Buyer and shipping adress are different first name

[rocketscollectibles]

Hi.

Just did a sale today and i found that buyer name and shipping infos on ebay are not the same. They both have the same last name it might be 2 from the same family, but should i cancel that transaction or doing it? Not sure what to do there and if it's potentially a scam incomming or even someone buying without permission...

I'm especially hesitant cause i ship post canada lettermail with no tracking and i can easily loose my stuff with nothing to do. It's immediate payment, saying on ebay it's paid and to ship. In my sold items, it's wrote that buyer is ( fake names for the exemple ) bob smith, and ship it out to bob smith on the side. But i click then to see shipping infos/adress, it's wrote james smith

What should i do there? Should i ship it to james cause it's the shipping infos, cancel the transation, message ebay?

[reallynicestamps]

My name has been different from my husband's for all of the 53 years we have been married.

It is quite common to see one name on the payment and another on the purchase, especially with Paypal where a family may share one account.

The name is less important than the address.

If the addresses match, ship.

You can if you are still concerned write the buyer's name as  Bob Smith c/o James Smith. 

You might be able to change that, or just write it in with a pen.

When I have a shipment going to a business address which is surprisingly common, I write Personal Documents on it in pen, in the hope that my customer will get it without her assisstant opening it.

[rocketscollectibles]

Btw to add to this. When i started listing items a few months ago with 0 feedback no sales, i was receiving multiples best offers of the same price than BIN that i read are most of the time scams. And this actual buyer ebay profil name really reminds me something, i think he was one of those, i can't say at 100% but i think he was. I actually might should just cancel the transation... I feel like it could be a very very easy scam once i shipped to say that he did not bought that item

Edit: is there somewhere we can see an history of all offers we received!? Even on a listing that have been deleted

[pjcdn2005]

Honestly...if you are spooked by a first name being different than you might want to reconsider selling online as that in itself is not an indication of someone being dishonest.  I see that all the time and it has never caused a problem.  There is an element of risk when selling online and I can understand your concern but have you actually had a problem yet?

It's frustrating for a buyer when a seller cancels a transaction without a good reason, it reflects poorly on all ebay sellers.  Why should a buyer spend their time deciding which item to purchase only to have it cancelled?  Also, unless the cancellation is buyer requested or if there is a problem with address, the only other choice for the cancellation reason is that you are out of stock/item damaged and if you have too many of those ebay may limit your account.

Were the offers that you are referring to through ebay messages? If so, you can check it your messages.  If they were offers through the send offer on your listings then there should be a record on ebay although I don't know offhand where that is but you should have received emails from ebay when you received the offers...have you checked there?

[ypdc_dennis]

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@rocketscollectibles wrote:

...  is there somewhere we can see an history of all offers we received!? Even on a listing that have been deleted

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If the offers are not too old (and undeleted) you can check your Messages.

https://mesg.ebay.ca/mesgweb/ViewMessages/0/All

[pjcdn2005]

I don't mean to be harsh but one of my pet peeves is sellers cancelling sales when there doesn't appear to be any reason for doing so.  

[t_bjarnason]

I've sold quite a few cards through eBay and several of those transactions were not only a different first name, but an entirely different first and last name all together, and they've all been positive, hassle-free transactions with positive feedback from those buyers. People have different reasons for why they might have a different name online and a different name when it comes to shipping. That's their business, not mine. 

As has been mentioned before, the address is the only real important part. As long as those match, there should be no need to worry. 

A different name is also not a good enough reason to cancel and reflects poorly on yourself. As pjcdn2005 mentioned, if there is that much worry and paranoia with selling online, then you shouldn't sell on line to begin with. Yes, there is a chance that you will get one bad apple out of 100 that will try to scam you. If you're shipping lettermail, then it will be a small loss as you should never be shipping high-value items without tracking.  

[ricarmic]

When you are shipping lettermail with no tracking you have no coverage anyway, so it doesn't matter if the name is different the address is different etc, you had no coverage if the address and name was exactly the same anyway, so you are not taking on any more risk. 

The only caveat would be if there was something suspicious about the situation, or requests by the buyer, but a different first name is about as far from suspicious as is possible....

I will ship to anything different, different names, addresses etc and have done this for over 20 years. I do not remember ever losing an item to someone who's name or address was different.... 

A good example for me is that I often have children buying presents for their father or mother or grandfather, grandmother for example, so everything is different the name and address. As I mentioned at the top, I also ship 80% non tracked so there's no more risk shipping to a different name or address.

Something to keep in mind, reading all the horror stories on these boards will tend to slant ones thinking that all buyers are criminals which is not the case of course, here we hear about the 1 tenth of 1% of problem buyers.......not the other 99.9% of good ones.....

[reallynicestamps]

YES .

Any user Board is very likely to be found by people with problems (and people with answers for those problems).

EBay has over 25million transactions a day.

