Payment from ebay buyer

[Steph]

Hi,  hope someone can help? I have an item for sale on French ebay for a reasonable amount of money, in my listing I have stated that I prefer cash but the higest bidder might not want to do this, as I don't want to jeopardize any sale what should I ask for by means of payment?

For example what's the French equivalent of a bankers draft, if people offer a personal cheque is it reasonable to ask for their bank contact details so that we can phone up and check the funds are there etc .. (a friend recently bought a car off ebay.fr and the sellers phoned their bank).

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

Steph

[Ron Avery]

Sorry but I really do not know why you are asking this after you have listed your item.  Are you new to eBay? If so I apologise.

Ebay France is no different to Ebay UK or any other Ebay come to that.,  in fact it is quite common for UK buyers to sell to France and vice versa.  You can ask for cash or en liquide but at  the buyers risk by post, but as with any eBay item, it is normally paid for by Paypal or a cheque.  If it is a cheque, as in the UK,  you wait until the money is in you bank before you send the goods or allow collection, that is how Ebay works all over the world. 

[Punch]

Or you could of course ask for a direct bank transfer ( a virement bancaire). You just provide your bank accounts details (which are on one of your bank RIB's) to your buyer, and then release the goods once the funds are in your account. Not many Fench would be keen on sending cash in the post, and this method has worked well for me.

Paul

[chessie]

I'm probably wrong on this - but are you really sure you would want to

be handing over your bank a/c details to a stranger? Or am I just a bit

too cautious ? If it's a french buyer then surely asking for a french

cheque is going to be OK - and then wait for the money to appear in

your a/c. I've bought e-bay items on UK site - and although I'm living

in France I pay with a UK £sterling cheque, and am always happy to wait

for the seller to know they they're money before posting the item on...

[Ron Avery]

Paul
I try all the time to get non Paypal sellers to use bank transfers instaed of cheques, but with all the media hype about identity theft, its like banging you head against a brick wall.   As  you say, all you need is the sort code and account number. I have tried pointing out that if you send a cheque to them, you are sending them far more information than you are asking for and that sometimes works, it is so much easier than cheques or  Paypal and for the seller a lot cheaper.  Sometimes though I wonder if they do not want to release account details in case you are the Inland Revenue in disquise.

[Miki]

Or am I just a bit

too cautious ? If it's a french buyer then surely asking for a french

cheque is going to be OK - and then wait for the money to appear in

your a/c.

chessie,

Be very careful indeed when thinking that a personal cheque paid in to ones

French account is cleared when it appears in your account. We always

await for several days for a French cheque to clear , even after it

appears and it can appear very quickly as well, without the funds

actually being cleared, before releasing any goods to the buyer.

With large cheques, e.g when we have sold cars ( a few of them on

French ebay as well)  we wait for a while and then ask to speak to

our conseiller, or someone we can trust to see if the funds are

actually physically in our account.. Not all will give you the

honest  answer to what you are asking and I have known a few

simply to say, "oh yes, it is OK", when it hadn't in fact cleared at

the bank .

This is how scammers try to fool people who have French accounts. They

are aware that the cheque they send you will appear pretty smart in

your account, then having paid you too much, they will then ask

you to send them a cheque for the amount over paid and

then....bosh,  you will find that their cheque has suprprisngly

bounced !! but yours has cleared et voila, scam done !

Sorry if you knew all this but hopefully others will read this and be suitably warned.

[Dick Smith]

Why not use Paypal - that's what it's for.

[Ron Avery]

Talking of scammers, anyone else e mails received Emails addressed to another wanado user (not directly to you)  from eBay purporting to come from a seller of expensive items telling you that you have not paid for the item and threatening to leave you negative feedback? 

 There are two good clues to the fact that these are frauds, one is that they do not show up in your messages in My eBay and they say that they contain your Ebay name but don't .  These are all cases where the identity of the seller of expensive items like cameras and coins has been hijacked and being used fraudulently.  Another scam is bogus second chance offers that com from different people to the original sellr.

They appear to be targetting the French as ebay is now starting to take off here with lots of new and they hope naive buyers.   Also, do NOT be tempted to notify the real seller that their account had been compromised, let eBay do that.  I did with the first one thinking I was being helpful only to find that Ebay had to reset my security in case my account had been compromised.  The laugh was when I got the E mail from Ebay telling me that my account may have been compromised and to resend my details, I sent it to the spoof department only to be told that it was actually real[:)].

[Miki]

 Under the new policy, sellers will not be allowed to ask buyers to send

cash in the post or ask buyers to send payment through instant cash

transfer services (non-bank, point-to-point cash transfers) such as

Western Union or Moneygram.

