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Okay, here's the situation. I recently hit an issue on eBay where a person bought some 40k figures I had put up for sale. I'm in the US and the buyer is in Europe. I went ahead and shipped to him and he said he received the items but that they were so damaged in shipping that they were unusable. He finished by asking for a refund. I told the buyer to return the items and I would replace them (fortunately I do have extra models to do this) but it really got me wondering...

How common is this situation for you guys who sell to people outside your own country? Is this just some sort of "technique" people use to scam a "free" toy from someone? Or is this actually a rare occurrence? Are there certain parts of the globe where stuff like this is more commonplace? I've never seen it within the US or from the UK or Canada and would expect it to be rare for others within their own country as well because it's so easy to verify when a package can be returned cheaply.

I sold an X-Wing and the guy never paid. Had no feedback, sent no response after winning the auction. After 5 days, I asked him to pay within the next 48 hrs or his purchase would be declined. No response, so I opened a dispute with eBay. He hasn't responded to them either. So yes, there are crappy buyers out there. They aren't common, but it happens.

There was another thread that was very similar to this one.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/496449.page

Judge for yourself but the circumstances are pretty much the same as yours.

However that case turned out ok in the end, hopefully yours does as well.


Personally I wouldn't sell outside my own country.

That's always been a huge fear of mine as a seller on Feebay.
I've had one buyer say they never received the items in all the time I've sold on there.(yes, I knocked on wood!)
Feedback/feedback replies can be a help. Sadly, it's just a major crap shoot, IMHO.

Does it take extra feebay costs to restrict to bidders with a minimal feedback? Do they call those private listings or something?

I agree, shipping overseas painted functioning minis is not ideal. I buy/sell overseas, but only stuff which is usually not able to be broken like Bitz or models needing rehab.

I have found for any 'large' lots or stuff which may need special shipping to preserve paint jobs, I use a wargaming consignment shop or wait for a local auction/bitz swap so I can sell cash and carry. Consignment shops I lose a bunch of the value, but I feel the lack of hassle and they have to deal with packing and scammers is worth it to me.

I've had this very issue recently.
Sold some FW stuff, had to chase the winner for payment which ended up in a 'unpaid bid' claim on eBay, he paid, I sent the items and then, a week after I sent the items, the buyer opens a claim, stating that the items had been broken in transit and wanted his money back.

I offerred to refund in FULL if he would send me the items back, or provide photos, but nothing came.

exactly 44 days after (strangely 1 day before the end of the paypal time), I got my money from ebay after proving he hadnt sent the items back nor proved they were broken.

Given that you can't leave negative feedback for buyers anymore, it's left a sour taste in my mouth.

nkelsch wrote:
Does it take extra feebay costs to restrict to bidders with a minimal feedback? Do they call those private listings or something?

You can restrict bidders to those with verified paypal accounts, and restrict out those with 5 or more payment disputes, but theres nothing to restrict 0 feedback bidders. You can manually cancel them, but theres nothing to stop them from pledging again when you arent paying attention. I only ship to the US myself, its just not worth the hassle otherwise.

But so long as you accept paypal, you're somewhat at risk of them filing a complaint. Paypal is very much pro-buyer in its dispute process.

I think ebay is very dodgy.. there are plenty of scumbags out there with no honor who will lie and do anything to get some cash.

Maybe I am too vehement in my loathing because I was never in crushing poverty, but I am cynical and look at almost all of it as shenanigans.

I mean, take your case for example, they are plastic fething models, short of them being ground to powder, no shipping issue would cause me to complain about it, i'd just get the fething glue out.

Basically, I wouldn't sell something if I wouldn't make about 30$ of it, anything less than that and I either give it to the blind school or sling it in the trash, most of the time I wouldn't bother, for example I find clothes all the time, (found an old British Lions Jersey in the back of my wardrobe last month) that i never wore because it was too big, and I just give it to the charity store. Maybe id have got £20 for it but honestly, the amount of admin you have to go through for ebay... photos, writing, fees, posting, its for that reason 99% of my ebay feedback is as a buyer.

I don't sell to anyone without at least ten positive feedbacks as well, and I'm fething wary if the gakkers are under 100!

I just told the guy I'm dealing with that if he sends money, I'm just gonna refund it back to him and he ain't getting the model. Tough gak, I guess, huh? It's not like he's gonna respond anyway.

the way i work it out is that 1/100 ebay buyers are dodgy (your milage may vary) and 1/50 items will got missing in postage. as a uk seller i have found that the worst buyers are in the USA and in China, and the worst postage is the Italian system, with France close behind. I won't sell to China full stop - it's normally a scam of some sort. I'll sell to the USA but for reasonably priced stuff i'll take a million pictures and describe from every angle but every now and again there's still someone who can't understand that England is not in USA and I can't accept greasy dollars in the mail.

i won't ship to France or Italy without fully tracked and insured post, and i state this. if they seem nice i will do it, at their own risk, and i've only been burnt once since then.

for low value stuff with low shipping costs i'm not a complete prick about it though!

remember this though: Ebay is on the buyers side. it will always side with the buyer against you unless your evidence is completely unimpeachable. do not use ebay to sell anything you're not willing to write off unless you ship things properrly recorded. but remember that you then have the buyers address, so if they do feth you, shipping them a human turd in a box is a lot of fun.



