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eBay, motorcycle helmets, and Malaysia?

sam dupont

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20 years ago, I offered some motorcycle helmets for sale on eBay. I got these weird emails from people in Malaysia. In those days on eBay, not only could you see where a person was from and what they had bought, but you could see what they were watching and bidding on. Because of that, I could see a pattern of these people buying motorcycle helmets, and then claiming they didn't get them or some other scam. Looking at their information, one could tell that they were all connected. So I blocked Malaysia, because some motorcycle helmets are worth a fair amount of money and eBay is no match for scammers.

Skip forward to this week, and I listed an old motorcycle helmet on eBay. It's an outstanding example, and easily worth an excess of $1000. I've now had three emails from people in Malaysia, making offers on the helmet and telling me I can ship to the United States. Still afraid of scammers I wonder what they could have in mind and how they even see my offerings from a blocked country. I tend to trust people and think the best until proven otherwise, but we're talking about a $1000 helmet and I really don't want to get scammed.

Do I have to quit offering helmets again? I have put together a few dozen and would like to clear them out.
 
Well, to alleviate the headache, simply send them to me. There - problem solved.

Seriously, never sell/send anything to malaysia, or actually, anywhere in 'asia'. Or africa. Or india. Or the 'mid east'. Yes, scammers are everywhere, but statistically, America, Europe, Australia and even Russia/Eastern Europe are safe to deal with. Japan is alright too. But never ever se asia...
You're better off just sending them to me and not worrying about it.
 
Follow your gut feeling and previous experience. Life's too short to stress over something that is loaded against you?
 
You can search international ebay listings right from google.
It will even take you to the listing, bypassing any settings in ebay almost entirely.
 
As long as you don't go off line and sell it outside of eBay so that you enjoy their protection, AND insure, AND track the package you are fine. If you don't believe so, then why in the world would you be selling via eBay?
 
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