Sold item on eBay, buyer wants it to be delivered to another country, and pay by bank transfer

Question

I recently offered an item on eBay, offering it for sale in Switzerland only (no international shipping offered). However, now someone bought it and messaged that they want it shipped to Italy, and that they need my name, IBAN, and emailaddress to proceed. They also mentioned that they want to pay 30€ extra for shipping.

The red flag that I see here is pretty much only the international delivery, which might make it more difficult to me to prove that the shipment made it to the recipient. Additionally, the ebay account is brand new, which is a huge red flag, I guess.

But what is a green flag to me, is that they want to pay with direct bank transfer. This (afaik) cannot be reversed by the sender fo the money after it's gone through, can it?

So I'm wondering about my risk exposure here. If I only offer to ship it in a way that I get confirmation that it arrived, and wait for the bank transfer to be gone through before shipping it, is there any significant risk?

Or is this even more evil and it's an attempt at identity theft or attempt to login to my online banking?

Answer 1

Since no-one else has answered I'll convert my comments into an answer.

This does have the hallmarks of a scam to me, and in your shoes I would cancel the purchase and explain to the would-be buyer that the item can only be shipped within Switzerland as stated in the listing.

Apart from anything else, I've had too many mishaps with international post to be willing to risk shipping internationally in these situations.

Paying by direct bank transfer to me is a red flag, not a green one. They lose all the buyer protection they would otherwise have if they paid with Paypal, so they must have some motivation for wanting to do this. My guess is they've somehow got access to someone else's account and will pay you with money that isn't theirs; either just to get the item for free or they will overpay you and ask you to return some of the money to them by some other means (gift cards etc.)

Answer 2

In Germany there is a somewhat popular schema that roughly translates to triangular fraud. The fraudster sees your auction and buys the item for price X. He will then immediately create an auction "selling" a valuable item that he does not posses for price X. He will then tell his buyer to transfer the money to your account. You'll see incoming money and ship the item. However, the buyer of the fraudster will not receive anything and will request his money to be returned. You are legally obliged to return the money and have lost the item.

Edit: „Ungerechtfertigte Bereicherung“ is the legal term in German which is the grounds for returning the money. That is also a term the Swiss legal system knows. Check this. But I am no legal expert. (The English term is “unjust enrichment”.)

Answer 3

Bank transfers certainly are reversible.

Just as one example, imagine this. The person hacks someone and transfers the money from the victim's account. Does the victim get to reverse that charge? Of course. Does it clawback out of your account? Oh, you bet!

You will be left holding the bag.

So one common scam is to do exactly that, then convince you to send onward an item or money (like the old overpay/refund scam). (note this is a compound scam; part of it is hacking a bank account, part is what you're experiencing, yet another part might be selling your item to a third person, this an innocent buyer who just paid the scammer).

I certainly think this is not a legitimate sale. Further, changing the terms of payment like this is itself a violation of eBay's policies; and that means you would violate TOS by agreeing to it. Those rules are to protect eBay from risk (not least, employee bandwidth of dealing with the support issue you would raise).

It would be alright if they paid you via a method that is genuinely irreversible, except you're not very good at knowing what those are (and the scammer is an expert; so don't play chess with Bobby Fischer). But that will never happen; they will never pay you via Western Union because that would involve real money that doesn't exist.

Answer 4

Contrary to the given answers I think you can make the sale provided you have a shipping option with proper tracking.

First, not everybody has a paypal account but (at least in Western Europe) everybody has a bank account. Direct wire transfer is a generic form of payment in the EU that works between any two people, paypal is not. Especially if the ebay account is brand new, the buyer probably doesn't have a paypal account.

Second, bank transfer are irreversible. If the money arrived in your account, neither the buyer or their bank can take it back. They would have to set up a new transfer in the reverse direction that needs at the very least your banks approval. Your bank has no reason to give it. If you are repaid after a scam involving stolen identities, the transfers are not reversed. If you are repaid, that means your bank paid you out of their own pockets and is independently trying to recover the money from the scammers.

Finally, you do need some insurance the package actually gets there. Carefully check the TOS of ebay, at which point in the delivery does the responsibility switch from you to the buyer. If the delivery company gives you confirmation that the package was delivered to the recipient, that should be enough for your to claim you have done your part, no matter what the buyer says but you should check the ebay TOS carefully to see whether this is the case. If you can find an international delivery (for 30€) that satisfies the ebay TOS and you only send the package after you received the transfer you should be fine.

Answer 5

If your listing had clearly stated limits, eBay should support you in declining to weaken those limits.

(I say should, because they assisted one buyer and one seller in ripping me off, but those are the only two problems I had with dozens of other transactions.)