Bank transfers instead of PayPal

[Zzxxyy]

There’s a bike I would like to buy. The problem is that the seller is in Germany and does not have PayPal. Money transfer seems to be the only way.

Am a little afraid that the bike might not turn up after I send the monies.

I will do my due diligence by asking for his phone number (that he is a real person) and additional pictures of the bike (that he actually has the bike).

Anything else in addition to the above that I should do to mitigate the risk?

Thanks all

 

[The History Man]

It’s not hard to get a PayPal account. I’d walk away otherwise.

 

[mk one]

I have bought frames from Germany using bank transfer before, but only when i could trace the persons history on sites like here, you should have his address and bank details so you can check them out also. I dont think i would send it to someone i knew nothing about.

Like THM said, setting up paypal is easy and any legit seller should have no problems with that if they want the sale, just needs a bank account, which he has and an email which is free.

Having said that though, paypal is not totally scam free either.

If in doubt walk away.

 

[cce]

Germans love a bank transfer.

 

[Easy_Rider]

Re:

I don’t think PayPal is popular in Germany and bank transfers are the norm.
If you are concerned see if there a way to pay into his bank using your credit card instead? Credit card transactions are usually insured but check first.

 

[longun]

had dealings with bank transfers good and bad. unfortunetly an old retrobiker was shockingly bad and pulled the wool over my eyes......still pissed now!!!

if the credit card opion makes you insured go for it, otherwise i'd steer clear

 

[michael franks]

Re:

I bought some bars from Germany and as in previous posts - no Paypal. So banks transfer it was. All went well and the bars duly arrived. The banks charges were exorbitant IIRC.

As cce said:

Germans love a bank transfer.

 

[brocklanders023]

Re:

I’d only accept bank transfer as a seller. Too many horror stories about.

 

[Zzxxyy]

Tbh, I have done money transfers when I was working in Germany almost 15 years back. They were all ok and it was the accepted method of payment. These days however, it was much more convenient to work via PayPal. I see less demanding transfers as mode of payment.

Hmm... down to “do u feel lucky” ......

Thx all

 

[Thias]

I'm from Germany

We have quite a few guys especially in the retrobike scene that hate paypal with a passion. Young people usually all use paypal. But the 40+ guys - I'd say less than 30%. So it is quite usual to use bank transfer over here.

Me personally, I tried to stay away from paypal for quite a long time. because of their "funny" behaviour with "someting is wrong with your account, so we just block the mouney you have on here for no appearant reason". Paypal is great for buying stuff. For sellers - not so much.