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or, in the USA, a badly wrapped envelope with white powder leaking out. the americans take that gak seriously. in most european countries the postman would knock and say "your drugs have arrived".

I've had stuff broken in transit ...but I've never thought that it warranted a claim (what's a litle glue?). That said people would probably be more concerned if their stuff was painted. Still if the seller's obviously gone to the effort to prevent this, ie used the proper packaging, etc, I wouldn't hold it against them, it was the people that transported its fault. =P

I will never send anything of any value unless it is on a registered service. This avoids the "lost in the post" problem.

I pack my items very well, so I would never believe they had been broken without seeing photos of them and the packaging.

If they genuinely were smashed up I could claim from the post office.

I had an issue like this. I sent an item and when the person got it the told me my poor packaging made it break. I know the packaging was fine and told them to send it back and never got it back. They opened up a ebay ticket and told ebay he never sent it back. I was still dinged anyway. So I didn’t get the money and lost the piece as well.

I've had a few occasions where someone seemed really sketchy, sold a hot wheels treasure hunt set on amazon and the person sent me a message after they received the item asking if I could refund them because their son accidentally bout them. When I said no problem as long as you send it back first I never got a response, never had that happen on eBay but I do get people who win an item and then don't pay for a week, its worse when they do an offer and I accept and they decide to wait until I have to open a claim to get them to pay.

Unfortunately, due to the risks involved I generally only sell (at least via ebay) domestically rather than internationally.

I will buy internationally, but not sell... just not worth the hassle and risk.

That said, if it's someone I trust I, of course, work with them. I sent Dakka Dice to many different countries, and I buy models/bits from even more countries that than (since the risk is low as a buyer). But for a big sale, it's usually just not safe enough for me to feel comfortable doing it internationally.

I have only bought a couple of things from individuals on ebay, I've had a lot of luck with "blackdaggergames" for bits, though...prompt shipping and arrives in good shape.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I've had stuff broken in transit ...but I've never thought that it warranted a claim (what's a litle glue?). That said people would probably be more concerned if their stuff was painted. Still if the seller's obviously gone to the effort to prevent this, ie used the proper packaging, etc, I wouldn't hold it against them, it was the people that transported its fault. =P

This is the other thing. I bought some confrontation daikinee archers once and the tool who shipped them put them in an unpadded envelope, wrapped like 2 pieces of newspaper around them, and called it a day. He was somehow stunned when I opened a complaint. Sorry pal, I paid you 50 bucks for 3 OOP archers who werent broken, thank you very much.

 Breotan wrote:
Okay, here's the situation. I recently hit an issue on eBay where a person bought some 40k figures I had put up for sale. I'm in the US and the buyer is in Europe. I went ahead and shipped to him and he said he received the items but that they were so damaged in shipping that they were unusable. He finished by asking for a refund. I told the buyer to return the items and I would replace them (fortunately I do have extra models to do this) but it really got me wondering...

How common is this situation for you guys who sell to people outside your own country? Is this just some sort of "technique" people use to scam a "free" toy from someone? Or is this actually a rare occurrence? Are there certain parts of the globe where stuff like this is more commonplace? I've never seen it within the US or from the UK or Canada and would expect it to be rare for others within their own country as well because it's so easy to verify when a package can be returned cheaply.

I've been scammed numerous times on ebay from buying and selling, it's more common for buying.

How it works is you buy something, you get it and say ( oh it's broken ) So the buyer will ship a box back with tracking and aslong as it shows delivered. Paypal will refund the money.

It could be empty and they will still do it. I've found it rare for people to be totally honest that somethign was broken or missing etc.

I sold a ton of Ghostbusters stuff like proton pack, jump suit, the whole nine yards, the buyer claimed he never received and paypal took my money out of account until the case was solved. Few days after the claim was opened the Buyer put the stuff he bought from me on ebay and was selling it the same exact time as the case was opened as item not received. I called paypal 5 times and was unable to plead my case and show them what he was doing, my response was "But he is a top rated seller why would he do that"

I got screwed out of 750 bucks luckily the bank account that was attached to it was closed once this hit the fan so I didn't pay them at all and when it showed up on my credit report I disputed it.


For sweet revenge, I was able to get ahold of the guys wifes business email and sent her an email of notice of intent to sue because of his scamming.

