I have sold a few items on Mercari, and never faced any issues, but yesterday one of my items was bought by a user that makes certain alarms start popping of in my head. I just wanted to check with you fine folks if I’m still sane or not.
The buyer (I’ll assume “he” based on the username) bought the item without any comment or haggling first. I can appreciate that, but it’s literally never happened before. His username looks obviously foreign, sounds kind of Spanish to me, but who am I to complain about that. I checked his profile, and the description is completely empty, badge tells me he didn’t verify his identity. He does have 4/4 positive reviews as a buyer, but the seller must always submit their review before they get the money, so I don’t count this as very reassuring.
I thought I would fish a little with a message, so I messaged him in Japanese, “I can probably send the item tomorrow. Btw, do you prefer to communicate in English?”. To which he replied along the lines of “Thanks, English is good. Btw, can you set the item to arrive at 10/12 16:00, I’m out of town until then”, in somewhat broken English.
In my head, after growing up on the edge of the internet, the sum of the above sounds just a little fishy. Could he pull some bogus trick like claiming the item was late or broken to leave me without any pay? Do I as a seller have any recourse in that case, or will Mercari just side with the buyer?
The item has been listed for months now, so I’d honestly love to get it out the door and move on with my life, but the purchase sum is about half a month salary for me, so it’s not the kind of money I would like to throw out the window.
4 comments
I read this waiting for some concern that maybe you thought he was trying to get your address or something but then i got to the end of the story and was left confused. Your concern is that this guy stipulated when he wants the item delivered? Eventhough hes also given logical reasoning? Sounds like youre worrying about nothing.
Sounds like they are out of town and won’t be home until 1600 that day. Unless your trafficing Uranium I wouldn’t worry about it.
Looks like you’re overthinking and acting weird just like some Japanese users on Mercari do. “Wow, a foreign guy asking me to set a delivery date, so suspicious, better cancel the deal”. Just set the delivery date, if possible, like the guy kindly asked you to. You’ll get your money even if he doesn’t leave you any review.
So you think it’s suspicious that he didn’t haggle or make you waste time with useless messages beforehand?
This is one of the reasons I don’t like Mercari. The app sends me tons of useless notifications that I can’t ignore, because then I miss the ones of the buyers asking for a discount or whatever. And it’s not possible to use it via the website, so I have to deal with the app that is all in Japanese. If the website was an option, I could use Google translate.