ebay noob question

Tube

I'm thinking about buying a guitar on ebay from an american buyer (I'm in the UK). For international sales, he only accepts bank to bank wire transfer.

Is this legit? How could this go wrong for me? The seller has good feedback.

Deusfaux

first instinct (160ish transactions on ebay) tells me this isnt a good thing.

I've never been asked to pay in anything other than the standard means, and typically when someone requests that you do pay by other means you take it to understand they're attempting to fuck you. Especially anything to do with "bidpay" or "western union" or stuff of that nature.

Can you link the auction?

Tube

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=014&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=330119993033&rd=1&rd=1

Deusfaux

Well you can always ask him why he only accepts that method

plus: the payment method is upfront, this is not him telling you in private he suddenly wants a wire transfer

neg: all of his buyer infos for auctions is privatized. never seen that. what's to hide?

plus: he has a decent amount of feedback and a decent percentage

neg: the guitar is probably worth less than that BIN price - otherwise the auction wouldnt have lasted this long, or he'd have it up for a real auction trying to get as much as possible for it.


I dunno hard to say. What recourse do you have if he decides to say... simply not to send it after you send payment? At least with paypal you can do a chargeback on your credit card. And the onus is on him to prove to paypal he sent it. I'm not familiar enough with wire transfers. For a detailed answer on that you could pose the same question on ebay's own discussion boards. They're gonna be the most knowledgable on the ins and outs of everything.

skeldare

Looks pretty legit. My question would be why he doesnt except paypal. Everyone should except paypal.

onceling

Sellers make their auctions private at times to prevent people contacting their buyers and offering them scams, related products and so on. There are bad reasons to do so, as well, I admit.

This guy looks like he always sells this kind of stuff and the bank-to-bank is probably a recurring theme.

It doesn't offer you any protection - if it doesn't arrive, is damaged, isn't what you asked for and so on. You can't get the money back as you could if you used a credit card or PayPal. It's probably the sellers way of protecting themselves from buyers (somewhat extreme but you can't blame them I suppose).

It's up to you, if its worth the risk becauase the guitar is extremely unique, well maybe. If you can get this elsewhere though, please do. Purchases that can be returned or are protected by PayPal or a card company are a better idea.

Deusfaux

Yeah I forgot to say that... keep this one on the back burner and try to find the guitar elsewhere first.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

It's too bad I don't work at eBay anymore or I'd totally look into this guy's history for you. The best thing I can say about eBay is, when in doubt, don't do it. I've seen too many obvoius scams take place, and there is little eBay does for *those.*

Tube

I checked it out, for another 200 pounds (taking delivery costs and tax into account) I can buy the same make over here and play it first. I think that'd be a better idea.