ebay is a scam

Cupcake_4

I love ebay

Without ebay I would never be able to buy the cosmetics and skincare products I prefer.

It amazes me sometimes of the stupidity of people when they get onto ebay. Dont they ever check out the prices of the products they are bidding on before placing a bid? Ive seen people pay silly money for products that are readily available in 99p shops. And bidding wars always amaze me.

My rule of thumb is know the going price and decide on how much of that you are prepared to go to and stick to it. So you may not win that action but theres always another along within a few hours

My other top tip when buying cosmetics is to find sellers in the US who are prepared to ship to the uk. If the going price in the uk is £50 then the us price is $50 - already saving 50% (give or take), then as its being sold on ebay its usually goes for around 50-75% of rrp so in effect you could well be paying only £10-£15 and even with P&P it will still be less then half the uk price (note I do only do this with small items that dont attract customs or cost a fortune in shipping )

soolin

Queenie wrote:

Do remember, before E-bay existed, let's not forget ....

... you could buy/sell at Boot Fairs (still can!)
... hold your own Garage Sale (still can!)
... buy/sell through the free ads papers (still can!)
... buy/sell through shop noticeboards (still!)

I'm glad you made your post as I'm not experienced in Ebay at all, nor do I intend to be. I do like a nice grope before I pay my money

All the above assume local sales only and I rarely, if ever, sell anything to someone within a 20 mile radius of me.

Ebay literally does open the world to someone like me who just has a few bits and bobs to sell, taking paypal as well means I can sell something one day and have it sent to the US the same day and in their hands within days. I also buy from overseas something that without ebay I would not be able to do.(I buy odd things, not things that I could easily buy in an online store).

I didn't start off on ebay, I started on the freeserve auctions which were useless as it was free to use and subsequently had hundreds of pages of overpriced goods. I also tried another couple of small auction sites but they had virtually no users, so finding ebay a few years back was great.

Soo

edamage

I've not had any problems with E-bay, but I would say that I always checkout the feedback for the seller. If they have any negative feedback less than 98% positive depending on how much they have sold. Then I don't place bid.

caravan502

Well you need to put goods in a normal sale to see ridiculous charge.
If you dont like it ,dont visit it.

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also the biggest scammer of all - ebay itself, they charge ridiculous amount fo listing items, and keep plugging paypal as the only safe option which is also owned by them and for which they also charge some tidy commission.

knine_2

warning Ebay is full of scams,I sent £260.00 to a seller never received the goods now he is a( not a reg user) ebay don't want to know Police say as its below £250000 they don't want to know
so if you want to make a quick buck, go on ebay with faulse address phone number just put anything up for sale wait till some one pays you then do a bunk and you will get away with it (as I well know)

He also had good feed back!
any one wants to know the address he gave me let me know? and I will send it by PM

svmitche

EBay is fab for what I want to buy. I tend to buy only low priced items - I think the most I've ever spent has been £50 on a book that I had never seen before on eBay or in a shop, which I needed to complete a collection.

I would never buy electrical goods as you do hear horror stories.

I think, unfortunatley, eBay has gone down hill in the past few years. When I first joined in 2000, sellers and buyers were still happy to transact in cash, if you can imagine that!

EBay has gotten more secure, but still you always get the greedy element who want to circumvent the system (low starting price, whopping postage anyone???).

pinkonion

You may as well say the internet is a con because of dodgy sites an that emails are a con because of the Nigerian scam etc. Phones and post is a con because ................ etc

hollie.weimeraner

Ebay is fine - IF YOU ARE CAREFUL!. I just bought a piece of porcelain for £360 on Ebay. I wasn't totally convinced the seller was genuine as they only had feedback for cheaper items. I contacted the seller with a message arranging personal collection and cash payment on receipt of goods. I received very good comms from the seller and eventually won the auction. It meant a 350 mile round trip to collect the item but in the end I saved £130 (including petrol costs) and got what I thought was a bargain.

Had the seller not agreed to meet me I wouldn't have even considered bidding. Remember greed makes a lot of people blind which is what the scammers rely on.

moggins

I love e-bay, I feel if you use common sense and gut instinct it is not that hard to tell the true bargains from the rubbish.

I've bought loads on there, from a complete PC to the latest purchase, a surround sound speaker system which hubby is over the moon with. I do always pay by Paypal with my credit card though so I have some protection if anything goes wrong.

Touch wood, so far it never has.

HugoRune_2

Fraud is rife on ebay, this isnt from rumour but from people I know and myself.
My experience was that I bought and sold a few items, on my last buy I sent the money (only 8 quid but money I'd have quite like to have kept), never received the item, I complained to ebay and they refused to give me the buyer details(I would have gone through small claims court), if I wanted to get them I needed to get a solicitor to contact them, who would do that for 8 quid?
I've never used them since and never would