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I posted my dress on PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com. I emailed them for their advice on how to spot a scam/protect yourself and this is the advice they gave me:
As a seller, the two ways to protect yourself from a scam are:
1. Never ship your item until full payment is received
2. Only use a secure service like Escrow.com or PayPal for payment. (Escrow.com and Paypal are both safe for sellers because both offer a secure transfer of funds.However, Escrow.com offers more protection to the buyer. Because of this, it is the service that we recommend using.)
In our experience, if you tell this person that you will only accept paypal or escrow.com - legitimate buyers will respond, whereas scammers will stop responding (or try to convince you to use an alternate payment method).
I followed this advice and had a safe - and easy - transaction. And sold my dress within 1 month of posting it on POWD.
Hope it helps.
@FinallyGettingMarried: the fiance thing and handling the shipping are definitely scammers. i have seen several posts about it and got the same type of inquiries when i sold my first dress. i didn't know any better at the time though, and was about to sell to this girl until she outed herself by saying "payment will be made via check".....this was AFTER i emailed her and said i only accept paypal. so i was like, um, thanks but no thanks, i am not selling to you!
and in general, you should only use secure methods of payment like paypal. the most common way to get scammed is to accept someone's check, they send too much, so they ask you to deposit it and send back to them the difference they over paid. that's why they use the fiance is paying thing. they will say "oh my fiance thought the check was for something else" and so the check they send could be about $1000 over what you asked and then if you send it back, you end up losing $1000 once their check doesn't clear.
also go with your instinct. the time i had a scammer email me, i got an email from a legitimate person a few days later (who ended up buying my dress!) and there was a complete difference in their tone and style in their emails. the real person i could just tell was sincere.
thanks purpleunicorn! i just dont understand why people would scam "wedding dress", puzzles me...
@FinallyGettingMarried: i think wherever there is potential for scam, there will be one. and if works (sadly i remember reading about some brides who WERE scammed) then they will keep doing it.
Being from NZ, I always worry people will think it is a scam that I am looking for a dress in the US! Some of them may be a scam, but if you saw the prices of dresses here you would look in the US too! The dress I want to buy is $3K here, vs $900 US (new), and I know Australia has the same problem with price mark-ups. So be sceptical but there are some honest people out there too and they shouldn't have an issue using paypal or other. (just watch out for paypal scams where they try to fake the confirmation email you have received payment)
I've heard of sellers getting scammed through PayPal too though! I read about here: http://www.aboutpaypal.org/buyers-using-paypal-to-scam-sellers/. Basically they just lie and say that they didn't receive the package so PayPal refunds them the money from your account. Is anything ever safe?
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I wore 2 wedding dresses to my wedding and i wanted to sell both now that my wedding is over, so i posted them on oncewed.com
One dress was sold to someone in the US - thankfully no issue.
Another dress, a very poluar style, has about 8 inquiries so far - and 7 are from Australia!! is that possible or is it a scam from same group that scams that dress using different email accounts?
Questions I have been asked:
-- Some people asks for photos: ok not that weird.
-- some people says "please tell me since my fiance is funding it" (which sounds sketchy since i read somewhere that's a phrase commonly used in a scam scheme),
-- that same person asked how much my dress would cost if she handles the shipping (whatever that means, how does someone handle shipping when i have the dress)
Have you guys heard of scams or have been a victim of scam for wedding dress? it sounds silly but i dont want to end up with no money and no dress. i rather keep my dress and store it if that's the case!