Shipping to italia, scared of SCAM!!!

[karl_sc]

Hi,

I need your advice.

I am selling an item that is worth about 600$ and right now, the highest bid is higher than that (which is weird) and is from Italia.

The user have a (17) 100% rating and he was a member since october 2011.

I would like to know if you think this is safe to ship the item?

What should I do to protect myself?

Thanks

I am scared.

[pierrelebel]

The PayPal Seller Protection Program:

https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/security/seller-protection-learn-more

Read carefully.

[brandeentertainment]

when dealing with items that expensive it is best to stick to only country that offer seller protection and be sure no matter where you ship it ships out xxpresspost ass anything over the Value of $250 has to go that way for you to be protected...

I would not ship a $600 item to Italia

[northern*electric]

There's nothing in the buyer's feedback that makes it seem like you're about to get scammed, but Italy is known for mail theft; so I'd be more worried about the buyer never receiving his item.

You need to be able to prove delivery, so you can't use a service without tracking (your listing says economy shipping) if you're relying on seller protection.

You also need signature confirmation to be covered by seller protection if the item is over $325 CAD ($200 in eBay.com). Xpresspost to Italy doesn't have this feature, so you may have to use Priority Worldwide.

But given that the item is so expensive, I'm worried that it will get stuck in customs or the buyer will refuse delivery to avoid paying duty and/or VAT. There's no disclaimer in your listing informing international buyers that they may have to pay import fees.

Did you check if the item can be imported legally by people from countries that you ship to?

If you're scared, I suggest cancelling the foreign bids and selling it to a domestic bidder. If I were you, I wouldn't sell something that expensive online if I had to be paid using PayPal.

[northern*electric]

You cancelled all the bids? What if it sells for $0.01? 

I suggest starting an auction at a price wherein your costs are covered and there's some profit so that if you only get one bidder, you still make money.

[northern*electric]

2 hours and 18 mins left.....

Someone can snipe at the last second and it might sell for $0.01. 

[karl_sc]

I called ebay helpdesk and they told me to do that, I am really paniking right now. I am not going to sell ti for that low. Hell no.

[pierrelebel]

With no current bids, change the starting price to $1,000

[pierrelebel]

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/revising_restrictions.html

[northern*electric]

2 hours and 4 minutes left and there were cancelled bids, so she can't end or edit the listing.

[northern*electric]

Not sure if this will work since you only have about 2 hours left, but you can try blocking international bidders: 

To block buyers whose primary shipping address is in a country you don't ship to:

1. Go to My eBay.

2. Click the Account tab, and then click Site Preferences link on the left.

3. In the Selling Preferences section, scroll to Shipping preferences, and then click the Show link.

4. Click Exclude shipping locations from your listings.

5. Select one or more continents to exclude all countries on those continents. Or select Show all countries and check the specific countries you don't want to ship to.

6. All excluded countries you selected will appear on the lower section of the page.

7. You can select to apply these exclusions to all current live listings on a global level.

8. Click the Apply button to save your requirements.

[karl_sc]

I have blocked people from Europe and still I receive bids from Russian scammers. This is really stupid.

[femmefan1946]

The OP has had successful high value sales in the past, even considering her short selling record.

The problem is not the buyer, the problem is Italy.

[recped]

The problem is not the buyer, the problem is Italy.

But there is no problem with Italy! Mail service to Italy has always been a little slow, during the period 2005 - 2010 the service really deteriorated when Berlusconni was running the show (into the ground).

I've shipped to Italy on a regular basis for more than 25 years, current delivery times I'm seeing are not much different than most of the rest of Europe. I expect slower delivery times to Germany these days than for Italy.