eBay

I've just sold the wife's old iPhone on eBay and the winning bidder has just messaged me immediately after the auction to say, "please post to Ukraine."

Now, I'm all for giving people a chance but are my immediate apprehensions warranted here?

I didn't actually stipulate that I wouldn't post overseas, so I arguably only have myself to blame, but I did state the shipping cost and that it would be Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Assuming they pay via PayPal before I post, what am I leaving myself open to? Anything?

Edited: The buyer has 100% positive feedback wth over 300 reviews mainly as a buyer. Doesn't appear to have done any eBay business in the last year though.

Claim of a no show, charge back on a stolen card.

I wouldn't send it

You could send it signed for via a courier with tracking to avoid any naughtiness?

That's what I'm thinking.

I'm a bit naive to how eBay deals with this kind of thing but presumably if they claim not to have received the item and I can show tracking information/signature confirming receipt of delivery then there can be no argument.

Ebay and PayPal pretty well always side with the buyer.
It's not worth the hassle of sending abroad without going through the eBay global shipping programme

As long as it's via a tracked and fully insured service then I'd do it.

I'd double check the cover with it being a mobile however as I sold one recently and was told that it wouldn't be covered in the result of a claim. This may be just because I was shipping second class (within the UK) and as it was a low value spare I didn't listen too hard and sent it anyway.

Tell the buyer and eBay that you have found the phone to be faulty.

No need. You can just cancel the sale with a "I do not ship to this location" reason and offer it to the undersides. And hope they aren't from Lagos!

The feedback sounds good so I would send it tracked and insured.

A lot of people "buy or acquire" old unused ebay accounts these days so I'd be very weary of one that hasn't had any recent feedback, personally I only send abroad via the global shipping program as I once had a seller claim he hadn't received the item and I ended up losing out.

Surely if you take payment through PayPal then you're safe providing you send it signed for with tracking, but with that shipping type it's going to be pretty expensive shipping.

If it helps ease your mind, I've bought a full set of carbon ceramic brakes from a seller in the Ukraine which aren't cheap, and I'll be honest, I was slightly pooping my pants clicking on the bank transfer button.
The seller turned out to be a super helpful guy, he followed up the sale and shipping the whole way, he then went on to send me workshop manual extracts for fitting and torque wrench settings. Great guy to do business with.
Apparently they don't all live in Gypsy Ghettos as the press would have you believe.

No, if a stolen card has been used to fund the payment, Paypal can (in some circumstances) take the funds back.

In any case, I think you re only covered if sending to the buyers confirmed address, and last time I looked at this, they didn't confirm any addresses in Ukraine...or Russia or China for that matter.

If it wasn't a hugely expensive item, and you can afford to lose the money, then its ok.

I would take the chance though, especially if there was another bidder in the UK I would offer them a second chance offer to save the hassle.

And I would check the Royal Mail site as to the cost of posting with tracking all the way.....Jeeezus

Thanks all. Some really helpful stuff here.

I went to the Post Office today to get a price to send it to Ukraine and the lady on the desk told me steer well clear of sending things sold on eBay outside of the U.K.

She reckoned that even with a tracking number they can't guarantee that it's been delivered to that person and they will often claim that someone took delivery and they never received the item.

I chatted online to someone at eBay and he said that provided I have a tracking number and it gets delivered to the address given, they wouldn't issue a refund to the buyer in the event of a claim of non-delivery.

However, he repeatedly told me I could just cancel the sale if I still wasn't comfortable which made me a little nervous.

In any case, I stuck the phone on Gumtree and have had several messages already (some tyre-kickers, admittedly, but one who is willing to pay a price I'm happy with).

Let's just hope I don't get mugged when they come to collect it!

I'd not send it for the above reason and cancel the bid. The buyer would have known you weren't willing to send it outside of the UK and went out of their way to bid on the UK side and bid to win. Frankly I think it's too risky.

If you relist and want to ship outside U.K then use the global shipping programme.

With the current exchange rate, I'm amazed eBay.uk isn't flooded with buyers from abroad.

Completely understand your concerns, but when the boots on the other foot it's hugely frustrating. I've been chasing a very very rare dashboard switch for an early Lancia. The only one to come up on ebay in over a year of looking was unsurprisingly in Italy where the seller wasn't prepared to post abroad. After selfishly bombarding them with ebay messages (ignored), tracking down their email off google (ignored), telephoning and text messaging all in broken italian pleading with them to entertain posting it abroad, I've eventually persuaded them to play ball.
Conversely I also bought a set of carbs off the italian version of gumtree and they were happy to send without any ebay protection (albeit I was risking it as much as them).

I used to have policy of never shipping abroad but now will occasionally and it's been fine. It's only ever with been with people who've contacted me before bidding though and we've had a (fully tracked and insured) shipping price agreed before auction end. If your auction only gives a shipping option within the UK then you'll be fine to cancel if you'd rather not ship outside. There's no obligation for you to honour your UK shipping price to the Ukraine (if I'm reading it correctly). The price of tracked services to Europe can be very prohibitively expensive and it tends to put most off. I quite often get asked "just to send as a small parcel (without tracking) as it only costs £xx.xx to ....." but I always ignore these requests.

My backside fully covered or no sendysend.

If the auction did specifically mention international shipping then it can always get suddenly broken/lost and no longer available. Then just relist it specifically as UK only.

I've always stipulated that it must be signed and tracked,that is the only way you will have recompense should it go 'astray' outside of the Ebay shipping programme.
The postage costs are of course higher but the buyer should be asked to pay these for future sales if you want to offer the facility.

Thanks all.

I sold it to a nice lady on Gumtree in the end. Her English was arguably worse than the chap in Ukraine, but at least she didn't kick my teeth in when I dropped it off to her.

eBay sale cancelled citing location issues.

Fair enough. Enjoy keeping possession of your teeth, always a good thing to have.