Calling those who use Ebay! - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Hi guys,
I put my transformer prime on ebay yesterday at a buy it now price of £350 which I thought was fair considering the prime's condition. Someone bought it within about 6 hours which was great, however, he only has 1 feedback for a saw he bought in 2011.
He sent me this message over ebay:
Hi mate, Glad I won your item. I'm currently in U.K at the moment. Please email me at [email protected], confirming the exact condition of the item. I will be going for an appointment will be able to access my email from my iPhone, so email me at [email protected] using the item number as the subject. cheers
seems dodgy. Only in the UK for a bit? going for an appointment? Using a freeweb email address? His address checks out as being from the UK
I am aware of people reversing payment on paypal once theyve received the product and I don't know how to defend myself from that happening. I can't afford to be scammed as I'm a student and need the money to buy a laptop as my other one packed up yesterday.
Any advice would be great,
Cheers, Nick

---

Did he send payment? Did he pay with Paypal?
Just make sure that you ship the tablet with tracking and insurance. You might consider doing a proof of delivery (signature) as well. As long as you can prove it was delivered to the address he specified he can't come back later and say he never got the item. The tracking, signature confirmation and insurance all cost a few bucks extra, but when dealing with a $350 item and a dodgy customer they are well worth the extra fee.

---

nickkyboy36 said:
Hi guys,
I put my transformer prime on ebay yesterday at a buy it now price of £350 which I thought was fair considering the prime's condition. Someone bought it within about 6 hours which was great, however, he only has 1 feedback for a saw he bought in 2011.
He sent me this message over ebay:
Hi mate, Glad I won your item. I'm currently in U.K at the moment. Please email me at [email protected], confirming the exact condition of the item. I will be going for an appointment will be able to access my email from my iPhone, so email me at [email protected] using the item number as the subject. cheers
seems dodgy. Only in the UK for a bit? going for an appointment? Using a freeweb email address? His address checks out as being from the UK
I am aware of people reversing payment on paypal once theyve received the product and I don't know how to defend myself from that happening. I can't afford to be scammed as I'm a student and need the money to buy a laptop as my other one packed up yesterday.
Any advice would be great,
Cheers, Nick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd be concerned about wanting to "confirm the exact condition of the item". If he wanted to do that he should have contacted you before bidding, not after winning. Also, whatever precautions you may take, if he leaves the country after he has your hardware in hand, you will not have much recourse if things go sour later-even if you have all the documentation to prove your side of things. Any way you could get him to pay cash?
On the yahoo account, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. I know lots of people who use yahoo, gmail, etc as their primary email accounts. This keeps things so that your email account is not tied to your ISP and you can keep your address if you change service providers. Also, I personally keep a separate Gmail account that I only use on ebay so that I don't have to give out my "real" address which I only give to friends and family.

---

thanks for your replies guys,
no, I have not received any money into my paypal account and am waiting for a response from him. Just a quick question regarding postal insurance: Do I insure my tablet up to the value of £350 and receive that if it all goes wrong? Why doesn't everyone just claim things went missing and both parties win?
also to the guy above, that bothered me too. The item's condition was extensively detailed in my description with photos and everything
cheers, Nick

---

With insurance you specify the sale price of the item and if it goes missing you collect that amount of money from the postal service which you then use to repay the purchaser.
The reason that everyone doesn't just say things are "missing" is because doing so is a crime punishable with prison time if you are found out. Also, it is unlikely that you will be able to get a stranger to reliably lie for you.

---

almightywhacko said:
With insurance you specify the sale price of the item and if it goes missing you collect that amount of money from the postal service which you then use to repay the purchaser.
The reason that everyone doesn't just say things are "missing" is because doing so is a crime punishable with prison time if you are found out. Also, it is unlikely that you will be able to get a stranger to reliably lie for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So Worst case scenario is the item goes missing in the post according to mr fraudulent purchaser and I collect cash from the post office?

---

nickkyboy36 said:
So Worst case scenario is the item goes missing in the post according to mr fraudulent purchaser and I collect cash from the post office?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. The worse case scenario is that you don't buy insurance and the package gets lost or damaged in which case you are out of a tablet and have to refund the $350 out of your own pocket because your item was never delivered.
(Total loss= Tablet + $$350)
2nd worst scenario is the tablet is lost, but you paid $5 (or whatever) for the shipping insurance so you don't have to refund the purchaser out of your own pocket but you are still missing a tablet.
(Total loss= Tablet + $5)
When shipping relatively expensive items overseas it is always worth paying an extra $10 or so to the shipping company for insurance, detailed tracking and signature confirmation. This is doubly true if you don't trust the buyer which seems to be the case with this guy.

