Should I post to Nigeria?

[dell1312]

I have sold an item worth $120 to a buyer from Nigeria and am worried it may be some sort of a scam buyer.

Should I go ahead and post in good faith, considering if the buyer files a complaint , eBay will take the side of the buyer and issue a refund. I always post signature on delivery  with tracking.

[imastawka]

[purplemon18]

I've had little trouble shipping all over the world, but most of the items I sell are $10-20, so I'm much less likely to get scammed.

The biggest problems I have had are from clueless americans who buy region locked DVDs, and people in countries where the local language is not english. 

The languages one is not surprising though, if Australia post gets an item with an address written in Pashtu they are just going to say **bleep** and throw it in the bin. I have resorted to using google translate and putting 2-3 address labels on the envelope more than once.

Here is a map from paypal of all the places I've shipped to in 2018. The struggling exchange rate of the Australian Dollar has boosted my international sales quite a bit, something like 4 a week to 12 a week.

[dell1312]

No weird messages, and it appears the PayPal transaction has proceeded normally, but the buyer doesn’t have any record (0 feedback)

i don’t like to be suspicious, but think I know whose side ebay will take if it all goes pear shaped .

[dell1312]

 Nice to hear from you again kopenhagen, Thankyou  for your advice on countries to avoid posting to. I will take it and adjust my listings.

[dell1312]

Thankyou for both posts. I have only had one problem like this with an item sent to Spain, and truly thought that tracking covered everywhere in its travels until delivery. I will make  amendments to some of my listings that may be at risk. Thankyou.

[go-tazz]

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@dell1312 wrote:

No weird messages, and it appears the PayPal transaction has proceeded normally, but the buyer doesn’t have any record (0 feedback)

i don’t like to be suspicious, but think I know whose side ebay will take if it all goes pear shaped .

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It's probably been paid with a stolen credit card/PP account.

Nigeria stands for one thing only and that's scams.

They have to start new accounts all the time because they don't have old ones as they keep getting shut down.

They are getting less "picky" and will try to grab items of lesser value,(so anything at $80 plus might now

be a target for them as the world has gotten a bit better at excluding Nigeria from their post to list),

[springyzone]

I hope that you will come back here in the next month or so and let us know how this transaction goes (if you do decide to go ahead and not cancel/refund, that is). It would be interesting to know.

I don't know that I would be game to proceed with the sale, myself.

I'd be worried about selling to any person from overseas with zero feedback and doubly doubtful about Nigeria.

I think the odds are higher that a Nigerian with zero feedback trying to buy internationally on ebay could be a scammer and to some extent, selling on ebay is about playing the odds. It's not about labelling everyone in a country as a scammer but more trying to work out how likely the transaction is to be successful.

Sellers do that every time they decide whether to send with or without tracking and when they decide which countries to post to etc

There's a lot that could go wrong selling to Nigeria.  How reliable is their postal service and tracking? What if the buyer claims not received or not as described? You could easily lose item price plus postage price.

It could easily all go pear shaped and we all know who would get the worse end of the deal. 

[dell1312]

Thankyou everyone, it seems the issue has resolved itself.

Without any notification from eBay or PayPal the payment from Nigeria was reversed.

Had I not decided to give it some more thought today,I could have easily posted this morning and lost the item plus the postage cost of $40 or so.

i am a little unnerved, as my email address is shown on my PayPal account, so I don’t know if I should be worried about that fact.

i appreciate the input Provided by those who gave advice. It’s a bit of a minefield out there.

Thankyou everyone, I hope I can be helpful to all of you down the track.

[go-tazz]

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@dell1312 wrote:

Thankyou everyone, it seems the issue has resolved itself.

Without any notification from eBay or PayPal the payment from Nigeria was reversed.

Hijacked credit card or PP account and rightfull owner stopped payment.

Had I not decided to give it some more thought today,I could have easily posted this morning and lost the item plus the postage cost of $40 or so.

i am a little unnerved, as my email address is shown on my PayPal account, so I don’t know if I should be worried about that fact.

It wont show to them unless they request it and you would've been notified.

Just follow normal procedure and don't click on things that you aren't certain off.

i appreciate the input Provided by those who gave advice. It’s a bit of a minefield out there.

Thankyou everyone, I hope I can be helpful to all of you down the track.

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That's why the community is so good because they generally know better then eBay on how things can go

wrong,

[tazzieterror]

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@dell1312 wrote:
...i am a little unnerved, as my email address is shown on my PayPal account, so I don’t know if I should be worried about that fact.

i appreciate the input Provided by those who gave advice. It’s a bit of a minefield out there.

Thankyou everyone, I hope I can be helpful to all of you down the track.

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Consider setting up a seperate and dedicated email address for PayPal to insulate it (and your regular email address) in situations like this.

All my major online accounts have their own unique email addresses, so a problem or compromise in one doesn't affect the others.  Likewise, if I start gettimg spam email to one of these addresses I know there has been a compromise or my details have been sold on by the associated company, and I can create a new email address or take appropriate action.

I'm glad to hear you haven't been left out of pocket with this transaction - selling overseas has some extra risks associated with it, and I decided years ago it wasn't worth the trouble.