unable to sell item becuase of constant dodgy buyers

jon_r_2

I have been trying to sell a mobile phone on ebay worth nearly £150 and everytime I list it on Buy It Now, it sells to a buyer who wont pay. It has happened on three occasions, with three seperate buyers agreeing to Buy It Now. The first person asked me to send it to Malaysia and wanted to pay via Postal Order. I told them I wasnt prepared to do this, as on my listing I said I would only post within UK and only acepted PayPal. Then I didnt get a response after that and filed an Unpaid Item Dispute and the seller is no longer registered.

I relisted the item and then a second buyer agreed to Buy It Now and sent payment through PayPal, only PayPal put a hold on the funds and they didnt clear, and still havent. This was a month ago. I contacted buyer several times and havent ever had a response. They buyer is still registered with ebay. I have filed an upaid item dispute again and put the phone up for sale for the third time.

Then the third time, the item sold on Buy It Now again to a buyer who wanted to me to send it abroad, this time to Nigeria. ALso wanted to pay via Postal Order. I agreed to accept the Postal Order and told them my address to send it. I am so fed up with trying to sell I thought maybe they were genuine and was willing to post abroad. Had lots of conatc with buyer and then after the sale of the phone, they sent me a Postal Order: through email. It was from europeanpostalordertrust@london.com, ever heard of them? And was full of spelling errors. This company told me that to protect the buyer, they will only release the funds when I send them the shipment tracking number for the item, so I had to send the item out BEFORE recieveing payment-which I was obviously not prepared to do.

I told buyer this and she didnt seem to understand what the problem was and I then recieved a reminder from the company that I wouldnt recieve funds until they recieved shipment number. Again, told buyer I want prepared to accpet this and wanted payment through PayPal, like I had originally stated in my llisting. I am so hacked off with this, I cant seem to sell my phone.

One thing that these buyers all have in common is that they dont have any feedback ratings. THey are all zero. Is there a way to block these people bidding/buying items? I have filed an unpaid item dispute against all of them.

This is a bit of an essay but it takes a while to explain the full story. If any one can help with this it would be much appreciated.

hjb123

Maybe say that you will only sell to people if their feedback is over a set amount and/or if they email you a contact number or address for within the UK?!

soolin

The easy answer is not to list a phone with BIN as that just attracts scammers. If you list on a normal auction and watch the closing minutes you can pull any bidders that you don't feel happy about.

One other idea, and it has worked for me as my last batch of phones did not attract one single dodgy bid, is to state clearly in your auctions that due to the amount of 419 scammers you will only ship within the UK so please don't bid if you are going to try paying with dodgy postal orders or want shipping to Nigeria. I didn't word mine quite like that, mine was toned down a bit, but scammers work on the basis that they are going to have to hit hundreds of auctions just to get one person who willf all for their scam. If they can see you are ready for them it isn't worth their time dealing with you so they will just move on to someone else auctions.

Soo

Juni_3

Set the auction up to be PayPal only and specify you will only deliver to the UK. Do not use Buy It Now. Just put the starting bid at £150.

I've sold several phones like this with no problems at all.

Hintza

I would still use Buy it Now but I would ensure I had the "PayPal account required" box ticked. This should stop the scammers wrecking your auctions.

fatblokexl

i had a similar problem. within minutes of my listing going live a buy it now punter requesting postage to nigeria for his freinds uncles dogs barmitzfa or something.
extremely dodgy.

as per soolin, put a bit in the item description re uk post only, none overseas, bidding will be cancelled etc.
also worth putting a simillar thing in the p+p description section as well.

SandLake

I had this problem recently as well and had to report it to Ebay, I asked how I could stop people bidding from outside the area I would send to and they gave me a tip - in My Ebay, click on 'preferences' down on the left side and then 'show' Buyer requirements, in there you can select various options but the important one is
'Block buyers who: Are registered in countries to which I don't post'

It's not the end to all your troubles but the lady in the Netherlands who wanted me to ship to her husband in Africa was excluded!!!!!

Bernie

...above, I always send a pre-prepared email to all newbie/low feedback bidders. I diplomatically explain that, due to the number of unscrupulous people opening eBay and Paypal accounts to defraud sellers, I have to take additional precautions with unestablished eBay/PP account holders.

Unlike Soolin, I will not take payment via PP from a newbie - because of the dreaded Paypal chargeback! In my follow-up email to a newbie winner, I repeat my polite and diplomatic reasons for insisting on payment by electronic transfer, bank giro or cheque. Takes longer but I do provide a discount (because I do not have to cover the PP charges).

True newbies will be, no, have been happy to comply and obtain the goods and their first positive feedback.

A win-win solution for the newbie and the seller, both get what they want.

:beer:

liz_uk

Under your seller preferences you can set it so that nobody outside of the UK can bid, unless you have specfied in your auction that you allow international bidders.

You can also disallow people with unpaid item strikes and neg feedback.

In your listing.. click onthe option `post to uk only`

Sold 3 mobiles without a problem !