Bank transfer: safe?

[Night Runner]

Evening,

I am selling something on ebay (auction ends in a couple of days) which I expect to sell for £500ish.

Someone has contacted me stating they are away until April and would I accept payment by Bank transfer. The item is rather large (a lathe), so he would be collecting from me in person about a month after making payment.

How safe do we reckon?

If it makes any difference, the messages are in 'proper' English.

Cheers

[mcflurry]

Sounds 99.9% safe to me

[SteveScooby]

If he's coming to collect it anyway, then why not ask him to bring cash with him?

[carreauchompeur]

For that length of time, fine. I would very much doubt someone would bother with a fraudulent transfer of £500 in any case.

Can always ask for cash on collection in April but personally I'd prefer payment now to stop them maybe having second thoughts in the interim.

[NorthernBoy]

I'd ask for a bit now, via transfer, to secure it, with the balance in cash.

[ringram]

Nah, Id take the whole lot now via BACS and get the bank to verify the funds are clear.
Then if he never shows, no problem.

[55allgold]

Small risk (as Jeremy Clarkson found out).

People who accept bank transfers regularly make sure to use a 'temporary' account that normally holds next to £0. So when someone transfers money, you quickly shift it into your real account (they don't know the sortcode/account number for this one).

Then - even if a fraudster tries to get access to the temporary account - there's only £0 in there if he succeeds.

[mcflurry]

55allgold said:

Small risk (as Jeremy Clarkson found out).

People who accept bank transfers regularly make sure to use a 'temporary' account that normally holds next to £0. So when someone transfers money, you quickly shift it into your real account (they don't know the sortcode/account number for this one).

Then - even if a fraudster tries to get access to the temporary account - there's only £0 in there if he succeeds.

Jeremy Clarkson was caught out and made out a Direct Debit to charidee.
Nothing in it for the "scammer"