Not Sure If This Is OK Here, But Here Goes


I'm selling a pair of Magnepans on Audiogon and as usual, have had no response. Yesterday, a guy from Argentina (allegedly) contacts me and says he'd like the speakers and gave me an address and phone number of a guy in Miami to ship them to and he'll forward them on to the end buyer.

At first glance, this doesn't pass the smell test. However, he did give me a phone number, which I may call later today. The other issue I have is that I have little to no experience with PayPal. How hard is it to defraud PayPal and leave me without my  money and the lose of my speakers?

jasonduke2

I live in Mexico and we import from Italy.  The process for us is to hire an import company in MEX to negotiate with the Italian manufacturing company.  The Italian company must be paid by the MEX import company before they will ship.

Because of a recent contact by an Argentina importer, I know the process is the same for Argentina.  

If the Miami company is legit, they must be willing to wire the funds to you bank account before you ship.  Import/export companies send hundreds of bank wires and letters of credit a week.

Good luck!

 

I’ve used PayPal routinely for international trabsactions, i.e.,, So. Korea, JPN, FRG, UAE, Qatar, and UK. The most expensive single item was ~$30,000. All transactions and monetary exchanges were smooth. On one occasion, an unexpected shipping delay occurred. I prematurely reached out to PayPal, who shut down the seller’s account until I pleaded on his behalf. I would proceed but with caution as urged by our hobby peers. 

Being Maggies your speakers will sell if the price is reasonable. There's not millions of people buying high end speakers out there so sometimes it may take a month or two to sell something. I agree with others that it isn't worth the potential problems.

I've sold to Agoners in Latin America who wanted to work with a freight forwarder. 

The issue I've experienced with freight forwarders is around the packaging of the item. The freight forwarder oftentimes removes the item from the factory protective packaging in favor of their own--much smaller and less cushioned--box. Both times I've shipped to a  freight forwarder, the gear arrived damaged.