Ebay Question

[hollieplus2]

I sold something on ebay buy it now. After the item sold and the buyer paid for it I get an email asking me if I can ship it to a different address than the paypal address since she had moved and doesn't use ebay a lot.

I checked paypal and the address she gave me is not the confirmed address, same state just looks like a couple towns over. The buyer has been on ebay since 2002 but has zero feedback. The item is around $60.

I emailed the buyer back immediately and said I'm sorry I can only ship to the confirmed address per paypal's instructions. The buyer didn't respond. I emailed again 2 days later and asked her if I should still send it to the confirmed address. No response.

So....should I just refund the money or ship it out to the paypal address. Never had this come up before.

 

[richmond282]

I would refund the money and move on.

 

[7200604]

This has happened to me a couple of times. Not sure why people can't read the description in the auction, but I've had a couple ask me to ship to different-than-confirmed addresses.

In my case (and the $1500 value), I kept the emails as documentation and sent it FEDEX with tracking signature - i figured this was some insurance against something going wrong. However, in both cases the buyers was pretty good at communication and OKd the extra cost for tracking/shipping.

I tend to get wary with buyers who can't communicate, however....

 

[hollieplus2]

I just refunded the money. Not worth the headache.

 

[erincon23]

I guess I don't understand the problem (and maybe someone can enlighten me!). If the buyer had paid for it, and didn't ask you to ship out of the country, why do you care where she wanted it shipped? As long as you do the delivery confirmation with USPS, or pay for signature on delivery, what's the risk?

 

[hollieplus2]

Because your no longer protected if a problem arises.

From eBay website:

As long as you ship to the address found on the eBay Order details page or the PayPal Transaction Details page, you are eligible for certain protections under the eBay Buyer Protection policy.

 

[ellone]

I guess I don't understand the problem (and maybe someone can enlighten me!). If the buyer had paid for it, and didn't ask you to ship out of the country, why do you care where she wanted it shipped? As long as you do the delivery confirmation with USPS, or pay for signature on delivery, what's the risk?

Because as a seller you want to stay protected. A signature or delivery confirmation mean nothing to ebay/PayPal if the delivery zip code does not match the zip code on the ship to address from ebay. If the buyer opens a case for non delivery the seller will lose.

 

[bpesch]

I guess I don't understand the problem (and maybe someone can enlighten me!). If the buyer had paid for it, and didn't ask you to ship out of the country, why do you care where she wanted it shipped? As long as you do the delivery confirmation with USPS, or pay for signature on delivery, what's the risk?

The risk is that as a seller, if you do not ship to the PayPal address showing on the buyers account then any protections you have become null and void. You have precious little protections on Ebay as it is, to change the address is just plain foolish. If the buyer complains about anything, you're sunk.

 

[bmags66]

Agree with bpesch. With ebay's feedback system, only buyers can leave feedback whether it's true or not. The seller can only respond when the negative mark is left...

 

[reesecup]

Hello all! I thought I would put my 2 cents in. Not too long ago, I had a buyer who bought an item and then asked me to send to a different address than what was confirmed with paypal. I told them I could not do that because I would not be protected as a seller. I'm not sure if this was explained in depth or not but here is the scenario: If say, you as a seller, decide to ship to a different address than what is confirmed, it could POSSIBLY be someone who is using another persons account. It's even happened in a situation where it's a child who has used their parents account (maybe off at school). If you ship to that other address, the person that has the paypal account can easily contact paypal and they will get their money refunded even if you have all tracking information...doesn't matter. OR this buyer could just claim that someone else used their account. That's all it takes.... and you will be out of your item and money! Anyway, so I refused to ship to this buyer. It ticked them off pretty well. So much that they left me negative feedback, which made me furious, that as a seller, I was doing what I'm told to be protected. I was pleasantly surprised (believe me surprised because honest sellers really have a lot up against them to deal with) that the ebay rep was very pleasant and immediately took the negative feedback off. I blocked the buyer from buying anything else from me in the future.
Hope you guys got something out of all those words. Ha!