Should my Mom Accept South African Payment?

So I run my mom's antique website and she doesn't do much business online, mostly local customers browse the goods online and come into the store. She has sold stuff to people over the website, usually they call and ask for details and she gets their credit card info over the phone. The site does allow people to purchase items using paypal however, although nobody has actually done this until now.

Some guy from south africa emailed her and told her he paid for an item with the paypal system and wants to know how much the shipping would be. It turns out the shipping would the same cost as the lamp he is buying (about $400) and he said that would be ok. The guy is a verified paypal user, with an unconfirmed address in south africa. His phone number is from south africa, however his email address is from yahoo.ca, not sure why a south african woul have a canadian email address.

Anyways, I advised her to refund the payment and tell the guy to send a check since paypal does provide any sort of protection from foregin buyers. Does anybody have any experience accepting paypal from south africa or any advice on what you think she should do?

 

I'd say no to this shipment, personally. I wouldn't take a check either. Better off refunding the money and forgetting about it all together.

 

ask for wester union

it does sound Very fishy

 

Hmm well asck for shiping payment before sending item

 

why sound fishy? He may be some dude who is very rich? How much stars does he have? i.e. the paypal system thingy.

Anyway, you could try sending the Paypal email address of him to ask if that is really him. If it is really him, it hsould be safe.

*He may be using someone else's email address for paypal*.>> it happended to me.

 

I'm not sure I understand. I read it that he already paid for the item but still needs to pay for shipping? If that's correct, what would the problem be since you've already received payment? Just don't send it until shipping is paid. As far as confirmed paypal addresses, keep in mind that US addresses are pretty much the only ones that can be confirmed.

I'm in Canada, have had the same paypal account since 2000 with the same address, same bank and same debit card and no problems or chargebacks but am still not "confirmed". I'm "verified" (which is what they do with accounts outside of the US). Some US retailers wouldn't take payment from me so I spoke to someone at PayPal about this because I wanted to be "confirmed" instead of "verified". I was told that only a small percentage of non-US addresses (just Canada and UK) were actually confirmed and that was back in the early days when they first started confirming address (before ebay?) and also that International addresses will probably never be confirmed.

As for the yahoo .ca address, those are pretty common here and people don't just give them up when they work abroad, which a lot of Canadians do in search of better salaries.

anyway, I'm not saying ship it without payment but.... don't give up the sale because he has an International address (which can't be confirmed) or because he has a Canadian email address (I can give you contact info for at least 20 friends with .ca email address that live in Asian countries). Talk to someone at PayPal and see what kind of protection you have.

my two cents

 

use escrow.com its great. i dont trust any other escrow site, but i've used them several times for international transactions.

 

Make sure she holds it for a week if she does

 

For something like this, certified funds only. My friends wife is one of those idiots that bought a xbox or whatever that thing is called, ps3? Whatever.. Anyway, she sold it to some guy in another country on eBay. The guy sent her an email claiming to be from PayPal showing funds paid. She never bothered to check her paypal account and sent that thing. Then the dude started having her buy other stuff, a laptop, etc... to ship to him as well. She was lucky and managed to get UPS to stop the shipment and send the items back.

This could very well be legit, but I tend not to ship anything overseas anymore because of customs. It is a PITA for one, expensive and customs agents in many countries (ARGENTINA for example) are crooks. If they like the item/s or don't think that the items should be allowed into the country they will take the items for their own.

It's too risky IMO on several fronts.

 

I've gotten offers from Hungaria, and other areas outside of the USA. I just reply back saying don't ship overseas. It's way to risky unless you get a verified payment in your hands somehow.

 

I agree with humanedited. You want $$$, you got to be more open minded. So there's nothing wrong with he buys the stuff? There may be rich african dude out there who is in the hunt for good product.

having said that, it is necessary to get payment upfront. Exponent also has a good point>> use Escrow to protect u.

 

When i used to sell stuff online in my ebay auctions and on my site I had " I ONLY SHIP TO U.S.A or Canada! NO Exceptions!

 

I see a lot of posts from people who obviously have no ecommerce experience. The sale makes no sense. No (smart or real) customer is going to pay for a product and then double up to pay the shipping. From your info, the guy didn't even question the shipping rates - that's a telltale sign of fraud. Think about it.

If you ship the order, please update us in a month when paypal takes the money back and it turns out to be fraud. I won't post "I told you so" I promise.

 

Get him to pay through Wester Union. It offers no protection, and no refunds. So if he transfers the $$, you'd be assured to keep it and you know the guy is legit.

 

That's not true at all. For anyone living outside of the US, shipping is very costly, we are accustomed to it (as well as duty and taxes on imports) so if we can't buy the product in our own country, we eat up the additional fees and order from whoever has it. My cousin sells items from estate auctions on ebay all the time and more often than not, the shipping ends up being very close to the purchase price. Granted, not everyone is going to pay a premium all the time but at $400, I'm sure it's a pretty f'n nice lamp which is also probably very unique. It's a matter of supply and demand and not everyone has access to all products available in the US.

(I don't want to sound like I'm encouraging this sale at all. I don't know either part, just trying to give some perspective from someone who doesn't live in the US and buys a lot of products online.)

Like anything, common sense comes into play. Don't take someone's word that they sent Paypal, login and confirm it yourself. Contact PayPal if you need to. Get the money in your hands, then ship the product.

 

it is a tough call You could easily get burned on this.

I have seen too much of the way various frauds work and whenever you are deailing with any transactions overseas you always run the risk.

If you got the funds via Western union you would have the cash in your hand up-front. Paypal, if it is funded by a Credit card can be charged back up to a year later (credit Card chargeback)

Can you (or your mum) afford to throw the item away, along with the cost of shipping if it got charged back? You would not only lose the money, but the item as well as it would have been shipped a long time ago.

 

Dude, I would never ship to an asteroid. Martians always rip you off

Hungaria

 

I agree, refund paypal and set up the transaction through escrow.com The guy can STILL use his paypal account to pay through escrow.com. Just explain that escrow.com provides protection to both buyer and seller.

The thing with paypal is the guy could pay all the $ with shipping and then 1-3 months later, file a chargeback and if you cannot show proof of delivery then paypal will refund his money no questions. It is really hard to get tracking information outside of the US. It might be different if you use UPS, but the post office, forget it.

IMO escrow.com would be the best bet.

 

That's racist! I know some damn fine martians. You besmirch their good names with this accusation!

 

Thanks for the good advice guys. It wouldn't be the end of her business if she lost the money on the lamp, but I'd rather not risk it at all. I'd like to keep 100% of her online sales positive. I'll tell her that she should get a check and have it cleared, use western union, or escrow.com to receive the payment. I've already refunded the guy's payment.