That was worth it as she had no idea what was going on. BAAAZINGGAAAH!



Shipping over seas is worse too since it's more expensive for USA to get tracking numbers, while for royal mail it's much cheaper.

I highly recommend only selling to USA/Canada if you are in the states.


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 daddyorchips wrote:
the way i work it out is that 1/100 ebay buyers are dodgy (your milage may vary) and 1/50 items will got missing in postage. as a uk seller i have found that the worst buyers are in the USA and in China, and the worst postage is the Italian system, with France close behind. I won't sell to China full stop - it's normally a scam of some sort. I'll sell to the USA but for reasonably priced stuff i'll take a million pictures and describe from every angle but every now and again there's still someone who can't understand that England is not in USA and I can't accept greasy dollars in the mail.

i won't ship to France or Italy without fully tracked and insured post, and i state this. if they seem nice i will do it, at their own risk, and i've only been burnt once since then.

for low value stuff with low shipping costs i'm not a complete prick about it though!

remember this though: Ebay is on the buyers side. it will always side with the buyer against you unless your evidence is completely unimpeachable. do not use ebay to sell anything you're not willing to write off unless you ship things properrly recorded. but remember that you then have the buyers address, so if they do feth you, shipping them a human turd in a box is a lot of fun.



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or, in the USA, a badly wrapped envelope with white powder leaking out. the americans take that gak seriously. in most european countries the postman would knock and say "your drugs have arrived".

Funny i've had the same deal happen with UK buyers.


Without further calling out countries. it's just risky to ship overseas or out of country period no matter where you are from.

It seems like buyers are the dodgiest when they win as an auction rather than paying the Buy it Now price. Of course with FeeBay now requiring a 30% increase over the starting price for the BIN (I could have sworn it used to be 10%) I've been doing less auctions and more fixed price listing. Even then, the fees are starting to stack up between increased cost of shipping (which buyers whine about), Feebay and Paypals cut (which I consider double dipping since they're the same company now), and it's getting harder to justify selling anything using their service.

Selling all my 40k stuff off over the last couple of years I've had to use the "remind buyer to pay" function more than a few times. I've never had someone outright claim that they didn't receive something, because I always send it in some way I can confirm receipt. I am also always wary of shipping outside the US, and generally don't do it other than in the cases of an FPO/APO.

As a buyer, I expect sellers to treat me the way I treat buyers when I do sell, and treat them the way I want buyers to treat me. I ship within 48 hours of cleared payment, and I pay my auctions within the same time frame (though usually, I pay them within the 12 hour time frame). I've had a few cases lately when buying used WM items from individuals on Feebay with them waiting 4 or so days after payment to ship and it's kind of annoying, but other than knock them on their "how quickly did the seller ship" rating, what can you do?

When I used to eBay I sold stuff around the world, Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, USA and Australia were common. Mostly I sold very OOP miniatures (often pre-slotta) and I almost never had an issue. Then again, I recognised some names as repeat customers so perhaps the pool of buyers wasn't that great even though I sold many things over months/years.

My wife bought two antique Japanese bowls. They were magnificent, hand made and decorated, with richly painted designs and gold leaf.

Unfortunately they were shipped in a cardboard box padded with a couple of sheets of newspaper and arrived in about 11 pieces.

We suspected a problem with the parcel clanked before it was opened, so we took photos of every stage, showing that the bowls were badly smashed, and opened a dispute.

We got a refund straight away, but the sad thing was that two bowls that had survived 100+ years travelling around the world and so on, were smashed because a dill weed seller didn't want to go to the cost of half a newpaper of padding in his parcel.

It's practically criminal, in my opinion.

Is this just some sort of "technique" people use to scam a "free" toy from someone?

I wouldn't go straight to assuming it's a scam, shipping damage does happen. This is why everything of any significant value I send has tracking and insurance. If it's legitimate shipping damage, the post office can pay for it. If it's a scam, at least they're scamming the post office instead of me.

 Peregrine wrote:

Is this just some sort of "technique" people use to scam a "free" toy from someone?

I wouldn't go straight to assuming it's a scam, shipping damage does happen. This is why everything of any significant value I send has tracking and insurance. If it's legitimate shipping damage, the post office can pay for it. If it's a scam, at least they're scamming the post office instead of me.

Which would be mail fraud (a federal crime)

The only issue ive ever had with damaged goods was when i sold a Leman russ, when the buyer recived the package, he PM'ed me and said there was a problem, and that the box was badly damaged, he then emailed me a pic of the box, which was crushed, and you could clearly see a tire print from a fork lift truck, needless to say the model was knackered.
Now the guy asked if i was willing to refund him, or if i was gona say no deal, i then asked him to give me a few days to contact the post office, which he was ok with. i contacted them, emailed them the pics of the package, and a copy of the tracking details, along with a copy of the invoice of the ebay sale, and the buyers contact details (which he was ok with) next thing i hear, the buyer contacted me, saying the post office had offered him a full refund, as the damage was done while in there care, and i recived a letter with a full apoligy from the post office, and that was a few years ago, since then ive had no issues with ebay

I must admit that I have never sold an item on ebay.

