After much hemming and hawing, I finally sent my buyer the following e-mail (heavily borrowed from Jessica’s suggestion):
Hi xxxx,
Thank you for your purchase and prompt payment. It is against the law to falsify any information on customs forms. I am not able to change the value or mark this item as a gift. If you wish to cancel your order I completely understand. Please let me know what you decide.
Thank you,
Kari
For some reason I was waffling on this all day long. I really considered just doing what he asked. And not because I was afraid of losing the sale – I am sure that I would be able to sell the item again. The guy, even though he was asking me to do something I knew I shouldn’t, was very compelling. Something about the way he wrote his e-mails made me WANT to help him. Maybe that just means he’s good at what he does.
I just sent the e-mail about 10 minutes ago, so I have not heard back from him yet. I will update this post after I get his response.
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE (10:31 p.m.):
He still wants it, and was perfectly pleasant about it all.
Crystal in Texas says
June 19, 2012 at 1:15 pmKari,
So all’s well that ends well! Great! I see on lots of auction pages a little blurb that asks international buyers to not request such a change as it is against the law…and so on.. maybe you could just add something like that as a matter of course on all your listings and so just point back to your policy. When I Finally get some listings up that is in my plans to do. Anyway, great news!
Kari @ She Thrifts says
June 19, 2012 at 2:53 pmCrystal – That’s a GREAT idea! I should definitely do that. Thanks.
Jessica Calhoun says
June 19, 2012 at 3:03 pmGreat news! *IF* he ends up leaving you a neutral or a negative and mentions the customs charges he had to pay, you should be able to call eBay and get that removed. If I recall correctly, one of the most recent eBay updates says that feedback that mentions customs charges can be removed… But it sounds like you probably won’t have to worry about that 🙂
Veronica says
June 19, 2012 at 7:08 pmThat’s great that he still wants the item. I think most buyers assume you will say no but like I always say “it never hurts to ask” and they probably get their way often enough. It’s best to always protect yourself.
Kristin says
June 20, 2012 at 1:54 amThat’s awesome. I agree with Veronica also. And Jessica is right too…. I recently had a buyer email me demanding that I PAY the custom fees because they were so high. I told her I would not do that but that I would refund the purchase price of the item once it was returned to me. So she in turn paid the customs fees and left negative feedback because I would not pay the fees. I called eBay immediately and they removed it.
The Thrifty Momma Says says
June 20, 2012 at 5:27 pmSo glad it worked out when you followed your gut and did the right thing.