Mark,
Direct transfers are common practice here. Cheapest and fastest way to transfer money. It's a bit more cumbersome to transfer to the USA, the buyer will also need the exact address of your bank's branch office and if possible your bank's SWIFT code.
The only service to provide money orders in Norway is Western Union, and they have exactly ONE office in the whole Eastern region of the Country. :-) The only business it attracts is money transfers to Asian countries like the Philippines and Pakistan. It's the kind of thing I'd resort to only if the receiver doesn't have a bank account.
Btw, I have bought two items on Ebay from American sellers, and in both cases direct transfer worked fine.
To be honest, I don't quite see how the buyer can abuse your account number. :-)
Cheers, Jostein
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Cassino" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:03 PM
Subject: OT: European Banking / Ebay Payment Question
I recently completed an auction ni which I sold a bit of Pentax gear to a buyer in Italy. For a variety of reasons, each of which sounds legit, he cannot PayPal the funds and cannot use BidPay. He's asked for my bank account number so he can do a wire transfer, but that sounds suspiscious to me and I'm not inclined ot give it out (as if my wife would tell me what it is anyhow...)
I told him to just send me an international money order, but that concept seems to be foriegn to him. I do know that it seems to be difficult to transfer money from Europe to the US ((I once had a guy send several hundred dollars in cash in a greeting card to pay for a camera lens, rather than deal with paypal or send a money order. He was willing to do that at his risk and to trust that I wouldn't just pocket the cash and claim it didn't arrive (which of course, I did not do) - so it must of been a major hassel to otherwise transfer the funds.)
So what's the deal? I can go to any post office here and buy an international money order for a reasonable fee. Can't that be done in Europe as well?
At this point I've told the guy that the auction terms are clear (PayPal, money order, or cashier check) so he needs to come up with one or be NPB. But I wonder if he is having legit problems or if this is some sort of ruse.
Any comments from folks in the EU?
- MCC
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Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
www.markcassino.com
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