Any way to stop these scam bidders?

Vic_980

I've been selling on EBay for 2 years and consider myself quite experienced. Recently I've been trying to auction a mobile phone.

It was selling well, then all of a sudden a scam bidder (new account, 0 feedback, bidding on hundreds of phones) outbid everyone at the last second! Didn't even have time to cancel the bid. I sent second chance offers to the next 2 bidders down for the phone, but no response.

I decided to relist them item. Again, at the end of the auction, I got another scam bidder with 30 seconds to go. I just managed to cancel the bid in time, and the winner was a legitimate EBayer.

Sent the invoice, and got an email back from the winner. They'd gone and won an identical item to mine a few minutes later. They saw themselves being outbidded and went elsewhere when the price went over the odds, as you'd expect!

As it wasn't their fault, I agreed not to complete the transaction and got back my FVF. I've sent a 2nd chance offer to the next bidder down, but don't hold out much hope of selling it!

Do any of you have this problem and how do you deal with it?

I've done the usual blocking of accounts with > 2 NP strikes and -1 feedback or lower. I've got big notes all over the auction saying no Nigerian bids, zero feedback bidders contact me, etc, but the scammers are still lining up to take out my auctions!!

Surely there's something EBay can do to prevent this type of annoying fraud happening? The scammers simply register an account, do their stuff, close it and then repeat the whole thing again. It's really annoying now, I've been trying to sell the damn thing for weeks!! :mad:

Bendybops19

I have such a bugbear for this, it drives me up the wall !!! I have had this happen to me when i was trying to sell my car on ebay!!

I just had to keep re-listing it and trying to get my money back from ebay.
Its really put me off selling things on ebay, which is such a shame coz i managed to sell so much stuff before this started happening. :mad:

I really dont think there is much more we can do, i too have put blocks on people with no score etc, but it still seems to happen.

Shugster

The fact that it's last minute winning bids sounds to me like they're using some sort of ebay sniper system. I've seen these advertised, but I'm not sure how they work, can anyone explain further?

jaffa30

You could try pre approved bidders ive never used it so i cant really sy what its like but it may be of help to you.

"Pre-approved Bidders List" just type this in the help bit as my link didnt work

Jellicle

What is needed to stop this last minute "auction wrecking" is an option for the seller to disallow accounts with zero feedback or "newbie" status to bid in the final stages (10 minutes? seller to specify?) of an auction.

This would make it just a little bit harder for the auction wreckers.
(... however they would probably just set up their own BIN auctions to get +ve feedback to get around this... and set up accounts in advance for this purpose...)

-anyone got any better ideas?

Catseyez

Jellicle wrote:

What is needed to stop this last minute "auction wrecking" is an option for the seller to disallow accounts with zero feedback or "newbie" status to bid in the final stages (10 minutes? seller to specify?) of an auction.

-anyone got any better ideas?

That would be really unfair on people like myself who are genuine 'newbies'. After how many purchases do you become a regular - 25?? I am a sniper myself but in the 'manual' sense. If I can, I watch the auction in the last few minutes and then go in for the kill. The reason being that I always bid on an item I genuinely want (mainly rare books that I use for work reference) and want to keep the cost down as much as possible! I've looked into those automatic sniper systems but there not as much fun!!

Going back to the original question, what exactly do these scammers gain from bidding on hundreds of the same item at the last minute? I understand why people snipe if they want an item, but where does the scam come into it?

Shugster

Having won the item they get access to your email details, so they can then tell you a sob story about how the item is actually for a sick relative in Africa, and then you'll get a cheque that covers the shipping and more, in return you refund the difference via Western Union.

If not this then it'll be along similar lines.

Jellicle

Catseyez wrote:

That would be really unfair on people like myself who are genuine 'newbies'. After how many purchases do you become a regular - 25?? ...:

- I think ebay already has a system in place to identify "newbies" (ie. new ebay members of less than 30? days standing), but yes it would discriminate against very new ebay members bidding at the last minute (that might be a good move anyway...), however it might be a small price to pay if it reduces "auction wrecking".

Catseyez wrote:

...Going back to the original question, what exactly do these scammers gain from bidding on hundreds of the same item at the last minute? I understand why people snipe if they want an item, but where does the scam come into it?

- my thought was that these people are competitors (selling the same sort of item) and are trying to make other sellers (of that item) give up selling on ebay?

Doblo_2

Ebay certainly needs to tighten up on the registering of ebay accounts. They should make something like..

All new members must use only paypal to purchase goods and they can only place bids if they have the money in their paypal account first.

After a certain amount of purchases or time, this restriction is then taken off and they can trade normally.

At least something like this would deter scammers

Catseyez

Jellicle wrote:

-
- my thought was that these people are competitors (selling the same sort of item) and are trying to make other sellers (of that item) give up selling on ebay?

That's an interesting thought and probably very true. Blimey, it's almost like gangland crime!!

There's probably no answer to stopping the scammers because they'll always find a new way somehow. I do think Ebay needs to protect Sellers a bit more though - everything seems to be in favour of the buyers.

DaisyNelson

Been selling on ebay for about a year and didn't know this went on. Do they target auctions for high value items only? I only tend to sell second hand items from around the house and I don't think I've ever sold anything worth more than about £40.