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So I put up a listing for a Yamaha electric fiddle on Craigslist and lots of other sites that are the same thing, and received this e-mail:

Nora Lang
to sale-102378039

show details Oct 31 (1 day ago)

hello!

during my desperate search for a yamaha sv that i can afford, i came along your announcement on locanto.com.
have you already sold the fiddle?
if no - would you deliver it to switzerland?

kind regards,
nora
--
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I responded:

I have not sold it yet. I would be willing to ship it, but obviously the shipping will be fairly expensive. If you would like to arrange the shipping, feel free, or else I can get you a quote if you let me know what city I'd be shipping to. Thanks for your interest!

~Steve

She responded:

Great!
Well, that's true. Especially in our country, the postal service is veeery expensive. But maybe it's not that bad in the states. Anyway, when it's affordable, it would be great to make the deal :-)
I'm living in Bern, Switzerland.

Oh, and I have another question: I think the fee to transfer money to your bank-account would be very high.. I don't have pay pal, but I could "install" it. Or do you have another idea how we could exchange the money?

nora

My next reply will mention that you can pay through PayPal even if you don't have an account, and that is my preferred payment method (and all at once). (By "install" it, does she mean multiple payments or does she mean register for PayPal? ) This is giving me minor red flags so far. I would like to know if, in the course of your first read-through, this sounds fishy to you at all.

Honestly, I wouldn't even consider it if they wanted to make payments.

Secondly, when dealing with selling online, I would only use Paypal.

It sounds a little fishy to me but I would follow up and see if she could get paypal and pay for it all at once.

'twas the plan. I can't pinpoint anything in particular that seems off to me (unless she meant making payments), but it just seems... not right.

I think by "install" she meant that she'll register.

Honestly, I didn't get any sirens in my head from reading that; I just assumed that she's not all that tech-savvy and/or doesn't know much about paypal.

I'd send her an e-mail with info on paypal and tell her how to register and so on and see what happens. Especially if she's never used it before, she may be as hesitant as you are; it's kind of scary watching the money leave your account the first time and wondering if you'll actually get what you bought.

I didn't immediately get a bad feeling.

Remember that if she is Swiss, English isn't her first language so some awkwardness in communication can be expected.

As long as you get payment first, no problem, in my opinion.

swiss chicks are hot... offer the violin for sex.

Communication is the most important part of any transaction. If you can't understand her clearly, and aren't sure if what you're saying is being heard right by her, then what are you going to do if something goes wrong?

hylozoist wrote:Communication is the most important part of any transaction. If you can't understand her clearly, and aren't sure if what you're saying is being heard right by her, then what are you going to do if something goes wrong?

...already have gotten the money? That's a really good point. If I do end up going through with it, i need to be sure to keep extremely open about the tracking and have receipts and crap for everything.

I'll reply to her and see what we can work out. Shipping is a bitch though

See if she will exchange phone sex in lieu of money for the car.

G

GBF has it spot on.

Horst wrote:swiss chicks are hot... offer the violin for sex.

This.

agnosto wrote:I think by "install" she meant that she'll register.

Honestly, I didn't get any sirens in my head from reading that; I just assumed that she's not all that tech-savvy and/or doesn't know much about paypal.

I'd send her an e-mail with info on paypal and tell her how to register and so on and see what happens. Especially if she's never used it before, she may be as hesitant as you are; it's kind of scary watching the money leave your account the first time and wondering if you'll actually get what you bought.

This is what I think as well. By insall, I immediately thought she meant registering for paypal. As long as you don't send the item before you recieve all the money, you're in no danger of being scammed here.

If you accept PayPal from her, you're looking at a HUGE PITA if she's scamming you and claims that she never received it.
Even with tracking, there's potential for you to lose the money.

Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, re All Swedish Chicks being hot:

http://www.fionablain.co.uk/images/ugly3.jpg

If you are worried you should look into how difficult it is to dispute an international claim compared to one within the USA.

I mean you can be 2,000 miles away from a scammer in the USA and maybe that's as hard to sort out as a scammer in Switzerland.

Another idea is if the item is very valuable, you should look into fee escrow.