International Trading -- How to Protect Yourself?

Hi guys, I have a question. I received a pinpics trade request today from a trader in France, who has some good trades listed on the reference section of pinpics, and I'd kinda like to go ahead with the trade. I've actually gotten quite a few trade requests from overseas in the past but I'm always a little uneasy about doing these trades since, as far as I know, we can't get anything like delivery confirmation on overseas packages. So I'm just wondering, is there a way to safely conduct overseas trades? Without having the traders send dc #s, how can we protect ourselves when trading with our friends overseas?

unfortunately at the moment unless ou are willing to pay extortionate costs for special delivery over seas (using UPS) there is no way to do this, I have been trading for two years now and MOST of my trades go to the states, I have only ever not received two pins out of a good 50 -ish trades that I have done. If they ahve good references you just have to trust you will get the pin and that the post office behaves.

Apparently paypal is bringing that postage thing to the UK and europe soon which will make like a heck of a lot easier as you can send proof of postage.

Hi Nikki,

I've been pin trading for over 10 years and did the beanie trading back in the day when that was popular. 99% of my trades are overseas, primarily to the USA, but also to other European counties, Hong Kong and Japan. So far I have never had any issues (touch wood)

There is no easy and cheaper option to get delivery confirmation, however if you are seining a lot of pins or high value pins it might be worth pins via International Priority Mail as it is quicker and often signed for by the recipient.

Hopefully that helps and please trade with us no USers.

Yeah, I was just wondering if there were any tips to help people, on either side of the pond and beyond. I've done several overseas trades with no problems, but with people having some trouble layely, on pinpics especially, I was just wondering of there was anything people could do to help the trades go smoothly. But other than checking references, I guess not. That Paypal postage thing would be great! Hopefully it will get implemented soon!

I have traded with people over seas. I haven't had any problems, the only thing is that it takes forever to receive a pin from over seas. The only thing I can think of is having a third party trader, one of the moderates of PinPics. The trade will take a lot longer, but seems to be the only for sure way not to ripped off or cheated you know.

Hi,
Yes I for one can t wait till paypal starts a system!!!
It is really frustrating not having a system which can track oversea without costing a small fortune

The only thing that you can use to CONFIRM that you've sent out your trade is a customs number. It doesn't track PER SAY but it does tell you when your package has entered or exited a country.