The six golden rules of ebay discussion area

mynamenicola

I havent read this whole thread so this scam may well already be on here, sorry if it is.

A new scam that has come in is being used on many second hand items (cars on auto trader etc) but mainly on moderately high priced items on ebay especially MOBILE PHONES so take care, I was nearly conned. It is known as the "NIgerian Western Union" scam. You sell an item to a high bidder ( for say £200) and all seems normal. You then recieve an email saying something along the lines of

"Hi,
I am th high bider of your item, I am a high paid businesman who live in Nigeria but have a house/business/whatever in the UK. A Someone there owes me £500, but as the phone only cost me £200, there is £300 change. I will arange for them to send to YOU this £500, so if you send me your details along with bankers draught of £300 and the mobile phone I won, I will get the money sent to you.

xxxxxxxxxx@yahoo/hotmail/gmail"

Therefore you lose out on £300 and a phone, doh


The email will be FULL of bad grammar and spelling, and why a rich businessman would have an @yahoo, god only knows. You'd think anyone would be a fool to fall for this, but some people (like my gran I'm sure) may well just go ahead with it thinking "its on ebay, its ok" My housemate had 5 emails like this within 12 hours of putting his car on the autotrader website, the amount involved was near to £10,000

Please report any ebay account details to ebay, and any email details to yahoo/hotmail/whoever and please beware

deeloughran

Yes this scam has been around quite a while, many sellers now not selling to people from Nigeria, also any person who pays over the top for something theres something the matter, and also do not accept any payment methods over than cash, cheque (wait for it clearing) and paypal!

The_Oracle

potbelly wrote:

As an ebay enthusiast, both buyer and seller, I agree wholheartedly with Martin's and other 'moneysaver's' comments about eBay, and all the warnings. However, I would disagree with his recommendation to use the 'shopbots' for checking prices. I have ALWAYS beaten their prices by doing my own search, usually Google and more recently Froogle. These 'shopbots' obviously only search a very limited number of sellers and the prices are all pretty much the same. They are also guilty of one of the biggest complaints about eBay sellers - they often don't include the delivery charges and some don't show a VAT inclusive price, until you get to the end of the 'checkout'.
Just goes to show, the old adage of 'buyer beware' still holds true.
But it's also great to have someone like Martin to offer advice!!!

Learned my lesson as a relatively new e-bayer. Bought a voucher for pamper day at Health Spa only to realise that if I had walked in off the street to use the spa it would only have cost me half of what I paid for voucher on e-bay. Whoops should have checked direct with the Health Spa first!! Never mind won't do it again.

The_Oracle

potbelly wrote:

As an ebay enthusiast, both buyer and seller, I agree wholheartedly with Martin's and other 'moneysaver's' comments about eBay, and all the warnings. However, I would disagree with his recommendation to use the 'shopbots' for checking prices. I have ALWAYS beaten their prices by doing my own search, usually Google and more recently Froogle. These 'shopbots' obviously only search a very limited number of sellers and the prices are all pretty much the same. They are also guilty of one of the biggest complaints about eBay sellers - they often don't include the delivery charges and some don't show a VAT inclusive price, until you get to the end of the 'checkout'.
Just goes to show, the old adage of 'buyer beware' still holds true.
But it's also great to have someone like Martin to offer advice!!!

Learned my lesson as a relatively new e-bayer. Bought a voucher for pamper day at Health Spa only to realise that if I had walked in off the street to use the spa it would only have cost me half of what I paid for voucher on e-bay. Whoops should have checked direct with the Health Spa first!! Never mind won't do it again.

seven-day-weekend

Haven't read all the thread but I think Martin's advice is spot-on. By using EBAY you are not guaranteed a bargain and there are plenty of scams.

Having said that I love EBay, when we lived in the UK we used to sell our own hand-crafted products and they always went like hot cakes, no need to check price as being hand-crafted you couldn't buy them anywhere else! I really miss selling now we are here in Spain, but can't do it as our raw material is non-existent here and also the postage cost would be prohibitive to the UK (the Spanish wouldn't buy our item is it is just not their style!).

