Big eBay question

monkeyherder

Hi,

My friends cousin is selling a PC on eBay. I'm trying to help her as its her first time so please bare with me. I couldnt answer the following...

1. She put paypal or cash on collection as payment. If they chose to cash+collect would eBay still force them to pay a final value fee? Probably going to be the £40 maximum which is ridiculous anyway.

2. My friend has told her to put a reserve but it looks like she forgot. If it ends for a ridiculously low and she refuses to take the payment and send the item will she still have to pay eBay the final value fee?

Maybe I should get her to cancel it all somehow, is there someway to get her out of this mess! Maybe you know somewhere else she can sell it?

Please advise.

TUS

monkeyherder wrote: »

1. She put paypal or cash on collection as payment. If they chose to cash+collect would eBay still force them to pay a final value fee? Probably going to be the £40 maximum which is ridiculous anyway.

Yes, she will still have FVF's. But she wont pay Paypal fees.

monkeyherder wrote: »

2. My friend has told her to put a reserve but it looks like she forgot. If it ends for a ridiculously low and she refuses to take the payment and send the item will she still have to pay eBay the final value fee?

This is against eBay rules. If it sells, it sells. She can refuse to go through with the trade, but will prob get a negative feedback/strike for it.

monkeyherder wrote: »

Maybe I should get her to cancel it all somehow, is there someway to get her out of this mess! Maybe you know somewhere else she can sell it?

Please advise.

Yes, you can cancel if it is not within the last 12 hours. Do this via my eBay and relist with an honest starting bid. An alternative place to sell is Gumtree, Fo.Lk or your local papers/shops.

Or leave it and accept whatever it finishes at. In my experience, 99p starts normally always rise to an acceptable level before the end of the auction. Especially on high value items. So it may riding it out.

philips9071

1. Assuming that PC is sold through an ebay auction then ebay will charge the final value fee based on the final selling price, regardless of how the buyer pays.

Cash payments are only good for dodging Paypal fees.

2. If she refuses to sell once the auction has ended then she risks some sort of action from ebay for being a dishonest seller.

She can end the auction early though if she has made a mistake and simply re-list it but with a reserve or higher starting price.

Edit: I see that I got pipped to the post (literally!), sorry about the repetition!

Crowqueen

Secondhand PCs are not worth an awful lot, so be careful about wanting too much for it. It depends on the age of the computer, but a couple of hundred pounds is not considered that unreasonable. My aging machine might fetch £100 at the maximum. As people are saying, you need to cancel the auction now and relist with a sensible reserve, but it may be that once it reaches the front page of the category or keyword search, more people see it and bid on it, so as long as you are happy with the start price and prepared to sell to the highest bidder even if there is only one person who bids on it, then it's OK to let it run.

Cash payments are fine for you to accept, but you will owe eBay if it finishes with a winning bidder. I would make sure you can demonstrate that it works when the bidder comes to pick it up as well - play fair with your buyers and they usually play fair with you.

monkeyherder

Ok, great thanks.

I'm still a bit skeptical about the whole eBay process myself. What if the buyer fraudulently claims it got damaged or does not work, opens up a claim and trys to get their money back? There seems to be sooo many loop holes that can be exploited. Also, with regards to the final value fee, is this charged irrespective if the seller does not take the money nor send the item?

As for the machine, it's actually a pretty good laptop that she doesnt need anylonger since I rebuilt her desktop PC. Blue ray, 2.4 ghz dual core processor, graphics card, 17inch screen, carry bag and mouse. Pro-sumer range top brand machine.

It's got 2 days left only 5 bids at £43 so I can see why shes quite anxious....!!

theonlywayisup

monkeyherder wrote: »

Ok, great thanks.

I'm still a bit skeptical about the whole eBay process myself. What if the buyer fraudulently claims it got damaged or does not work, opens up a claim and trys to get their money back? There seems to be sooo many loop holes that can be exploited. Also, with regards to the final value fee, is this charged irrespective if the seller does not take the money nor send the item?

As for the machine, it's actually a pretty good laptop that she doesnt need anylonger since I rebuilt her desktop PC. Blue ray, 2.4 ghz dual core processor, graphics card, 17inch screen, carry bag and mouse. Pro-sumer range top brand machine.

It's got 2 days left only 5 bids at £43 so I can see why shes quite anxious....!!

Just make sure that if a buyer pays by paypal, your friend arranges a courier with a tracked delivery/special delivery. Paypal will only protect your friend if they know the rules.

A payment made by Paypal for under £150 requires proof of delivery showing online and a certificate of posting, to be retained for 180 days.

A payment made for over £150 needs proof of signature and the cop kept for 180 days.

Be prepared to note all serial numbers, security marks and if possible, update the listing to say that these have been noted.

rosie383

Can I bump this please? I, too put an item on eBay and didn't put a reserve. Someone has already put a bid of 99p. I have tried going through the site to change it and put a reserve. I get to a page with 'cancel bids and end listing early'. But it is talking about auctions ending within 12 hours. I don't want to have too many people bidding on my item, and being disappointed if i withdraw the item. It has just been on since last night and is a 5 day listing. I don't want to hit the 'continue' button, only to find that I ended the listing early and sold it to the bidder at 99p, IYKWIM.
And please, please don't be nasty anyone. This was a genuine mistake, and I am asking for helpful advice, not trying to pull a fast one!!!!

soolin

rosie383 wrote: »

Can I bump this please? I, too put an item on eBay and didn't put a reserve. Someone has already put a bid of 99p. I have tried going through the site to change it and put a reserve. I get to a page with 'cancel bids and end listing early'. But it is talking about auctions ending within 12 hours. I don't want to have too many people bidding on my item, and being disappointed if i withdraw the item. It has just been on since last night and is a 5 day listing. I don't want to hit the 'continue' button, only to find that I ended the listing early and sold it to the bidder at 99p, IYKWIM.
And please, please don't be nasty anyone. This was a genuine mistake, and I am asking for helpful advice, not trying to pull a fast one!!!!

If your item is likely to sell for more (and look at completed listings to see market trends) then sit it out and wait. The current bidder may well have put in a big bid but until you get a second bidder he sits at 99p.

If you do think it may sell to the firts bidder at 99p then you have nothing at all to lose by ending listing early. Just choose th eoption 'close listing' and it allows you to remove the bid and end in one stroke.

If you do then relist with a reserve be aware that a reserve is expensive and you pay the costs whether or not the item sells.

rosie383

Thank you Soolin. I will try to do that now. I appreciate your help.

rosie383

Thank you. I think I was making it more complicated than I needed. I have done it now. The item belongs to my husband, and looking at completed items which are similar, it could sell for anything between £5-25. He wants more for it, so I can't take the risk. I will let him do it himself now!

soolin

rosie383 wrote: »

Thank you. I think I was making it more complicated than I needed. I have done it now. The item belongs to my husband, and looking at completed items which are similar, it could sell for anything between £5-25. He wants more for it, so I can't take the risk. I will let him do it himself now!

Just warn him to set the start price at the minimum he will accept. You can't do a reserve for less than £50 anyway. If he wants £10 then have the start price at £10.