Getting a quick "good reputation"

Iffy_Wallet

I'm not saying specifically that this guy has done anything wrong. However, as he had a 12 out of 12 rating, I thought I'd had a quick nosey through some of the items he'd bought. I never realised that items were for sale on ebay for one penny sterling, or for one cent in US currency. It did make me wonder if some people (not necessarily this gentleman) might be able to buy themselves a reputation for a matter of a few pence. The fact that most of the 12 items were 1p or 1cent each, did start to make my brain turn over !

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I was slightly amazed.

dougk_2

This is how many dodgy ebayers get a good rating - buying cheap items and then selling expensive items - either fakes or indeed virtual items that never appear once you have paid!

I would go as far as to say I would not go any where near purchasing anything from a seller with a rating made up quickly from cheap 1p / 1c items.

TBH I would be surprised if the versions of Office 2003 he was selling were genuine and even if they are they would be OEM versions which according to Microsofts T&C's are invalid if they are not bought with hardware.

smellybum

This is a very well known trick to improve your rating.

Many so called ebay guru's reccommend doing this before you start selling. Most people will just look at the score and never look further.

Iv'e got to admit I did this myself.
I was having trouble selling items at a price I thought they should be, so I decided to spend £10 buying up a thousand of these items. My feedback shot up and so did my final sale prices.

Some may say this is morally wrong, but it is not against any ebay rules and I have never recieved anything other than positive feedback from anybody.
It just gave me a helping hand.

Yes I am sure dodgy sellers do this, but so do many genuine sellers.
I dont sell anything dodgy, just general day to day items.

f1charlie

How do the people selling the 1p items make any money?

They must be losing out on fees, or are they just doing it to boost their feedback too?

Charlie

Thefunkygibbons

I have long argued that ebay could get around this by including cumulative value of sales and purchases as part of someone's feedback record

rdwarr

smellybum wrote:

This is a very well known trick to improve your rating.

Many so called ebay guru's reccommend doing this before you start selling. Most people will just look at the score and never look further.

Iv'e got to admit I did this myself.
I was having trouble selling items at a price I thought they should be, so I decided to spend £10 buying up a thousand of these items. My feedback shot up and so did my final sale prices.

Some may say this is morally wrong, but it is not against any ebay rules and I have never recieved anything other than positive feedback from anybody.
It just gave me a helping hand.

Yes I am sure dodgy sellers do this, but so do many genuine sellers.
I dont sell anything dodgy, just general day to day items.

I don't think it's morally wrong; it just shows that feedback, taken in isolation is totally useless.
I must admit that if I read your feedback and found hundreds of 1p eBooks I'd just assume you were a scammer and go elsewhere. I'm sure you're not - that would just be on "first impressions".

smellybum

Hi

I am sure some people in the begining did look at my feedback and thought something is wrong and thinking what are they upto.

However the point is by doing this I managed to get improved offers and sales.
Also if soomebody has a high feedback score how many of those pages are you actually going to read before you make a decision about the seller. You would have to go through 16 pages of feedback before you came to the purchases I made to boost my rating. I have not purchased anything else on that account since then so all the feedback is from buyers.

As for losing money most of the people selling 1p items are usually casino betting systems where they will recieve a commision if somebody signs up through a link on the item. The usuall commision is around £55, so even getting just one sale every 20 weeks would still result in a profit. Or they may be ebooks with links to other moneymaking systems or wholesale and dropshipping companys with which they will recieve a commision from sign-ups.

SmileBeHappy

you don't have to pay at all, there are some 1p posters that state in the auction, i will email you this photo, please don't send any money. it gets both parties feedback and is technically all legit. I check what they've bought tho, ive had so much hassle with 0 feedback bidders, i don't let them bid anymore. if people won't let the newbies bid then they sumhow need feedback.

laura