This is the latest payment warning (18.12.05 a repeat of one a few days before) sent to ebay members.And about time as well.

Nick, wotsisname on BBC Watchdog, spoke with the MD of Ebay (based in

Richmond, Surrey)  recently and he brought up that ebay were

appearing not to be taking security issues seriously enough and since

then, it does appear that they are making inroads to help guarantee

that payments are made in a way that ebay can help to stamp out fraud.

Doubt it can ever be 100% but as they own PayPal, it is of course a

method that they really do have to get right or......................

Ron, one of the ways, if I am right, apart from seeing if the message

is in your personal My Ebay, is that scams do not have ones name on the

email, rather they tend to simply say,  Dear ebay member etc...................

Dick, the only problem with PayPal (we use it a lot, it is a sensible

way to buy and of course, to sell, depending on the item being sold and the

cost) is that one cannot pass on the charges on to the buyer any

more and when selling an expensive car, it is a fair lump out of the

deal for the seller to pay, so I personally  prefer to take a

cheque.

[Steph]

Thanks Paul, that's just what I wanted to know (i.e virement bancaire).

Cheers.

[Steph]

Ron, I am asking the question because it looks like my item might sell, therefore I wanted to know the correct terminilogy as Paul pointed out below. I am not new to ebay, having sold and bought in France and the UK and fully understand how Ebay works.

I'm am not prepared to accept a paypal payment for 8000 euros as their commission charges are too high for non-verified members. I am happy to accept a cheque but wanted to know if it was acceptable to ask for indentity or whether it's reasonable to ask to contact the bank to make sure the cheque is genuine and wont bounce.

Of course if my buyer is happy to send me a cheque and wait until it has cleared before I allow collection or deliver then I'm happy. Some people might not want to do that, how do they know that I'm cosha.

[Miki]

Steph,

When we sold our last car two weeks ago, we waited 10 days for the bank to clear the cheque (two weekends involved).

It happened that the chap from Paris who was buying, was actually a

police inspector. He was slightly miffed but he respected my decison to

wait for it to clear, as he  had personally heard reports of

attempted ebay frauds, due in no small part, to bouncing cheques.

[Russethouse]

Paypal may say that you can not pass on Paypal charges to your buyer but have a read of a few listings on French eBay, they frequently state that they WILL charge the seller - goodness knows how they get away with it !

 

[Miki]

Gay,

I really think that ebay France has a long way to go yet until it even gets close to ebay UK. I have never

seen so many items, especially in the auto sections, that simply drift

through without a bid. It is like the "Depot Vente" syndrome, they all

too often want far too much for an item and I am sure that too many at

the moment, do not understand the principle of an auction and prefer to have the buy now price, fair enough but............!

[Steph]

Thanks Miki, will just have to wait and see what happens .. french ebayers don't appear to mind waiting. I bought a car recently and the day after the auction the guy went on holiday, so we had to wait for nearly 2 weeks before getting the car!

[Beaufort]

Slightly off topic but...

Does anyone have any experience of selecting your prefered language when using PayPal.

Is it possible for the purposes of being able to read the "fine print" to choose what language to use for the account. I would like to be able to use English.

I do try very hard with the French language and can get the gist of most things but for being able to properly understand "Terms and Conditions" etc...  I would prefer to read them in English.

[expatgirl]

We listed our car (not on ebay, that's next) on an online classified and got two very similar responses, full price or more offered, with us to pay the "international shipper." It seemed like a scam and we didn't pursue it, but perhaps we are being too skeptical?

Anyway, the car's still for sale if anyone's interested!!

[Steph]

Ignore these .. they are scams .. the same thing happened to me with a car on another online classified ..

[Quillan]

[quote user="Beaufort"]

Slightly off topic but...

Does anyone have any experience of selecting your prefered language when using PayPal.

Is it possible for the purposes of being able to read the "fine print" to choose what language to use for the account. I would like to be able to use English.

I do try very hard with the French language and can get the gist of most things but for being able to properly understand "Terms and Conditions" etc...  I would prefer to read them in English.

[/quote]

Easy Peesy.

Log in to PayPal Select 'Profile' which is the menu option on the second line far right.

Three collums will appear.

The one on the left is your Account Details (FR=Compt),

Select the sixth option down (FR= Choix de la langue)

A drop down list will appear and select US English, Enregister and the job is done.

One minor issue is that all information sent by PayPal to a client will also be in English.

Hope this helps, any problems contact me.

[expatgirl]

So we thought. They seemed almost too amateurish to be so, though!