| SweetViolet | 02-04-2009 09:23 PM |
Not everybody does things the way we do them in the US.
For example, if you wanted to telephone me, you would have to dial 14 digits...something like this: 011 27 21 555 1212. The 011 puts you into the international dialing ability of your phone service; 27 is my country code; 21 is my city code; 555 1212 represents my personal telephone number. South Africa uses 7 digits for telephone numbers, but not all countries do. I have called people in other nations who have only 5 or 6 digits for their telephone numbers, but I still had to dial the international access, country and city codes.
The request for banking information is actually legitimate. I have been in South Africa for five years and have not written one check since I got here. Everybody pays their bills through EFT (electronic funds transfer). Just this morning I paid the groomer R180 (about $18) for grooming the two maltese on Tuesday...via EFT. We have debit orders on file with the bank for the house payments (and before the cars were paid off, we had one for them, too), and pay everyone from the plumber to the maid via EFT. This is a NORMAL way of doing business outside the US.
To set your mind at ease, the banking information needed to do an EFT is no more than the info that is printed on your checks: account number, branch name and number, bank's number. Where you have to watch out is to see how the money is provided for the EFT: if the person sending the money goes to the bank and pays cash, the EFT will be fine; if he submits a check, it could be a bad check and the bank will debit your account later; if it comes directly from their bank account to yours, it will be OK because the bank won't transfer money that does not exist in the account.
How do you find this out? demand that the buyer email you a "proof of payment." If he goes to the bank and sends from there, he will have a receipt that he can fax or scan and email...that bank receipt will specify if he paid the bank with cash or check. If it was transferred directly from his account to yours, the bank will email him a receipt for the transfer, which he can then email to you.
I do freelance internet research for medical professionals and I email my invoices and receive my payment via EFT...they always send me the bank-provided "proof of payment."
These proofs of payment can be faked, however, so if you do business with an overseas client, I recommend that you hold off shipping the dog until 30 has passed. It is unlikely that there will be a reversal of charges after that time, and you don't want to ship a really, really young puppy anyway.
One caveat: there is an EFT scam going around...a client of mine was targeted: A man called to make an appointment for his wife and asked if he could pay for the visit in advance via EFT. My client quoted him R300. He transferred R16,800 into her account! Then he called to say an error had been made and could she transfer back to him R13,800, the excess amount. Within days his deposit of R16,800 had bounced as the check he had put in at the bank was no good. Overpaying and demanding an immediate refund of the excess is a common EFT scam, so if you use EFT (in the US it is sometimes referred as a "wire transfer") don't refund any money or send out a puppy until at least 30 days has passed.
Just remember...there are other legitimate ways of doing business than the ways we are familiar and comfortable with in the US. | 