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should I send this order?

 
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:35 pm    Post subject: should I send this order? Reply with quote

I thought I was pretty experienced in judging the authenticity of orders, but this one i dont know.

So this guy paid almost $300 by paypal with unconfirmed address with a different name. He actually left a phone# but nobody answers the phone. I sent him an email asking for a valid phone so I can confirm the order/address with him.

the reply: "I am far from home! what else should be more checks? I paid for a gift to a friend! so I look forward to when you send my purchase!"

I am intending to refund because
1, the english is funny?
2, too many exclamations?
3, he is sending a computer "barebone system" as a gift?
4, my listing is the highest-priced on google shopping
5, he is paying $22 on sales tax
6, theives usually dont leave a phone#, but a phone# that nobody answers seems like a more sophisticated scam?
7, thieves usually pay for next-day air, but there is no such option.

what do you think?

btw, i just correctly refunded a $900 video card order when the shipping address was a storage space! the thief also answered my email: "i did authorize the order... dont feel comfortable giving out my phone#.." I received an email from a bank within 24 hours of cancellation. I then replied to the thief and told him that his order has been shipped. At the same time, i gave his address to the bank who is working with the police.
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MaggietheCatsMeows



Posts: 2853

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are selling technology and that seems to attract the most thieves. Err on the side of caution. Google earth the address and verify the address and phone number before shipping. The phone number can be for a disposable cell.
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

An observation about PayPal... you can turn on a setting that requires a Confirmed Address with every payment. That will improve the quality of the payments you receive, but will also cause issues with people who want to send 'gifts'. Not all gift purchases are scams, but some certainly are.

If the payment arrived with an unconfirmed address, it is possible that the address supplied is not the cardholders address.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So glad I don't sell high scam articles. I never even look to see if an address is confirmed. I just ship. In this case I would have shipped also. I don't give out my phone number and hate getting calls. If I paid for an item and someone didn't want to ship to me because I didn't give them a phone number and was harassing me with emails to be sure I wasn't a thief, not only would I be ticked off, I would cancel the order. But that is just me.

I also don't get the sales tax comment--what does that have to do with anything? Why the concern about next day air which isn't an option anyhow? A phone number that no one answers could mean no one is at home. I see a lot of 'funny' English emails and that doesn't make anyone a thief. All your 'reasons' for why you shouldn't send have nothing to do with whether or not you aren't going to send a paid for order. Unless you have in your terms of service that you only send to confirmed addresses, you don't even have that as a fall back escuse to not ship.

You have chosen this type of item to sell and you seem to need some specific rules for yourself about when you will or won't ship an item and stick to them. I do realize that there are scammers out there and how you figure them out is beyond me as I would hate to look at every order I got as a potential scammer which would be more than my stress levels could handle.

Sorry, other than the unconfirmed address, I don't see anything in what you wrote to mean this is a scam. Can you check with PP to be sure it is a valid credit card?
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's definitely true that tech items are more prone to fraud. I do realize that this is taking too much of my time and energy, and that sucks. This is particularly bad when I start to use the authorize.net gateway.

I still dont understand exactly how the gateway works. However, I do believe my experience that NMI lets me feel 10000 times safer than authorize.net. (this is kinda contrary to what they say, that gateway has not much to do with security.)

Paypal is just like another gateway. I do not want to require confirmed address because i know 30%, if not more, of the sales have shipping addresses different from billing. I do not understand why they do not require a phone# which makes a big difference to me. Not that I will call the customer, but that generally thieves are "reluctant" to leave valid phone#. It's probably true that if i buy a small toy online, i dont want to get a scrutinizing phone call. On the other hand, if i spend $500 on a purchase, I would probably fill in the blank. I have filled orders higher than $5K. I haven't seen a serious order exceeding couple hundred dollars, without leaving a phone#. only paypal would do that! they lost $1700 once to my seller protection and flagged all my sales for a full year!

The reasons listed are just my instincts (experience). there is obviously no science in there. when it's not your money, there is a lot less to worry about.
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i finally refunded the transaction.

according to the ip locator http://www.iplocation.net/index.php
The ip address is located in Houston Texas and he said he was far away from home! who does not have a cell phone?

Paypal is not willing to give me any information how their gateway processes credit card. They would not even tell me if they checked the CVV!
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thelivesandlovesofmaggiethecat



Posts: 10158

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What it all boils down to is this: You have to do what feels right for you and what you can live with. If a transaction is going to keep you awake nights then you have to cancel it.
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i really wanted to fill the ecrater order. i have spent too much time on ecrater and so far it's quite a disappointment, with the PR and alexa traffic rank, and the low prices? i practically could not sell jack. as far as i can see, it seems the best seller performance is 10 orders a day? i **manually** posted 4000 items and get 1 a month?! 10 orders a day would be ok, but even that is a long long shot! Same pricing get me sales even on my own sites, but they just dont sell on ecrater! that i cannot figure..
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
who does not have a cell phone?



ME!

Quote:
i **manually** posted 4000 items


I've manually posted more than double that, but I do fairly well selling, but certainly not 10 a day on average. I wish it was that much.

Not sure why you aren't doing better, but it does sound like you are selling on other places, so you may be 'stealing' your sales from ecrater by having your own sites. You may have hit your own saturation level throughout the internet. But I haven't checked your site to see what all you have there. I know for things like computers, etc. we go to a store and buy directly from them and know we won't have to worry about something not showing up in the mail or showing up broken, etc.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 4:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GDTW - Just looked at your site and see that I have been there before. I remember all the legalize that would keep me from ever buying from your site. I give up reading after the first several paragraphs and I love to read. It seems to say that you give refunds on everything but what you are selling and a whole lot of unnessesary information.