[rocketscollectibles]

Its not paranoia or anything. Its just the learning process, i think you guys forget that i dont have the experience to know if no tracking comes with 1% or 50% scams, or to spot all potential scams. Reading on the net most people say to never ship without tracking, and we can read scam stories everywhere from selling on ebay. Saying that an item have not been received is a very easy and safe scam for any buyer on sellers using lettermail shipping. So yeah i think its just normal to ask myself if something is wrong when something does not fit like the names here, being unexperimented. I dont know everything and have a lot of questions, im just in a learning process

That being said i decided ill ship it anyway its an unexpensive item, and i did read that cancelling orders isnt good as seller

Thanks for the answers even you guys been rude lmao

[rocketscollectibles]

I seen US sellers have a 1$ tracked lettermail
shipping option for trading cards, sad we dont have this here it would fix a lot of my concerns

[t_bjarnason]

You're doing the right thing by asking a lot of questions; it's a fine balance between walking into every transaction with a certain level of both caution and trust. After a few transactions, you will start to build confidence and learn how to spot the REAL fraudsters. But Even then, you can't catch them all. Keep up what you're doing 😉

[reallynicestamps]

Reading on the net most people say to never ship without tracking,

Americans are paranoid. And cheap tracking means it is cheap to be paranoid.

I seen US sellers have a 1$ tracked lettermail

Soooooo cheap. We can only stare and drool.

But the retail norm for losses, including damage , shoptheft and employee based shrinkage, is supposed to be about one percent.

And most of us old lags would agree with that, if not lower.

OTOH we are protected by high FB numbers- scammers pick on newbies. You'll see a lot of experienced sellers telling newbies not to sell anything they can't afford to list, not to sell anything of high value, and not to ship internationally until they have 10 DSRs, know what DSRs are, and understand why DSRs are of no importance.

Your category is unfortunately one of the higher fraud ones-- on both sides of the transaction.

But you know what you are selling, so there is that. And your pictures and descriptions are well done.

[reallynicestamps]

I seen US sellers have a 1$ tracked lettermail

[reallynicestamps]

Soooooo cheap. We can only stare and drool.

[reallynicestamps]

But the retail norm for losses, including damage , shoptheft and employee based shrinkage, is supposed to be about one percent.

[reallynicestamps]

And most of us old lags would agree with that, if not lower.

[reallynicestamps]

OTOH we are protected by high FB numbers- scammers pick on newbies. You'll see a lot of experienced sellers telling newbies not to sell anything they can't afford to list, not to sell anything of high value, and not to ship internationally until they have 10 DSRs, know what DSRs are, and understand why DSRs are of no importance.

[reallynicestamps]

Your category is unfortunately one of the higher fraud ones-- on both sides of the transaction.

[reallynicestamps]

But you know what you are selling, so there is that. And your pictures and descriptions are well done.

[cardconnoisseurs]

Send it to the address provided. In my experience, most of the "boogeymen" that we worry about when selling online are just that: our own paranoias taking control. Most buyers are legitimate. Unless something *really* feels wrong about it, print the shipping label, and ship the order. 

I remember back when I was hesitant to ship to buyers with zero feedback, and/or who had just signed up, and a veteran seller told me: "you should take it as a compliment, this buyer signed up for Ebay to purchase your item". I would say that 7 of my top ten dollar value sales of the fiscal year have been to new Ebayers! 🙂

Switch to a buyer-focused point of view in *almost* all things. Only then will you really turn the corner, and start to see how this all really works.

[cardconnoisseurs]

If a buyer is having their order shipped to their workplace, we *always* put their name on it as a c/o, even if they did not include their name in the address.

[cardconnoisseurs]

Solid advice. The only one who can exorcise our boogeymen is us!

[cardconnoisseurs]

You should also work at least a 5% loss into your margins, particularly if you ship a high percentage of your orders via lettermail. 

[cardconnoisseurs]

What he's saying is that the name differing is making him think the order is a bad-faith one. You lose pretty much 100% of disputes that are premeditated from the getgo, so the risk of lost mail is not really a factor here. 

[cardconnoisseurs]

Be careful with advice online. First off, most of it is probably being given by Americans, whose postal system is *completely* different than ours. I have ran a full time ecommerce company for 7 years now, and for the first 5 years, around 80% of our orders were shipped using lettermail. You shouldn't experience more than a 2-3% loss rate using Canada Post, provided you do your due diligence in packing, including discrete packaging. 

Take your desired sale amount for an item, add your total shipping/packaging costs, divide that total by 0.85, which is around the net after fees, then divide *that* total by 0.95, to allow for a 5% loss.

Know your desired price, make sure it's enough after fees, shipping, and loss, to make it worth your while, and you will get used to making this calculations as second nature. If you ever decide to make this a career, you will already have the skills needed to tackle these kinds of issues. 

A calculator or spreadsheet can solve *most* problems you will run into when selling online, and in general, the best solution to *any* problem is "sell more".

[cardconnoisseurs]

I think Ebay should considar removing buyer protection for trading cards sent via Lettermail IF the seller also offers a tracked shipping option. In this scenario, only sellers who do not offer tracked shipping options would be liable for buyer protection. 

Now, as someone who sells on every major platform, including our own ecommerce site, the percentage of "INR" orders on Ebay is *much* lower than on some of their competitors. Having the ability to block buyers is a major benefit on Ebay. I think if we could leave negative feedback for buyers, or if Ebay made it harder to create multiple accounts, we could get that percentage even lower.