General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

Given the recent list of scammers coming to HMT, here are some guidelines buyers/sellers should start following on here to prevent further problems.

BUYERS
1) Always pay with PayPal, or Credit Card.
2) Always be sure to get a physical address of your seller.
3) Always be sure to get a detailed list of what it is that you are going to recieve, pictures are always a plus.
4) Never, ever, let the seller talk you into waiting a couple more days for an item.

SELLERS
1) Always accept Paypal.
2) Be sure to TRACK your packages when shipping, and only ship to a buyer's confirmed address.
3) Be sure to take pictures of the product before it is shipped, or get the shipping company to sign a document stating the condition of the item before shipping.
4) Always insure your items
5) Ship your items immediately (within 7 days of payment)



These guidelines should help everyone out - essentially PayPal has a fraud protection program that very few people use to their advantage. If you pay for something that is physical (not software or intellectual property) you are legally entitled to your money back if the item recieved is lesser then what you paid for, incomplete or never recieved. All you have to do is file a complaint, within the 30 days of payment. Sellers have 7 days after payment is made to ship an item, and must ship that item to a confirmed shipping address. If a buyer doesn't have a confirmed shipping address than the whole transaction should be nulled as the seller is not protected from having their money taken even if they ship the product out.

Be sure to keep your tracking information, this can prevent someone from saying that they didn't recieve an item even though you actually sent it. You are not responsible for UPS' mistakes in shipping, you are responsible for addressing the package to the appropriate address, but if UPS gets it lost it is then up to the reciever to file a claim (this is why I strongly encourage everyone to use shipping insurance).

If you do not have a tracking number given to you within 7 days of payment, file a fraud. claim this is simply to long for any item to be shipped. if the seller isn't ready to ship within 7 days go ahead and assume they're going to ---- you over.

Hope this can help prevent any future problems.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

Very good idea posting that.. I was thinking the same thing. But if you don't mind I'd like to add something.

When possible, sell/buy locally to save hassles as you can do in person pick up / delivery.

Also, be very weary of NEW USERS. Even though they might not be a scammer you never know.

Another thing, hotmail is too easy to setup fake accounts. Look for some1 that might have a steady email account like a school address or @home or @cocego something like that.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

maybe HMT should do a rating scale like eBay.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

they sorta already have one.. but for length of registered and # of posts.. which are the stars and x.x bars below names

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

yea how many post. But it doesnt mean if they have a good background or not. You feel? Good seller or not.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

don't you have to have a credit card to sign up for paypal? I don't have a credit card.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

ya but people who are purposely scamming people will come on here right away and start selling crap. People who have been here awhile is a some what indication of their purposes.

Kyle.. then do COD.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

I'm going to do cod now that I have some references that I'm not full of ---- (kErO-916, onyx, whiteb16crx), but most people don't trust enough to send cod

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

COD is fine with me. haha.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

I'll try using cod from now on, see how it works out for me.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

Kyle,get a check card if you dont have a credit card.Thats how my wife set up our paypal and that way you are protected like Chako said.Never again will you be scammed!

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

Paypal requires a credit card (as mentioned debit works to). But I'd rather get a credit card with no annual fee and save my ass $100 then get scammed for it.

:)

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

bumping.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

The only problem with cod is that I believe there is an additional charge for it. Every ebay and paypal fee for my oil line kit is about $7.50 each, but that's what you HAVE TO do these days to make your customer comfortable.
TRUE- The amount of posts a person has is usually an indication that they are a dedicated hmt member. I would say watch out for 50 or less.
I feel bad about flaming bmc racing when he came in and started selling ---- on his 2nd post and now everyone says he's super legit. Sorry, just looking out for my peeps. :)

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

.edu and other emails are easy to get free too, also a user with lots of posts can scam too, dont let a user with 1000 posts tell u that they are shipping it a few days or whatever (they are just avoiding the 30 day fraud protection)

always use paypal and pay with a credit card, make the seller give u a tracking number (ups has them for free) within 2 days of payment, etc etc

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

PAYPAL does NOTHING!!!!!!

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

I've never had a problem refunding with paypal.

Re:General Guidelines for Buying thing online
 

I am going to butt in and add a little bit of information to help sellers mostly, but buyers should read this and learn a little to about what to expect. I've had over 700 transactions online in the past two years and never lost money to fraud.

If you are going to accept Paypal, you should be aware of a few things (that they don't make 100% clear):

• First off (as all ready stated) you have to ship to the confirmed address. If you don't, you are seriously saying good bye to your money and item. If someone wants something shipped to a non-con address report them for fraud investigation.
• You will not be covered if you accept an international payment even if you ship to the confirmed address. And yes, Canada and PR (& US territories) are still international.
• Only take one payment for an item (fraud indicator if someone sends two+ payments).
• If the payment is over $250, you have to have the item shipped out with signature confirmation upon delivery.

If you find that someone in Canada wants to buy your item that you are selling you should be aware of some things. My bank charges hefty fees just to accept an international check or money order. The routing number on the bottom of the check is different on non-US checks/money orders. The easiest way around this is to have them send you a Canadian postal money order in US funds. The US post office and Canadian post office have a deal, so you can take the Canadian mo to the US po and they will cash it for you.

Personal checks are risky. Most banks have heavy fees on bounced checks (that you will have to pay) and I have read horror stories about stopped payments and such. The other thing I have been reading about is fake checks or stolen checks.

Do not send anything COD. The newest scam is people refusing COD shipments and when the packages come back to shippers they are empty or filled with a different item. Seems that people are getting their UPS drivers in on the scam/distracting them/something else creative and taking the item out and then refusing it.

A great place to learn about all of this type of stuff is the message boards on Ebay. A lot of good information can be found there.