Vetting a Seller?

[Nabiki]

I am also of the opinion that you should walk away from this one. For small time sellers, I understand wanting to use the friends/family payment since PayPal takes a cut from sales, but I would never dream of insisting that someone use it.

None of your questions sound offensive, and I think it's normal to take some standard precautions with someone that you haven't done business with before or someone that you don't know.

 

[Squeeing_Onion]

Trust your instincts; you're being manipulated into making a nonrefundable payment. Apologize, make an excuse and walk away.

What's scary is they're an admin on a quail sale group.

Come to think of it, they started pm with me by saying they sent me info on the Coturnix was a reply to a public post i made asking questions.

They didn't send info on the question i asked at all, they just started trying to sell birds.

Thanks for being a double check for me, everyone i feel a lot more confident walking away with knowing this was as sketchy as it felt.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

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Before this, i had asked if they were NPIP certified, and various questions like where they were located (i thought they were aware i was looking for someone in driving distance so i was surprised when they said they were based in illinois), and if they would mind sending me photos of the birds before i confirmed the sale. I let them know i was scouting out who to purchase birds from.

Not anything yet I'd find offensive. I have had location issues before with people expecting me to drive several hours to sell them birds before.

I also asked how long they expected delivery might take if i placed the order this weekend.

Delivery as in through the mail? Or to have them dropped off? Still wouldn’t consider it a rude question though, how else are you supposed to know when to expect birds to be arriving? What if you were still building a pen for them or moving along your own extras to make room?

What seemed to upset them was me asking if they were NPIP certified (they said yes and they've been in business for three years), and that i asked them to email me an invoice instead of having me send it via a username. I have had really bad experiences with that method, so i switched to PayPal invoices years ago and I've never had a seller balk at it.

Someone upset at being asked if they're certified is a warning in my opinion. If they're not, then just say so and move on. To get upset makes me think they're hiding something. Though, to go past state lines, they do have to have NPIP paper work to go with the birds

I think they also misunderstood my comment on wanting to see pictures first; i meant that i wanted to see who I'd be buying before saying yes, but i think they took offense (which bakes me as i had asked for said photos and was trying hard to let them know i was serious about this sale, but that i want going to commit to it until i had the info i needed. I hate telling a buyer I want to buy only to change my mind when they reveal more info, it feels like I'm wasting their time and mine)

I'm leaning towards a scammer. Or a somehow profoundly stubborn and defensive person who takes everything personally.

Another seller it is, then!

The invoice would catch me off guard, but I'd be more than okay to print one up if requested. As for photos, when I sold birds, I would run out and grab some for people that wanted to see what I had while inquiring if I didn't already have images of those birds. People that are proud of their flock offerings aren't going to be unwilling and snotty about showing images

 

[Squeeing_Onion]

Not anything yet I'd find offensive. I have had location issues before with people expecting me to drive several hours to sell them birds before.

Delivery as in through the mail? Or to have them dropped off? Still wouldn’t consider it a rude question though, how else are you supposed to know when to expect birds to be arriving? What if you were still building a pen for them or moving along your own extras to make room?

Someone upset at being asked if they're certified is a warning in my opinion. If they're not, then just say so and move on. To get upset makes me think they're hiding something. Though, to go past state lines, they do have to have NPIP paper work to go with the birds

The invoice would catch me off guard, but I'd be more than okay to print one up if requested. As for photos, when I sold birds, I would run out and grab some for people that wanted to see what I had while inquiring if I didn't already have images of those birds. People that are proud of their flock offerings aren't going to be unwilling and snotty about showing images

Delivery as in mail, they told me what the cost of shipping was but hadn't specified what service they use or which speed they'd use by default, and I've learned not to assume people shipping living beings will always default to express. Plants and animals take the same care for consideration to me

I was indeed asking, and said as much, because i needed to be sure their enclosure would be finished in time, I'd shared photos of the construction with them. I need to build the roof, lid, and then fence in and reinforce the sides and it's ready for installation! Plan to build a much larger aviary around it if we stay with keeping quail after our first covey experience.

Yeah the NPIP thing really wigged me out and was my first big red flag i noticed. I've since learned that i can ask for an NPIP number so i can verify the registry is valid and legitimate. i think if i had gone through all the effort for applying to the program, I'd be very eager to share the certification with anyone who wanted to see the result of those efforts! someone shared a link to the place you can look registrations up by state, which was super helpful.

Also, that makes total sense but i didn't actually know that yet about needing NPIP papers to cross the state lines (which yes they would have been shipping them across state lines). That was a question i had intended to ask this seller before the conversation tone changed.

Re; The invoice request -- it wasn't for a paper copy, but rather for them to email me the PayPal money request so i could make sure payment was going to the correct person. I typoed the username for a direct money send request once years ago and it really sucked, though fortunately was not a huge amount so i always have a seller send me the link to their seller page and pay them directly, or email me an invoice i then pay.

If i really truly have to pay by typing in their username by golly i can suffer quadruple checking i did it right, but i made my preference known.