Maybe, even with the shipping, it is a good deal.

FFMG

 

Visit Namepros where there are lots of topics related to African scams, among others.

This sounds like one of them

www.namepros.com/warnings-and-alerts

 

While I agree with you, I find it amazing that you are painting an entire continent with the same brush.

And, for the record, a lot of the warnings in your link are from scams in the US/UK.

FFMG

 

Guess I didn't express my salary info correctly - that was meant for the whole country including low income groups. In Gauteng people earn the most and R10 000 - R15 000 is average for that area. Sorry for any misunderstandings.

 

So my mom has basically turned down the sale as it is too much risk/trouble for a small sale. If I had to make a bet whether he was legit or not though, I'd say he was. He seemed very knowledgable from the emails, but even if I was 90% sure he wasn't a scammer, it's still too big of an unneccessary risk. For you south africans on the thread he was from Johannesburg.