So, I agree, be wise and careful when using EBay, but once uyou've checked it out....ENJOY!

Open_Wallet_Surgery

MSE_Martin wrote:

This discussion relates to the Six Golden Rules of eBay article.

Click reply to discuss.

Does anybody purchase stuff from abroad on Ebay ?

Well I do, and the jolly old taxman has found another thing to grab your hard earned cash with
What ?
Import duties, and then of course VAT on the purchase price and the import duties

I collect silver coins, specifically American and Canadian coins, so Ebay is a god send to me, I get access to alot of North American coin traders.

However - (and this a two pronger ......)

Firstly, its my understanding that anything you order from outside the EU and is over roughly £18, the taxman can take a slice of in import duties whether the vendor declares the item as either gift OR merchandise

Secondly, despite Ebay having a crackdown, some traders are advertising the item as UK despach when they are shipping goods into the UK from outside the EU.If you look at the "about seller" panel on the upper left of the Ebay screen you can soon see where a seller is located....

Ok so I got done once, Mr Postie knocking on the door at silly o'clock in the morning demanding cash before he'd let me have the Jiffy bag with me coin in it. But I'm going to be more cafeful in future

Anybody else got caught with this scam ?????

lola_the_cat

Help! I have been duped by an Ebay seller for £180 inc P&P. The goods were never sent and after many excuses as to why my PayPal account had not been refunded I got an email from the account holder and she claims that while she has been away her ex boyfriend had duped Ebay buyers, cleared out their bank account and gone without trace with his new girlfriend and the contents of her flat. She was at the time awaiting a visit from the police to give a statement.
I have of course put in a dispute with PayPal who say they are waiting for a reply from seller. I feel very helpless as this clearly a theft and I feel I should be doing more. The seller, who has also had vast loses is hardly likely to refill the same bank account or want to be bothered with my problem so I am not feeling very confident about recovering my loses.
Can anyone advise me what to do next or should I just leave it to PayPal?
Regards

brettles

The only sensible rule for using ebay is DON'T.

Ebay puts ebay first, second and third. Sellers come a distant fourth and buyers come no where.

It is increasingly an outlet for scams and stolen items. Feedback is meaningless...apart from buying it, i,ve just discovered that sellers can create it...a software fault that ebay have known about for over 5 years reportedly.

If you must use it (and it is undoubtedly useful for some specialist items) then remember all the risk is with the buyer. You have to accept the desciption, you have to provide your details..including bank details if paying by cheque,to a stranger, you have to hope the item arrives, then you have to leave feedback to get it 'reciprocated'.

You need to redress the balance.

As a buyer don't leave feedback unless it's left for you. Don't be intimidated by threats of negative feedback...just open a new account.

Don't pay excess postage. Never send a cheque. Change your paypal account (was there ever a bigger con?) every few tranactions...otherwise you might as well just publish your credit card details openly. Never pay for an item unless the seller gives you a verifiable address...so many hide behind paypal.

If they say 'can't be responsible for items lost in post' be very beware. Usually they are dealers .THEY CAN'T LIMIT RESPONSIBILITY. Often it's a post office fraud.....a few numbers..and you won't get the item.

PO parcel losses:less than 0.003%
PO parcel losses on ebay transactions:over 1.2 %

If you suspect a seller never sent you the item report them to PO Fraud Unit....they will either be making a claim or trying to get you to with the totally meaningless(watch what happens at a PO when these sellers take lots of items in) Proof of Postage.

Equally if you get ripped off by a dealer (say anyone who sells more than 100 items a year) do give their details to the Inland Revenue Fraud Investigations....when they get the assessment for the tax on unpaid profits they tend to disappear.

Finally do use the Small Claims Court when necessary.

The only good thing about Ebay is that it's had it's day.

EagerLearner

Hi,

I do use Ebay and have done so for 7 years, without a problem.

I recenly started using it again more heavily after a period of using it very rarely.