---

I sell my prime with dock, with 399 euro. I buy this in aprile. 2years waranty. I never use this tablet, and i want to sell. I change 2 prime, for defective problems. This is OK. For link send PM.
Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

---

almightywhacko said:
No. The worse case scenario is that you don't buy insurance and the package gets lost or damaged in which case you are out of a tablet and have to refund the $350 out of your own pocket because your item was never delivered.
(Total loss= Tablet + $$350)
2nd worst scenario is the tablet is lost, but you paid $5 (or whatever) for the shipping insurance so you don't have to refund the purchaser out of your own pocket but you are still missing a tablet.
(Total loss= Tablet + $5)
When shipping relatively expensive items overseas it is always worth paying an extra $10 or so to the shipping company for insurance, detailed tracking and signature confirmation. This is doubly true if you don't trust the buyer which seems to be the case with this guy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh I see, thus keeping the cash the buyer has given me.

---

This does sound like a scam to me, I once had very similar emails when I advertised a car.
I wouldn't part with your Prime until you have the money safely. I don't think you're covered by eBay payment protection (because his feedback is low), but might be worth checking with eBay customer service how protected you are.
Good luck!
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

---

nickkyboy36 said:
oh I see, thus keeping the cash the buyer has given me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much. According to eBay rules if your product was lost and not delivered you would have to refund them their money (Paypal would happily do it for them without your consent). If you bought insurance, the postal service would pay you the listed value of the tablet so you would get $350 (minus whatever you paid for insurance) and the purchaser would get their $350 back as well.
Insurance is ALWAYS worthwhile, especially for items over $100 and often for items as low as $30 if you have a bad feeling about the buyer.

---

I've used Ebay a LOT.
1 - Never send without a payment
2 - NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER accept a payment through PayPal that they used a credit card to make. Reason? People claim that they were "frauded" and do a chargeback. PayPal retracts the money from you and you are out everything.
3 - If you receive a payment email from the buyer NEVER trust them. EVER. Go directly to your paypal through your web browser, never through their links. Reason? They have fake paypal pages set up to make you think you got the payment. I've seen this more times than I can count...it almost suckered me the first time it was that good.
4- ALWAYS get insurance, tracking number and mandatory signature upon delivery. DO NOT EVER send without any of these. Period.
5 - Make sure to ship through whatever government shipping options you have if available. Canada Post, USPS, whatever...this usually avoids brokerage fees (which you can apply to be your own broker and get the item anyway, but it's a headache and a HUGE scam shipping companies LOVE to employ for extra cash)
6 - If the guy says he's from somewhere reasonably local (UK, USA, Canada) then states "I am overseas working in Africa on a geological survey ship, can you please send to my cousin in Nigeria" tell him to **** off and repost it.
7 - EVERY fake buyer will send a template email "Thanks guy, I am happy to be winning your item off of ebay and can not wait to get it! I am so excited!", it never sounds conversational and never mentions the specific item. You can send them back an email that asks them specific questions and they'll answer with another template "Glad to hear from you, I will send the money requested and $50 extra dollars if you send the item as soon as possible through the fastest way".
If the person on the other end can't have a conversation, even in halted English, ignore them and move on. They are a scammer, usually from Africa, using templates to try to scam. Chances are they can't speak a lick of English, or even count. They entice with excited sounding emails offering extra money above and beyond the asking price, then send a fake email that they paid you with a link inside that takes you to a fake page.

---

This screams scam, I'd back away from it right now. If your selling on Ebay make sure you have someone with atleast 6 to 12 months history, and with a good rating. People will buy a bunch of crap $1 cables so they can raise up there rating and then start scamming on big name items.
When I sold my iPhone 3G years ago I ended up with someone offering to pay me and paypal but wanted me to ship to his Niece in another province... it was a gift and she'd be soooooo excited... apparently....
I walked away from that deal quickly.
Put it up on craigs list, meet in a public place and get cash.

---

I would run the other direction. This sounds no good.