Now why is it so important to ship to a Confirmed address? As you have read Pay Pal will not protect the seller if he doesn't ship to a Confirmed Address. I recently got caught in a scam by a buyer who stole a persons identity.

She went on a spending spree on eBay, purchase a ton of items and paid of course with the phony Pay Pal account she set up. Of course the address was a drop she had set up and not a confirmed address.

Sellers that checked her profile saw a number of positive feedacks and this was due to inexperienced sellers who left feedback as soon as the Pay Pal payment was made. You should never do this and should read my other Guide dealing with Feedback to understand why.

To make a long story short, even I got careless and shipped a $70 item to the customer only to have Pay Pal charge me back and remove the payment a month later when we all discovered it was a stolen identity.

I attempted to contact all the other sellers who also got burnt, we had the buyer thrown off eBay, but no legal authority would even consider going after this crook. Not the local police who we called, not the FBI internet fraud division and not eBay or Pay Pal (who by the way took no $$$ loss on this deal).

So I learned a valuable lesson and that is to assume anyone with an Unconfirmed Shipping address could be a crook or someone not experienced enough to know the importance of confirming their address. I may still ship them, but they either they have to confirm their shipping information, fax me proof of who they are and where they live or call me and disuss it with me. If I think they are on the up and up and just have a really good reason not to confirm and I get a good feeling from talking to them, then I will take a shot and ship them.

Many people will confirm their home address and then ask you to ship to their office address. Well unless they confirm the office address, it will show up as unconfirmed too. One other issue...at times Pay Pal will have the wrong information and show the payment from an unconfirmed customer when in fact it really is confirmed. So I take the time to speak to the customer and even will stay on the phone with them and walk them through the confirmation process on Pay Pal.

I always explain the need to Confirm their adddress and how it will protect them from someone stealing thier identity and purchasing items. I urge them to take the time to confirm their address to protect the eBay seller and themselves. You know if sellers keep shipping to unconfirmed addresses buyers, the buyers won't ever think there is a need for them to confirm their address. It is all of our responsiblity to encourage them to do so.

One other point on this subject. Do you know that shipping to International customers in most countries means you are not protected for any fraud or loss because in most cases international customers cannot Confirm their shipping addresses. I have seen some Canadian buyers who have a confirmed address but this is rare.

So what I now do if the auction is for anything over $100 is make sure to check their profile very carefully. If you are still uncomfortable accepting a Pay Pal payment on an unconfirmed International customer there are other ways to accept payment.

Bid Pay is owned by Western Union and charges the customer a 3.5% fee to pay for their auction win using a credit card. The seller doesn't pay the fee, the buyer does. I may offer to deduct the fee they pay from the total as a good will gesture and because I would normally have to pay this fee myself. Once the make the payment, Bid Pay will email the seller that the payment has been received, but not to do anything yet until they confirm the payment is good.

Within 24 hours they either confirm or deny the payment and if confirmed you are good to ship. The payment is guaranteed, and I have opted to have Bid Pay simply transfer the funds to my bank account. They can also send you a check in the mail, but why wait a week to 10 days to receive it?

I hope this will help you in working smarter on eBay and prevent you from falling victim to the thieves that look for inexperienced sellers on eBay to ship them FREE merchandise.

Don't you become one of them. Losing even a $100 dollars like this takes an awful lot of selling with the small margins most of us work on to make up the loss. It is never a good feeling to have someone steal from you no matter how much they steal.

Be smart and don't be anxious to ship everyone and don't leave feedback until you are sure the deal is a good one.

I will be publishing more guides and free templates for you to use as a guide in writing your own. You should take my thoughts and ideas and write your own emails in your own words. Good luck and continued safe selling on eBay.

Len

PS: Click on the link on the top right of this article to my auctions and read my Terms on the bottom of each that state that I will no longer ship to unconfirmed Pay Pal accounts.