Shipping to a buyer in HK from US for an 8k bag

J

jane.birkin

Member
Jul 20, 2014
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28
#1
Hi,

I just have sold a Hermes bag on eBay. I'm in the US, the buyer lives in Hong Kong. The user has been with eBay from 2015 and got a few feedbacks (9 to be exact) but it's all as a buyer and all of them are from years ago, so no way to tell which items she/he bought on eBay. I couldn't find anything on Google using her/his English name (no clue if it's female or male name, either), the name in Chinese characters, the eBay ID, or the email address from PayPal. I could only find what the building the buyer lives looks like, ha. Does anyone know if it's safe to sell oversea?

I guess the changes this could go wrong are like
1) the buyer wants to return on this non returnable sale and I end up paying both shipping fee
2) the buyer got the bag but argue this is a fake or not matching the description or got something completely different aka scammed by me and I lose both the bag and money
3) the buyer returns the bag even though the sale was not returnable and I got to pay shipping fees both ways, which would be $400 AND the buyer returns it with a fake one.........
5) etc., all the horror stories possible.

If anyone had sold oversea, especially to HK, please share me how you handled it not to get scammed.
Thanks!

PS. The buyer did mention that there is no customs tax and it turned out to be true. I was going to use the UPS with adult's signature if I ship at all. I'm still debating whether to ship the item or not because PayPal is holding the fund. I asked the buyer to prove that she/he's not a scammer lol or provide some identity with previous purchases or anything, and the buyer declined, asked me to cancel the order.
 
#2
Then better to cancel the sale if the buyer has no way to prove their past purchase history; no matter where they are from.

It is so easy to buy things online here in HK because of our tax-free status that we don't really want "troublesome" transactions; so probably that's why the buyer decided not to go ahead with the purchase.

I was in negotiation with someone about a H bag and she flat out refused to send out the bag thinking it is so risky and my only recourse was to fly to USA to collect in person lol. I have had many Bs and Ks sent to me safely these few years so I didn't bother to buy from her.
 
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#4
Customs in HK is honest and safe and professional. I understand the wariness we all have with places we are not familiar with.

The Real Real sent a package to me without any address can you believe that company? Only provided my name, area and my phone number and customs / HK Post and/or the courier company (can't remember the details now) managed to get that package to me while I was waiting for The Real Real to respond to my frantic emails. They did reply to my emails but only 5 days later.

Obviously I love HK my host city :smile:

Scammers and buyer's remorse on the other hand...happens everywhere.

Since I am at it I'd like to share this. I have lived in almost every country in Asia the past 20 years and the only advice I can give is Hong Kong SAR and Singapore are the only Asian countries/cities safe sending things to. I had a package worth 13k usd stolen by Indonesian customs.
 
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#6
selene.j said:
Hi,

I just have sold a Hermes bag on eBay. I'm in the US, the buyer lives in Hong Kong. The user has been with eBay from 2015 and got a few feedbacks (9 to be exact) but it's all as a buyer and all of them are from years ago, so no way to tell which items she/he bought on eBay. I couldn't find anything on Google using her/his English name (no clue if it's female or male name, either), the name in Chinese characters, the eBay ID, or the email address from PayPal. I could only find what the building the buyer lives looks like, ha. Does anyone know if it's safe to sell oversea?

I guess the changes this could go wrong are like
1) the buyer wants to return on this non returnable sale and I end up paying both shipping fee
2) the buyer got the bag but argue this is a fake or not matching the description or got something completely different aka scammed by me and I lose both the bag and money
3) the buyer returns the bag even though the sale was not returnable and I got to pay shipping fees both ways, which would be $400 AND the buyer returns it with a fake one.........
5) etc., all the horror stories possible.

If anyone had sold oversea, especially to HK, please share me how you handled it not to get scammed.
Thanks!

PS. The buyer did mention that there is no customs tax and it turned out to be true. I was going to use the UPS with adult's signature if I ship at all. I'm still debating whether to ship the item or not because PayPal is holding the fund. I asked the buyer to prove that she/he's not a scammer lol or provide some identity with previous purchases or anything, and the buyer declined, asked me to cancel the order.
Click to expand...
I have a few comments.

If settings are correctly done, they'll block the ability of international buyers to purchase your items. It's not enough to state in listing that you only ship to US; your buyer requirements have to be properly set.

It looks like your settings are properly set because the only shipping options I see show that you ship to US so I'm not even sure how she might have purchased unless you added her to the exception list or unless you used GSP shipping and would be sending it to Kentucky for forwarding to the buyer.

Anyone can contact you to ask questions and request international shipment but you don't have to feel pressured to do something that doesn't make you comfortable.

You said, "I'm still debating whether to ship the item or not because PayPal is holding the fund" and I want to point out that it's normal. Having seen the listing and history, I saw that you don't normally sell $8k items and your other listings are relatively inexpensive (most <$300 and many others <$100) so Paypal is going to hold the money on such an expensive sale.

Keep in mind that whether you agree or disagree to follow through on the sale, you can't hold off shipping until you get the funds. Paypal won't release them and as a seller, you're required (by both ebay and PP policy) to ship items that have been paid for without regard to holds on the money.

In this case, although all the possibilities describing how the sale can go south can happen with any sale, this sale makes you uncomfortable and since the buyer agreed to cancel, you should go that route.

ETA: If you relist the bag, I strongly recommend way more pictures of the parts of the bag that are needed for buyers to authenticate and for you to prove authenticity. I'm not sure anyone would be able to authenticate the bag from the pictures shown.
 
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