Need help Urgent Paypal has me up a creek

[teacuprhino]

Hello, I am in a muddled situation which I cannot figure out a good solution to. I have sold items to a buyer in a non ebay transaction. I have a supplier in the US I live in Canada and my customer is American. He has payed me via his paypal account however he wants me to ship the item to his son in Africa, heres where things get difficult. Paypal is holding the funds until I provide shipping information. The shipping will be done in two steps 1. I have to order the item and have it shipped to my address 2. I ship the item to Africa. I don't know if I will get my money until after I have already paid for an order and had it shipped to me. I don't like this. I just want to know in your experience would ebay release the funds once I order from my supplier or do I have to pay everything up front and actually have the item shipped to Africa? This istime sensetive since shipping to africa can take months sometimes.

[PayPal_Adrian]

Whoa.  Let's stop right here.

PayPal will *always* show you the payment before you ship.  It sounds to me like this is the traditional scam where they claim they're in the US or CA but their son or they are somewhere else.

By any chance, is it Nigeria?

In either event, if you don't see the money in your account, don't ship.  If you have shipped, contact your shipper to see if you can pull it back!

Adrian