Since I know next to nothing about auto parts, I checked out your bedding listings. I looked at several and you need better titles to describe what you are selling. You keep inserting a word 'pem' in the title that I have no idea what it means and I doubt if too many other people would know either. You need to say "King Size Black White Comforter Bedspread Sheet Pillowcase set" and you still have a few more spaces you can use in the title, but if someone does a search for a king size comforter, king size sheets, king size pillowcases, king size bedspread, black and white king size sheet set, etc. you've got it covered and just might be found. But how your titles are formated now, it just isn't going to happened unless someone knows exactly how you wrote your title (and then they wouldn't need to search). Hopefully this info will be of some help to you. Very Happy
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 5:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gdtw wrote:
Paypal is just like another gateway. I do not want to require confirmed address because i know 30%, if not more, of the sales have shipping addresses different from billing.


The question, with the invisible answer is, how many of those are legit and how many of those are scams. Hard to tell. How many would it require to go bad and impact your bottom line ?

BTW, any customer with a valid additional address can get it added as a confirmed addresses on their PP account. It may require more effort than they want to do, but it is possible.
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MoonwishesStore wrote:
GDTW - Just looked at your site and see that I have been there before. I remember all the legalize that would keep me from ever buying from your site. I give up reading after the first several paragraphs and I love to read. It seems to say that you give refunds on everything but what you are selling and a whole lot of unnessesary information.

Since I know next to nothing about auto parts, I checked out your bedding listings. I looked at several and you need better titles to describe what you are selling. You keep inserting a word 'pem' in the title that I have no idea what it means and I doubt if too many other people would know either. You need to say "King Size Black White Comforter Bedspread Sheet Pillowcase set" and you still have a few more spaces you can use in the title, but if someone does a search for a king size comforter, king size sheets, king size pillowcases, king size bedspread, black and white king size sheet set, etc. you've got it covered and just might be found. But how your titles are formated now, it just isn't going to happened unless someone knows exactly how you wrote your title (and then they wouldn't need to search). Hopefully this info will be of some help to you. Very Happy


There are about infinite keywords, that come with infinite keyword strategies. your recommendations are not bad, but they are just against my strategies. I never want to do anything manually. i am not sure the manual labor can be worthily factored in the prices... perhaps using microworkers might work..
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gdtw



Posts: 41

PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cosmicray wrote:


BTW, any customer with a valid additional address can get it added as a confirmed addresses on their PP account. It may require more effort than they want to do, but it is possible.


it's a risk of losing sales. i never tested it. i wonder what kind of messages one gets when entering a non-confirmed address?
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gdtw wrote:
cosmicray wrote:


BTW, any customer with a valid additional address can get it added as a confirmed addresses on their PP account. It may require more effort than they want to do, but it is possible.


it's a risk of losing sales. i never tested it. i wonder what kind of messages one gets when entering a non-confirmed address?


I think you misunderstand the process. On eCrater (when the buyer selects PP), they can enter any address. It is up to you, the seller, to see if the eCrater address matches the PP address. If you have your PP account restricted to Confirmed Address only, the buyer is not given the opportunity to enter an address on PP. At best, assuming they have more than one Confirmed Address, they can pick which one to supply with the payment.

So a buyer, who wants to ship a gift, would enter the gift address on eCrater, and select that address (which they have previously confirmed) from the choices when making the PP payment.

What most people try to do, is enter the gift address on eCrater, then run the payment thru PP with the only Confirmed Address they have (which is usually the billing address for the card). When I receive such an order, I typically refund the payment, then tell the customer they can either confirm the gift address with PP, or they can resubmit the order with GCO (which seems to have the gift address procedure implemented much better than PP).

The point of this exercise is, the payment service must know where the item is being shipped to, and must supply that address to you, the seller, with the payment. To ship to any other address, would leave you exposed to a potential chargeback for unauthorized use.
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tigercreekgifts



Posts: 6293

PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't rely solely on the fact that this buyer is sending a high value item as a gift or the fact that the type of item that is being gifted is unusually odd, as a means to cancel the sale or suspect your buyer of fraud. I have had buyers purchase anything from a lot of Brand New Size XXXL Women's Panties to price tag stickers and grab bags full of random nails, screws, and bolts, and request them to be sent to another address as a gift for a friend so, even though your item may seem like an odd item to give as a gift, you have to remember that people usually give others what they feel they would actually want and get the most use from as a gift, even if it is unusual or seems suspect to you. Your buyer's friend, may be a tech nerd that loves to tear apart old computers and use the parts to build robotic toys for all we know. Another thing, even the most honest buyers could have an unconfirmed address because they have just recently moved or they move around frequently due to their career of choice.

If something does not feel right from inside of your gut though, it can never hurt to further research the buyer. As a seller, we ALL have to take our own safety into account first and foremost. If you do further research the buyer and find that your newly gathered information just doesn't seem to add up or you feel like they could be scamming you or may have made a purchase with a stolen credit card or identity, then by all means, contact paypal (or their personal banking institution if they payed via a personal check or bank issued money order), and let them know about your concerns. The main issue I would worry about is, if they paid via GCO or Paypal, is the item showing up as covered fully by seller protection? If so, and this is some sort of scam, your money will be reimbursed to you. If your buyer sent a paper payment through the mail, then you'll need to research as much as you can and if you do ship, I'd insure the product with the post office or FedEx or whichever shipping provider you use as sales paid for with paper payments that are mailed in will not be covered by any form of seller protection unless you pay extra for it through your shipping provider.
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