Personally, I would avoid the transaction, especially with a member with no history on the site.

Could you send the username to me via PM?

I have done this twice now when purchasing pins from the US on a few occasions now (distance was too far to drive, thus I arranged payment via bank transfer and subsequently had the pin shipped). You will end up having to provide him some financial institution numbers that you'll have to get from your bank. As far as I know, it's all legit, and once the funds are deposited into your account there is no risk on your end.

Is there no way to reverse a transaction like that? What does Vid’s guide to not getting ripped off say?

Just as a follow-up, the potential buyer does not appear to be a scammer and everything seems to point to being legitimately being in Australia. I don't see any red flags or any of the typical earmarks of a potential scammer. They also have a small handful of posts on the forums.

That said, I personally don't like to sell outside the US. Too much of a hassle and too many things could go wrong (especially with glass). But, whatever your comfort level is and whatever you decide to do is completely up to you.

Is there some reason he cant pay you through PayPal?PayPal automatically converts the exchange rate and the buyer would have to pay the fee as well. Seems a bit more safe to me to do it that way.

Have him send you a real paper international cashier's check made payable in US Dollars.

That way any exchange rate nonsense is already done on his end, and it won't cost you any $50 fees like a wire transfer.

It can't be reversed like paypal.

It will take a month to clear your bank, but there is nothing safer.

Make sure all this trouble is worth the amount of goods you are selling.

Collect 20% more for shipping than it should be, because it's somehow always more than the online estimators say it is.

I sold a game to the UK and had the buyer send me the payment through WESTERN UNION.
Once I got my payment...I told them shipping company for pick up.
Worked out perfect.

do you know how hard that is to do?
i tried getting my bank to make a cheque in US currency 5 years ago , nobody there knew how to do it
i have done internation transfer, once. no problem
i have also used transferwise, little bit of work, but the money got there

I just had a guy from Germany do it.

It was a "Citi" brand international money order made out in USD

He said it was MUCH cheaper than Westernunion

Just FYI - international transfers are what makes the world go around.

That’s how you play for imports, containers ... anything that comes from China is all transfers.

You supply the buyer with your account number and a bank SWIFT number - the whole process takes 2-3 mins to do on my banks website. Money goes from your bank to their bank instantly.

Almost every transaction in NZ is bank to bank. The largest one I ever did was 1.1m dollars for a property. When I was in the furniture game, I was sending 20-40k a time for containers of sofas, 100 containers a year.

There seems to be this paranoia in the US about them.

I have been paying for pins and parts in the States recently though international transfer - but it takes some talking and explaination before people will take them.

My fee for me sending an international one is $15 NZD (not a percentage). The fee to accept one is $0. I get the best exchange rate doing it this way. No extra margin like PayPal or Western Union etc.

Re reversals - Last week, a friend had an issue with a purchase - long story, but he sent someone in NZ $100 to purchase something and didnt get it. That doesn’t happen very often here. So he contacted his bank - to reverse the payment he needed to file a police report and give it to the bank. So you just can’t cancel it and reverse it, unless you have a valid reason and jump through hoops.

Just my 10c ...

rd

My US bank charges $50 to receive an "international wire transfer".

And in the States, there is a very popular scam involving them, that snags thousands of victims a day:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-to-not-get-ripped-off-in-pinball-vids-guide#post-1813449

What a rip!

Time for a new bank.

OF COURSE it goes without saying in ANY BUSINESS TRANSACTION you know who you are dealing with. Someone with some background .. like a good pinsider, or someone on EBay with a good feedback rating.

If you’re just accepting/sending money to random people, you’re not doing it right.

rd