Any time I sell a framed sheet or the like, I go to the ups store and let them package it and ship. Sometimes I’ll Video their efforts.
A fellow posted a thread here earlier stating fear of shipping a high dollar item internationally. He was worried about possible scams,
Would my UPS strategy work for all items like an 8000.00 PSA card?
Share your thought…
It would never hurt to have video recordings and witnesses as evidence to bolster your case in the event of a scam. I added some thoughts to the thread I believe you’re referring to, it might be worth a second look.
It would be cool to see a video of a ups packaging job! Can you post one? I work in the shipping department at work and I do all of the UPSing for our company. Everyone at work tells me that I over do it and I use to much packing materials lol (tape,bubbles,ect.) I always say I rather be over cautious then careless 
Some of the questions you need to ask yourself are firstly around the terms of PayPal’s protection and secondly, international mail fraud.
PayPal is widely renowned for having a bulletproof buyer protection, but poor seller protection. If PayPal doesn’t overturn a case where you’re scammed, you’re left with escalating it legally yourself. This will vary from country to country. It’s not too hard here in the UK to raise a domestic case legally and through the courts, when you get international it becomes difficult, and increasingly so when dealing intercontinentally.
Luckily in my case, I’ve never been scammed through eBay or PayPal on Pokemon cards. So although it can happen, it’s extremely rare. But if it does happen, your video and witness evidence may do little good for PayPal. Most of the time they don’t acknowledge it full stop, they just tell you that it’s either a cost of business, or recommend that you contact the police. You’d be left taking it up externally through law, that’s when the evidence you have could be put to use. But ask yourself how easy that would be to put into practice when not dealing with a domestic issue.
What about the GSP? How do their policys strike you as far as protecting the seller?
If you went with GSP, I would say your protection is nearly impenetrable, if not fully impenetrable.
GSP has a sale limit… can’t be over $2,500.
Well that sucks, I haven’t sold something that expensive internationally.
Ok so with the GSP, they accept liability for loss or damage posting between themselves and the buyer. There’s nothing on their policy which states they accept liability for an item not as described, which is then returned to the seller. This is taken from their terms:
‘Item is not as described (seller fault) – you’re responsible for refunding or replacing the item and for refunding the domestic postage costs. eBay is responsible for refunding the buyers international postage costs.’
So you’re covered for loss or damage resulting from transit, such as if the parcel is lost or damaged on the way. But they won’t cover you for an item not as described, or different. So there is still the same potential for a scam to take place.
So this is a topic that hits close to home for me this week. An e4 member collecting unlimited psa10 holos bought a blastoise evo chain from me. It’s my first time ever selling a card and he needed it shipped to Norway. Norway has expensive taxes and the member asked me to lower the declared value to $20. I heard a lot of mixed advice about this but at the end of the day, I just packaged the absolute crap out of it and video recorded/photographed every step of packaging and shipping. So, just when I was feeling GREAT about this and all my concerns were alleviated… I ran into MY OWN shipping error - this one on the receiving end…
I bought a charizard on ebay that usps claims they delivered to “an individual” at my building. I talked to all my neighbors in the building, there’s only 4 apartments with each apartment having its own floor. No one signed anything for me. I opened an investigation with USPS. Finally, I had to file for a refund. I kept in contact with the seller letting him know my progress as I did the legwork to see if the card could be found, but at the end of a long day, it became clear that it was lost in mail/delivered to a different building. Not sure what my next steps are, especially since the tracking on it claims it was delivered to an individual. I posted the usps investigation case number on ebay as well as my flight itinerary which proves that I wasn’t even in the state when my item was “hand delivered”.
I feel like shipping and buying will always be a risk, no matter how careful we try to be. Sometimes mail centers just hire full blown potatoes to do jobs and they dont care one way or another if we get our shit, as long as they empty their parcels and clock out on time for the ends of their shifts :\
I thought, at least in the beginning, that GSP inspected the contents. Is this no longer true?
Nick?
Nope, here’s another quote from their terms:
‘Not every parcel will be opened, but if it is, Pitney Bowes will ensure it gets repackaged appropriately.’
I do recall them opening and repackaging more often in the past, but it doesn’t happen often anymore.
Sorry Gary, can’t help you out on this one. I’ve actually yet to sign-up for GSP myself - my International Sales have been slowly growing; however, it hasn’t reached a point where I feel the need to go through and edit all of my listings just yet.