In the last 2 weeks, I have had 3 problem transactions - one person bought a £10 Argos voucher via Paypal, then retracted the payment once I had posted the voucher (believed to be fraudulent use of a card via Paypal).

Another person bought a £0.75 book then e-mailed me within a few days promising negative feedback if it did not arrive, without even having given it enough time to arrive. They are now threatening negative feedback if I don't refund all the money inc postage immediately. I will have to do it, but I left positive feedback for them as soon as they paid, so I will lose out on this one.

Another third person claimed to have paid for vouchers via Postal Order on 20th October, these did not arrive so I asked for a bank transfer, which she then wrote to me and promised she had done via Halifax. Then she no longer responded to comms so I sent 6 e-mails requesting news and asking her to reply by Monday 6th Nov final demand before negative feedback. She made no attempts to communicate and the payments never arrived so I had to leave neg feedback for the first time in 7 years. She then left revenge feedback and stated Postal Order Proof of posting was offered to me (it was never offered or even mentioned) and she had never promised a bank transfer (she did definately promise this and I still have it in my Ebay inbox). So now, I have been forced to relist the items and acquired 2 negative feedbacks which others will read.

I am very dissapointed with the Ebay I see today and want to protect myself as much as possible. As a seller most of the time, I will now have to:

- Only leave feedback once a person has left feedback for me, in case they try any scams
- List that any items sent 1st class post cannot be tracked, buyer should select signed delivery at checkout if they want the security of tracked delivery
- List that I always obtain proof of posting from post office
- Check a buyers feedback before allowing bids - maybe only allowing bids from buyers with over 20 feedback

Maybe you see this as common sense and that I have been too trusting to date.

I never had to worry before but I do now, especially with payment fraud and blackmail as I've experienced.

Can anyone give advice - in particular, what wording to have on listings to protect myself? Also, how can I block the 3 users mentioned above from future auctions?

Any info gratefully received.

Thank you

zztopgirl

Have only just started reading this thread, so im sorry if these have already been repeated.

Shilling ebay loves it, welcomes, it, give the shill bidders a huge pat on the back and says well done. I got shilled and the seller even had the cheek to use his real name as his shill id. He got suspended for 10 days and allowed back, said that ebay never found him guilty of shilling and had me striked and a npb for something he had bid on, and that i had the misfortune to have won. Ebay were supposed to be on my side, to cancel the contract as it was a suspended seller. They didnt want to know.:mad: The seller never even got in touch with me either, the first i knew of it was when i got the npb filed against me.

Pre-Sale Listings i have one of these sellers at the moment. The seller couldnt be bothered to state in the listing that he doesnt actually have the item for sale, instead putting that it would be dispatched within 24 hours of payment. He only bothered to get in touch after i asked where the item was and let me know he has only just ordered it today and it 'should be with him at the weekend' where he will then send it on to me. Ebay dont care, as long as they make their profits. Is a waste of time taking action, as i will get a neg, a strike, and the seller will get a golden halo.

Im going to stick to bin and get it fast listings from now on, but only if im really desparate to buy off ebay.

My tips to other buyers, check the other bids on the item, if its not a bin, if any look suspicious, dont go there. Check the sellers history(link on site map), dont always go by feedback. Check the feedback left for other users, my shiller only left feedback to his shill id, he didnt leave any feedback from his shill to his seller id, thus nobody was any the wiser. Pay via paypal. It cost me £10 to get my cheque cancelled when the shiller was suspended. Also, if the same buyer keeps appearing and buying up all the listings from the same seller and those items keep getting relisted AVOID!

If you are suspicious that the seller doesnt have the item(pre-sale listing or dropshipping), email and ask for more photos or information. A good seller never minds providing more photos. Its against ebay rules not to state in the listing that the seller doesnt have the item, but ebay may as well put that the rules are there for the breaking.

Have never had any problems selling but am going to start giving ebay a wide berth now. There are lots of genuine great sellers out there, but the bad ones seem great to ebay too, so why ban them when there is money to be made for ebay?