However as I am Australian I am a frequent buyer of 40K via Ebay mainly from overseas accounts (infact I cannot imagine i would be in this hobby without it!).

Don't always discount the overseas purchaser, there are countries who are notorious for being dodgy (we all know that) on the flipside there are also plenty of countries you can count on for having the same amount of dodgy buyers as your own country.

I noticed a few of the posts here have the buyer receiving the goods and not sending payment...I was of the impression that the payment had to be received before goods would be mailed - surely this is the wisest way.

Just my two cents but from a buyers perspective (and from the mind of a naturally paranoid Insurance marketer) I imagine you could minimise the chances of being played by:

> Getting cleared payment 48hrs before mailing.
> Mailing with tracking and insurance
> Taking more than one blurry picture (many pictures from all angles) of the item for sale
> Taking pictures of the packaging process for your records.
> Mentioning these points in the auction description

Like any money making scheme; selling items on Ebay should be treated seriously or people will try and take advantage of you (it sucks but it is true). As a non-dodgy buyer I would actually feel more confident about buying from someone who takes it seriously and protects themselves and my purchases.

I have only had two dodgy experiences: one item that never appeared but I got a paypal refund from & an auction where i won 10 plastic and one metal model that the seller proceeded to mail in a small cardboard box with no padding (the metal model proved its might in the post), so maybe I am just not as jaded .

 Dmyze wrote:
I must admit that I have never sold an item on ebay.

However as I am Australian I am a frequent buyer of 40K via Ebay mainly from overseas accounts (infact I cannot imagine i would be in this hobby without it!).

Don't always discount the overseas purchaser, there are countries who are notorious for being dodgy (we all know that) on the flipside there are also plenty of countries you can count on for having the same amount of dodgy buyers as your own country.

I noticed a few of the posts here have the buyer receiving the goods and not sending payment...I was of the impression that the payment had to be received before goods would be mailed - surely this is the wisest way.

Just my two cents but from a buyers perspective (and from the mind of a naturally paranoid Insurance marketer) I imagine you could minimise the chances of being played by:

> Getting cleared payment 48hrs before mailing.
> Mailing with tracking and insurance
> Taking more than one blurry picture (many pictures from all angles) of the item for sale
> Taking pictures of the packaging process for your records.
> Mentioning these points in the auction description

Like any money making scheme; selling items on Ebay should be treated seriously or people will try and take advantage of you (it sucks but it is true). As a non-dodgy buyer I would actually feel more confident about buying from someone who takes it seriously and protects themselves and my purchases.

I have only had two dodgy experiences: one item that never appeared but I got a paypal refund from & an auction where i won 10 plastic and one metal model that the seller proceeded to mail in a small cardboard box with no padding (the metal model proved its might in the post), so maybe I am just not as jaded .

The main problem is that even when they pay, unethical buyers can claim an item was broken, not recieved, etc. Ebay will often side with them (depending on the situation) and either take the money back from the seller (if it's in a paypal account) or not release the money to the seller (sometimes it's not released until after a sale is finalized). So even though the buyer has paid, the seller might still get screwed.

I've had really good luck with selling on ebay (a few dozen things sold so far) but right now I'm dealing with a buyer who hasn't paid. I haven't shipped of course, but it is annoying.

Film it perhaps?

Record yourself putting the item in the box, putting his address on the box, and giving the box to the post office etc. A real pain in the ass but it puts you beyond reproach.

Then if stuff 'breaks in the mail', well, tough gak wasn't broken when I sent it.

The thing is, receiving a broken item is one of the ways a buyer can pursue a claim. I've put the buyer in my "blocked buyers" list so he'll not be able to bin on any future auctions I put up so I'm safe there at least.

As a long-time buyer, I would just like to say that things do get lost or trashed in the post. A lot. And it's a pretty gakky attitude to assume that anyone who wants to get his money's worth is trying to rip you off.

As a seller you need to realize that this is how packages are handled in transit, and pack accordingly.

As a long time buyer on ebay I've very rarely had any problems, maybe 2 broken items out of 1000 transactions

I contacted the sellers with plenty of photos, and details for them to pass on to the post office (& kept the damaged packaging too in case they needed it).

Once gave me a refund, one sent me a replacement item

As an occasional seller I've had the odd non payer but not much more than that, and international buyers have fine

(you need to let them know realistic transit times though as if they don't usually buy from another country they may not realise the extra time it can take)

although if you are selling something expensive it's well worth your while to send it tracked and fully insured... build the cost into your asking price or postage cost.