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Sellers Beware!!!

Folks, 

I am wondering if anyone else here noticing the latest trend on Audiogon. I have been approached by buyers in Vietnam to buy my listings. I have gotten at least dozen offers in last month or so, they are pretending to be US based buyers, with US address and do not disclose their actual location until you have accepted the offer.  I have already declined two confirmed offers as soon as I figured out their true identity. The US address being provided on Audiogon is either a local business shop run by Vietnamese native or a 'friend' address. I googled the address and called the local address listed on Audiogon. It turns out to be small business shop and the owner had no idea about the sale or the product he is about to receive in next 2-3 days. 

The icing on the cake, the buyer gets bent of shape when you point out these last minute surprises and then try shift the blame on us that we are not very 'trusting'. Go figure! 

I am outlining some of the things that were common in my dealings, 

1. Broken English (sorry no offense)
2. 12-14 hour delay between communications
3. Start off with low ball offer and then agrees to pay within 10-15% off of your asking price
4. Unusual delay in receiving payments, they tend to apologize profusely and blame PayPal for delay
5. They will ask you to 'absorb' PayPal fee due higher percentage charged by PayPal on intl. transfers
6. Negative, neutral or no feedback
7. The address in their Audiogon profile will be either in west cost (CA) or east coast (NY). 

This thread is not intended to target a certain race or nationality, the sole purpose of this thread is to create awareness against the 'sneaky' buyers. I welcome all buyers, domestic or international and wish them a hassle free buying and selling experience on Audiogon. 

128x128lalitk
zephyr24069's avatar
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zephyr24069
1,241 posts
 
I have sold successfully to buyers in Spain, England, Italy, Romania (with freight forwarding involved), Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea and mainland China; the vast majority of these sales have (not surprisingly as I have US power-rated equipment), power cords and interconnects.  The difference being that the buyer did in each case accurately represent where they were from and in most cases, paid most, if not all of the PP fees and were straight-up on the shipping costs.  Negotiation overall took 1-3 additional rounds over and above the 2-3 round norm (my experience, not necessarily everyone's...).  There are several aspects to PP when dealing internationally besides the fees;

1. it generally takes 3-5 day for the funds to settle into the seller's PP account in the US
2. if the source bank of the buyer is not fully 'online' with PP, you may get a notice that PP is going to manage the transaction using an 'eCheck' from the buyer to you that PP handles the deposit of into your account, that can take as much as 5-10 business days
3. I always tell any buyer (US or foreign) that I won't ship until funds clear from my PP account firmly into my personal bank account....(another 3 days)

This implies that buyers have had to agree to wait for about 2 weeks before I will ship depending upon how long it takes for me to actually have the money in my account (not just PP).  They then have 7-10 days wait time for US Postal Service Priority Mail Package/other service (or UPS/FedEx/DHL  in rare cases if they paid the higher fees). If they agree to all this, they are probably safer than some of the more suspect buyers we are talking about here. In short though, document everything at every stage of the process and keep this audit trail!  
alpha_gt
155 posts
 
I remember a show on TV a while back talking about how Amazon and many other large mail order companies will not do business with many countries in the Far East and South Pacific, due to excessive credit card fraud. Apparently their governments have no laws against defrauding foreign banks. So they make bogus credit accounts and make large or multiple purchases, and later someone in the Free World sees a fraudulent charge on their credit account. Hopefully they eventually prove they never made the purchase, and get a refund, and the bank is left holding the bag. "As long as I get my money, who cares?", maybe you don't care if you're helping someone steal from the bank? But with my luck it would wind up in my lap sooner or later. 

If someone is being deceitful and underhanded, there is usually a good reason. What's legal and where one's responsibility begins and ends may be subjective, but right and wrong rarely change. Maybe they are just trying to avoid import taxes and fees? It's still wrong. 





knghifi
1,668 posts
 
lalitk OP115 posts02-12-2016 5:08pmknghifi..... where is the problem? 

The problem lies with people being not upfront and honest. How would you treat a 'business deal' where buyer is coming across as 'sneaky'.  This gentlemen i dealt with had different email addresses, negative feedback, 3rd party paypal account, the shipping addresse had no knowledge of the shipment. Not to mention the additional loss of 1% in PayPal international fees.
With internet, there are no borders or clue who is behind the screen and on the keyboard.   It's the new world so deal with it or stay off.  I think it's great with a larger pool of potential buyers and sellers but have to more careful.

 I'm not advocating dealing with everybody including scrumbags.    If you asked the right questions,  suspicious of his representation and red flags, why did you deal with him??      Ultimately you made the business transaction so deal with it and learn from it.   You can't blame global warming.   Unfortunately sometimes we all have to learn from our mistakes.

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coltrane1
696 posts
 
"as long as payment clears paypal, and I ship to US address, I am not concerned where the actual owner to be  lives.."

This! What Vietnamese doesn't have a US contact, or family member. Have that member pay for the item, you ship to them. They choose to ship to Vietnam, or anywhere in the world, it's their business, not yours. You're not responsible for an item shipped elsewhere after it's been received in the CONUS.
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