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PayPal Payment Question....

I sell a lot of basketball cards and I keep getting more and more intn'l bidders. I read a few horror stories on here about being ripped by paypal chargebacks- apparently even registered mail does not cover proof of delivery. So Can I accept PayPal from US Bidders and state that international bidders must pay with a money order or cashiers check? Or is this a PayPal/ eBay violation? How do others deal with this, other than not accepting non US bidders.

Comments

  • stevekstevek Posts: 30,457 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I sell a lot of basketball cards and I keep getting more and more intn'l bidders. I read a few horror stories on here about being ripped by paypal chargebacks- apparently even registered mail does not cover proof of delivery. So Can I accept PayPal from US Bidders and state that international bidders must pay with a money order or cashiers check? Or is this a PayPal/ eBay violation? How do others deal with this, other than not accepting non US bidders. >>



    Can't be a PayPal violation because you can set your PayPal preferences to accept PayPal or not depending on the buyer - especially because of confirmed and unconfirmed addresses.

    I doubt very much if it's an ebay violation but I'm not 100% sure of that. You may want to check out some large Powersellers on ebay, perhaps non-baseball card related, and see how they do it for international buyers.
  • You can say international bidders must use a certain payment, but I have sold international with Paypal and never had a problem, I block all international bidders then when they ask I screen them and if I see no problems and they are from a "safe" country then I add them to my excmption list where they can bid.

    Safe countries IMHO are:

    Canada, UK, Japan, Germany and Australia.

    Ones I avoid:

    Italy, Brazil, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Singapore, NIGERIA and any other African country.
  • CDsNutsCDsNuts Posts: 10,092
    NIGERIA and any other African country

    Racism is an ugly, ugly thing.
  • lol, but so is getting a fake paypal payment for 1000 more than the actual item cost.
  • MooseDogMooseDog Posts: 1,949 ✭✭✭
    I'm a fairly high volume seller ($10-20K/month collectibles and computer parts). I've sent things out to (by last count 45 different countries). I really don't mind sending to other countries. It widens your market and because the US Dollar is so weak world wide everyone else in the world has greater buying power for US Goods. In my opinion, there are some risks, but if you refuse to sell worldwide you are missing out on a huge market. Here are some observations.

    CANADA - nothing but good things to say about our Northern brothers and sisters. Hundreds of transactions - no fraud/chargebacks and only one shipment failed to show up, and it was an envelope (letter). Delivery can sometimes be slow due to customs, or just Canada Post issues.

    MEXICO/SOUTH AMERICA - good dealings, especially to Brazil in particular.

    EUROPE - mostly good dealings, probably 600-800 transactions. Germany especially good. Things seem to get delivered very quickly. A few impatient UK buyers complaining out slow delivery. Italy delivery can be excruciatingly slow, but most Italians understand that. Two lost packages, one to UK and one to Sweden, both parcels. The Swede buyer was particularly bitter, over a $6.00 transaction in which I gave him a complete refund and ate all the fees, shipping and cost of the lost product.

    RUSSIA & FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS - can be dicey. About a dozen transaction mostly small. No problems with hockey cards. Had one case where a Ukraine buyer paid for some computer memory with a hijacked PayPal account but it was only $40 lost. One Russia buyer attempted to purchase $400 in computer parts but something didn't smell right (new account, didn't reply to my confirmation email) and 2 days later I got a note from PayPal that it was a hijacked account. I did not send anything out so no loss.

    ASIA - all good, especially to Japan. Never lost anything. Had some "please sell to me now" request from Indonesia but those are all frauds anyway so I just ignore them. Getting same things from Philippines recently.

    AUSTRALIA - about 100 transactions, never a problem.

    AFRICA/MIDDLE EAST - Israel no problems. I've sent 1 or 2 shipments to each of South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya, Cameroon and Egypt. One package to Egypt got lost but then showed up after 82 days. Buyer already neg'd me though, then apologized profusely after it showed up. Have had some attempted fraud from Nigeria. The previous poster who said NO to all African countries probably shouldn't have made such a blanket statement, but at least in Nigeria, it seems that internet fraud is a growth industry. Use some sense and don't fall for those "I'll send you a money order for more than the amount and you send me the difference" scams. The Middle East I have not had a whole lot of dealings except to a few American ex-pats. They tell me that in most of the Arab countries ALL mail packages get searched so you can have some long delays in delivery. Shipping to military APOs also I have had no issues.


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