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Selling Mavic Pro and the buyer wants the serial before he pays - Sketchy?

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Fyyzer

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So I'm selling my Mavic Pro on Ebay and the potential buyer is saying he needs the serial number before he'll pay for it which seems sketchy to me. He claims that he has to register it with the Saudi Arabian FAA equivalent. I had said in the post that I'd send to USA addresses and he apparently has some service out of Maryland that will accept the package and then reship it to him but that's somewhat beside the point. I've told him twice that once he's paid for it I'll give him the serial number. Obviously I still have the drone in my possession but I guess my thought was that if I give him the serial number he could register it as his own (I've already deregistered it) and mark it as stolen or something.

He's now offered to pay $10 to get the serial ahead of time.

Am I being too cautious or does this set off alarm bells for anyone else? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
 
No you are not. I would tell the buyer that the serial number is a fixed to the drone and he can register it either from his U.S. receipt location or after he receives it at his Saudi location.
It smells like some sort of scam to me.
@TruGreen ... you beat me to it!
 
I once was selling an Inspire 1 Pro and the buyer asked me for my PayPal info. I then get an email from a 3rd party stating that they were in possession of the funds and would release the funds to me once I had shipped said Inspire and reply to them with the tracking number. Total scam right there. there was no funds being held. I would have shipped and lost my unit
 
I once was selling an Inspire 1 Pro and the buyer asked me for my PayPal info. I then get an email from a 3rd party stating that they were in possession of the funds and would release the funds to me once I had shipped said Inspire and reply to them with the tracking number. Total scam right there. there was no funds being held. I would have shipped and lost my unit
Ouch, glad you smelled the rat.
 
"DANGER, DANGER, Will Robinson....."

Anything "Third-Party" thru Pay Pal......accounts, email addresses, delivery addresses...BIG no no... NO

Well, be prepared to kiss it good bye.....
 
I would NOT accept that what so ever. I'd do PayPal and I'd only deal with someone "Domestic". The more people/places you introduce the harder it is to prove you were in the right.

SKIP IT!!
 
If they'd said they wanted the serial to check it wasn't listed as stolen, or that it was needed for import/customs, then perhaps. Claiming pre-registration (like an extra day or two matters) and the use of a forwarding address smacks of scam. The final nail in the coffin though? The supposed final destination in Saudi Arabia simply does not compute as according to UAV Coach civilian drone ownership is banned.

Stick with domestic sales, use a courier that gives you proof of delivery and lost package insurance, and insist on a payment system that gives you protection if anything goes wrong.
 
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"DANGER, DANGER, Will Robinson....."

Great old programme that :)

As far as this goes, after reading so many times all over the web, about ebay / paypal, and how easy it is for a buyer to scam a seller, I'll only ever use it if it is a shopfront type ebay seller . . . even then only after I've done due diligence, email between us, other form of contact (phone or location) etc.

Just saw your last post @Fyyzer . . . good move.
 
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So I'm selling my Mavic Pro on Ebay and the potential buyer is saying he needs the serial number before he'll pay for it which seems sketchy to me. He claims that he has to register it with the Saudi Arabian FAA equivalent. I had said in the post that I'd send to USA addresses and he apparently has some service out of Maryland that will accept the package and then reship it to him but that's somewhat beside the point. I've told him twice that once he's paid for it I'll give him the serial number. Obviously I still have the drone in my possession but I guess my thought was that if I give him the serial number he could register it as his own (I've already deregistered it) and mark it as stolen or something.

He's now offered to pay $10 to get the serial ahead of time.

Am I being too cautious or does this set off alarm bells for anyone else? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Your gut, your intuition is working at it's best, follow what your internals are telling you to protect yourself....I cant say it will never go wrong but at least your 97.9% protected...
 
Don’t do it, eBay has gotten very corrupted in the last year or two
 
I can understand the buyer's wanting the serial number to verify the drone is not stolen. The rest of the situation seems very sketchy to me. IMHO, you were correct to cancel the sale.
 
So I'm selling my Mavic Pro on Ebay and the potential buyer is saying he needs the serial number before he'll pay for it which seems sketchy to me. He claims that he has to register it with the Saudi Arabian FAA equivalent. I had said in the post that I'd send to USA addresses and he apparently has some service out of Maryland that will accept the package and then reship it to him but that's somewhat beside the point. I've told him twice that once he's paid for it I'll give him the serial number. Obviously I still have the drone in my possession but I guess my thought was that if I give him the serial number he could register it as his own (I've already deregistered it) and mark it as stolen or something.

He's now offered to pay $10 to get the serial ahead of time.

Am I being too cautious or does this set off alarm bells for anyone else? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
its a scam,he’s going to pull some kind of insurance fraud and at the end of the day you might end up in trouble with a stolen drone which could be a felony because its over $500, run away from this scumbag
 
Maybe he wants to see if it has an R in it! To see if a refurb.
 
The "claim" that he may have wanted the serial number to verify "that is wasn't stolen", is just plain silly.
If you think about it, there is no place to "register" a stolen drones serial number(s). No data base exists for that purpose.
Period....
 
If I were buying one from someone I don't know, I may want to run the serial numbers to verify it wasn't stolen. However, my response to him would be, "Why don't you just get the serial number off another drone at the store before you buy it? Oh, they don't do that, do they...? I wonder why."
 
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