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New international scam!! So beware the busy holiday is coming near!
 

HI Guys,

Just wanted to make Sellers of High End Electronics aware:

I had three cases opened up recently for International Buyers of High End Electronics, that is, Cameras, Iphones, & Galaxy S3's, etc!

Well the cases have been all the same, Buyers claiming they received "EMPTY PARCEL PACKAGES??"

I thought something was strange with this as they were claiming the boxes arrived empty and Customs accompanied a letter with the parcel which stated the box was Empty upon arrival.

Now I thought maybe it was confiscated by Customs, then I said wait....if Customs seize any packages then they never deliver the box anyway to the customer, especially not an empty one??

Also let me add for some odd reason these buyers are insisting we have to call the insurance company and they need all insurance info from USPS. Ok so this prompt me to call the USPS. The worker there told me this is happening quite frequently now and so much so that they are now comprising a list of International Buyers Names so they can take action against them.

Needless to say I thought I was clean out of $2200+ but apparently the tracking helped me out greatly. I got Signature Confirmation on all and that is all Ebay needed for me to win the cases. I WON!!

All the packages were Marked "DELIVERED" and signed by the Buyers. But I am afraid that others sellers may not have been as lucky as me because I believe these buyers must have been getting away with this a lot in the past. But hopefully now Ebay is on to them......

This was it for me....NO MORE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING AT ALL!! I learned my lesson.

@kev59 - nice that you won but ...man 3...dangerous.

Avoid international buyers unless 100% trustworthy - especially for these hot items.

Keep it to North America :) Canada is reliable too :p

Oh no question.....I am done with International Buyers!! PERIOD

Before I headed out this morning, there was something on the news of a new scam, but this was not it. I need to find it, because I heard them say, "online sellers beware of new online scam".

Be carful. I had my ebay account shut down and my paypal. I sold about 40 tablets to people in russia, out of the country. Then got over 40 paypal disputes. Bam then shut down

STAY AWAY FROM INTERNATIONAL BUYERS.

I will probably get slammed for this, but I dont ship anything outside the USA, and I have had zero issues for many years.

i stopped shipping international as well i learned my lesson after losing a couple tablets that the buyers claimed 'never arrived'

I still do international but only to about 15 countries & if they want it bad enough it's express mail with signature & insurance. Due to cost, most of my sales end up being domestic anyway =}-

I ship from outside the US and worldwide and funny quite the contrary to the majority in this thread, the only 2 scammers I encountered the last year both were from the US. Both claimed that they never received the packages, but USPS had their signatures on file.

Scammers can be anywhere, it doesn't mean that all international buyers are bad, just like not all national buyers are automatically good.

The best thing is to use common sense. Can you afford to save the registered mail fee on a $10 item? Most likely yes. You will end up saving more than what you lose from bad buyers. On the other hand, scammers obviously target high end goods. If you sell a $1000 item, NEVER ship without tracking, no matter if it's next door or to Tibet.

I've shipped tens of thousands of $30 items all over Europe, even Mexico, the Middle East and Australia over the past year and never got a single dispute about item not received.

I only ship to US and Canada, :canada:, and sometimes to Japan.

I had a bad experience on international shipping to, send the goods to the Philippines couple months and 3 days after the goods shipped immediate dispute.

no offence but I think philippines, indonesia (my country :doh:), india, pakistan, and some african county is not a best place on earth to ship

i don't know but this always comes up. i have not had the problems selling internationally that most claim. international sales are my best by far with the most profit. the only way i can see there being a problem is by shipping with anything other than priority or express international

Maybe it's because of your guys haven't dealed with brazilians constantly. Not because we are scammers, but our Gov is. All international packages that arrives here if the Inspector of IRS choose your package to verify, the buyer will have to pay 60% of declared price in the invoice only to pay for taxes.

I mean, if I buy 1 iPhone for $600 in US and seller ship it to Brazil, i'll have to pay $360 in taxes. So such things can make the buyer reject the item and wait it return to seller to ask for a refund.

Don't know about other countries btw..

Looks like you are not the only country that gets f'ed by the tax man

Yes brazil is very high import rate but that is an exception rather than a rule. Most people understand this when buying and don't buy to eventually complain

I usually only ship within the USA but i recently added Canada to some of my accounts as I had several buyers ask why I wont ship to our neighboring country and the items are very low risk. All precautions must be taken when shipping across borders, sometimes it's even necessary within your own borders.