Possible new scam

David Gulling

Foreign buyer send PayPal for small order. Not enough money to justify registered mail. They then claim they never received items. PayPal then asks the seller to furnish tracking number which does not exist for foreign mail. The buyer receives their money back and keeps material.

Dennis Jorgensen

This is an ancient scam for mail order stamp dealers - a computer just means the scammer can rip off some one faster.

andrew Hellenschmidt

This is where feedback comes in handy, just review it before completion. Also human element always helps with an email to see if buyer is legitimate. I've had many more cases where the seller accepts your payment but never mails the stamp especially if they do not like the auction price you won it for.

Doug Noernberg

A good seller will leave feedback after the sale, which is long before knowledge of the scheme becomes known. However, should something like this happen, I hope that the ownership would be willing to modify feedback after the fact in order to properly warn others (if not outright boot them from the site).

John Wagner

I understand. What any online purchasing comes down to is TRUST. Both buyers and sellers can scam if they are so inclined. I'm new here and am glad that the sellers I've dealt with have all been very pleasant and quick to send materials.

Deborah Shohet

It happens now and then but is overall a rare event.

Steven Mahler

This is a very good reason to have the Blocking Seller/Buyer function!

Steven Ford

I put a customs label on everything then upload that number as the tracking number. The post office can track it, you can't. The post office will print out the status of delivery if needed.

Richard Willis

That's a good idea Steven. I will use it.

Ted Tyszka

"The post office can track it, you can't."

I think you can track it as far as the last point before it leaves the US. I have put customs label numbers in the USPS Tracking search box and it has worked for me.

Dennis Jorgensen

In every retail business there is a cost called "shrink" Shrinkage, etc. In a B&M store it is called shoplifting. To a stamp dealer at stamp shows it is also called shoplifting, and some of the devotees of free stamps can be quite skilled about it ( ask me sometime about the well endowed lady that used her chest). For approval dealers it can be the non returned approvals, or the returned approvals with stamps "switched". In any business model a seller has to allow for some sort of "shrinkage". In a perfect world we would not have stamps disappearing, but we live in a far from perfect world. Expect to have some people get free stamps from you, and when they come up with a new method for taking your stamps, come up with new counter measures.

Brent McClintock

If the international service has del-con (delivery confirmation) to the destination in the foreign country, you can now get tracking through to the final address. For example, a customs label number with LZ prefix on a package I mailed Jan. 3 can be tracked all the way through to delivery on Jan. 7 to my buyer's address in Essex, UK. I think the tracking ends for LH (?) prefix custom numbers, as Ted says, at the ISC center in the US the package finally departs from. Mostly my international shipments go without tracking because of the expense. Generally, once bitten, twice shy. You only get one bite of the apple before heading to the blocked list. (Repeat, trusted buyers don't go there.)

Steven Wilner

This happened to me several times on Bidstart with international buyers (always small amounts). I liked that I was able to block these buyers because either they were scamming me - or they live in area with bad postal delivery and I did not want it to happen again. It worries me that some of these same buyers could re-appear here since we have no way of blocking buyers !!

Josef Schneider

I sell sometimes large amounts of stamps or bundles all over, and I found out the bulky letters are mostly not delivered to my customers to far east. They either received the item or not I do not know, but when I refund the money I tell them I will not send any more stamps to their address. I sometimes send an Email to them and ask if the address is correct or safe to send any letters. Try this it works..

Samuel Kelly

FEEDBACK
Buyer and seller, negative's and positives, end of story
Sam