Buying from Overseas. How can I protect myself? Please Help!!!!!

So this guy is selling a 1dmk2n for a great price. Only catch is that he lives in the netherlands. I had no clue where this place is and I found out that it's right below florida in the carribean islands.

Anyways to make a long story short. I got the seller to take a picture of the camera with his passport and his drivers lisence. Thinking that if he was a scammer he woudlnt do this. But the passport and drivers lisence is not american so it looks like just regular paper of some sort. Plus anyone could steal someone's passport and drivers lisence and take a picture of it next to a camera.

So I called paypal and asked if I would be protected if I were to send the money to a person who is not in the states. Aparently I woudlnt be covered unless the sale was done through ebay. Seems weird, ebay is full of scams and rip off's, if paypal is soo protective for people using ebay you figure scammers would find a better place to hang out and find victims.



Anyways, hehe I keep getting off topic.

I want to know if there is a way I can safely send this guy money and have it frozen until I get the camera then release the funds when the transaction is complete.. ?? Does anyone know anything about this?

Try escrow.com, I have used it and it work well.

Netherlands Antilles - for people that may mistake this for Holland/Netherlands/th​e dutch.

nm edited.

cosworth wrote in post #2993522
Netherlands Antilles - for people that may mistake this for Holland/Netherlands/th​e dutch.

correct, do you have experience buying things from this location?

escrow


Standard service fee $84.50
Premier service fee $163.80

for the protection $84 seems worth it! But you only have the choice of using the premier service plan if you plan on using paypal or credit card!! that's sucks!

Does these prices include shipping?

Adaptive wrote in post #2993597
correct, do you have experience buying things from this location?

I used to live in the caribbean. As long as the guy has good feedback and lots of posts wherever you found him, then you should be ok. If it's ebay then what's his feedback etc.

what spooks you to ask? Location only?

use COD.

btw, so you are the buyer from bert cate? i talk to bert and he said he has a friend that sell another Mark II N for $2600 and agreed to do COD. Hoever, they want me to send money via COD first. I pass on the deal since they are from oversea and not worth the hassle.

cosworth wrote in post #2993627
I used to live in the caribbean. As long as the guy has good feedback and lots of posts wherever you found him, then you should be ok. If it's ebay then what's his feedback etc.

what spooks you to ask? Location only?

The seller is a new POTN member, he has maybe 5 posts now.

Yeah I got him to take a picture of the camera with his passport and drivers lisence in the photo but I'm still spooked.

I called paypal to see if I would be protected if I sent money to this person who lives outside of the states and they said that buyer protection would not cover me if I did not buy the item on ebay.

So basically I would be sending the guy $2600 with hopes that he is a honest person. If he quickly withdrew the money from his paypal account after I sent it I would not be covered and I would be at a $2600 loss. He does have an ebay account and has sold about 6 or 8 things to maybe 2 or 3 different people. Under 10 ebay sales and he has 1 negative feedback already. Not enough evidence to convince me to trust this guy.

I should ask him to send me the camera and when it arrives I'll paypal him the money. That's basically the same thing I would be doing if I sent the money first.

I hate this! I wish more people would hurry up and sell their 1dmk2n's so I can buy from someone in the states with alot of feedback.

Bubble wrote in post #2993671
use COD.

btw, i talk to bert and he said he has a friend that sell another Mark II N for $2600 and agreed to do COD. Hoever, they want me to send money via COD first. I pass on the deal since they are from oversea and not worth the hassle.

wow are you serious? this is sounding more and more fishy!!

Personally If I had a 1dmk2n and I had alot of people messaging me wanting to get it I would not take the time to deal with someone asking me to jump through all kinds of hoops to show proof that I'm legit. The fact that he's still dealing with me also makes the whole thing seem kinda fishy.

well, i didn't know he agree to sell for you. He emailed and told me the camera was sold BUT he has another friend that want to sell for $2200 to $2400. I said ok then on the last email, the price shoot to $2600 plus all the shipping charge and most important, they want me to pay first.

how the heck it will be COD now? COD mean you send your product, Carrier will hold the item at the station, you come in with your money order and they will release the product for you. Doh...!!!

You live in the third largest country in the world. I'm SURE you can wait a bit and get another camera from a safer source.

That being said, even as a member here and at FM, I had problems with people not wanting to sell or buy from me when I was there. It was a pain in the ass to cater to American protectionism.

You're $2600 call bud.

Bubble wrote in post #2993691
well, i didn't know he agree to sell for you. He emailed and told me the camera was sold BUT he has another friend that want to sell for $2200 to $2400. I said ok then on the last email, the price shoot to $2600 plus all the shipping charge and most important, they want me to pay first.


how the heck it will be COD now? COD mean you send your product, Carrier will hold the item at the station, you come in with your money order and they will release the product for you. Doh...!!!

We've been communicating for alittle over a month I believe.

Yeah just recently he had me convinced and I was all ready to send the money to him so he said he would close the thread and announce the camera is sold. Now I feel bad because I keep getting hang-ups and don't really have anyone to talk to that could give me intelligent insight, this is why I turn to POTN for advice. He never told me to go to DHL and give them the money for a COD. I think as long as they are holding the money until the package arrives at the DHL depot and I go there to pick it up then everythign would be fine, THEN they give him the money. I could live with that. I'll look into that tomorrow.

you might want to call DHL and ask about the COD and see what they say. I've sold lot of car part via COD. I send the part via DHL to buyer. Buyer goes to DHL station with money order, DHL release item to buyer and deliver the money order back to me. They act as escrow in a way. Again, it is within the US. Never done oversea before. Good luck.

cosworth wrote in post #2993698
You live in the third largest country in the world. I'm SURE you can wait a bit and get another camera from a safer source.

That being said, even as a member here and at FM, I had problems with people not wanting to sell or buy from me when I was there. It was a pain in the ass to cater to American protectionism.

You're $2600 call bud.

I probably could wait a bit longer but it is painful, seriously.

I had to get rid of 2 nice camera bodies to get the funds for this new camera. And now that I am without any camera it seems like I have more and more people coming to me for photos. And the dates that I already had booked I keep rescheduling them when possible. It's soo bad that I'm borrowing a friends Rebel!! Talk about painful!!!!