Ship to a PO Box?

[TonyD]

I have a question on ebay from a bidder. Selling my Planet Ocean. He wants to know if I will ship to a PO box. The guy has 23+ feedback with no negatives. Been on ebay a few years. The PO box is the confirmed paypal address he says.

It looks like I can use USPS to ship with insurance and delivery confirmation to a PO box.

Is my butt covered? I know UPS won't delilver to a PO box. Is this normal or a possible scam? If its a paypal confirmed address then can I have a problem?

[Luminor]

I'm not sure.. I wouldn't risk it however. Get him to send you a bank transfer.

[Numismatist]

Sometimes an inactive account like this gets hijacked and you're not really dealing with the originator.

[Terry Newton]

I would never ship to a P.O. Box. I have one for our business because of client confidentiality and most carriers will not ship to P.O. Boxes. You have to actually ship to a physical address. I think something smells wrong about this. I would ask him politely if he has a physical address to ship to or you can't ship the watch. Better safe than sorry.

Terry Newton

[Ursa Major]

Another view - I live in a town (Park City, Utah) where there is no street delivery by the USPS. Everybody's issued a free P.O. Box at one of the local post offices, mine has been my official mailing address for the last 10 years (oddly, the post office doesn't give me or the sender a rebate on the postage, even though I have to do the work for final delivery, rather than the postman).

UPS, FedEx, and other private carriers won't deliver to P.O. Boxes; I think this is as much a rule of USPS as of the carriers. That said, I've had virtually no problems over the years getting stuff delivered there, including a couple of hundred items on eBay (I have a 200 feedback rating, all but 1 from buying). By the way, that includes 4 watches in the last few weeks, 1 of which was a Sea Dweller from a TRF member.

I very much prefer it - there's nobody at my home during the day, and a UPS or FedEx package would be left on my front porch. With my P.O. Box, it's waiting for me secured, and if a package is decent sized it's held behind the desk, typically only released to me with a signature on priority or express mail. If UPS delivers to my office and there's nobody there, they might come back later, or I might have to take a 75 mile round trip to pick it up at their local offices. I prefer the 5 minute walk up the street to the Post Office.

If Paypal gets you the money in your account before you ship, and his P.O. Box is a verified address, and the shipment is sent with delivery confirmation and insurance, where's the risk to you? (and if it's insured, where's the risk to him?). I love the post office, nothing shady about a P.O. Box at all.