We got burned big time selling on eBay. We learned a lot of what not to do from this and stories from other people. I have put our story in so you know that these things really happen and are not urban myths. I have also taken the information I received from 100’s of people burned on eBay, both sellers and buyers, and used it to give you an idea of what happens and how to keep it from happening to you. If you are going to sell on eBay you need to know how to deal with buyer fraud on eBay. The best thing to do is to prevent it because it is very difficult to fix once it happens.
We put my Grandmothers ring on just before Mothers day. We got an email asking if we would be willing to ship that day as the person wanted it for Mothers day. The person had been on eBay for years and had a 100% rating. They were using Paypal to pay so we felt it would be secure. We said yes. They paid the $1116.00 right away. Once the payment was processed we took the ring to Fedex. By by ring. The next day about 24 hrs after the transaction Paypal notifies us that the transaction was fraudulent. We were one of about 10 people hit all on the same day all for rings worth about $1000.00 to $2000.00, ours was apprised over $1800.00.
Some one had gotten into another persons eBay and Paypal account and then used them to buy items. So we contacted Fedex to put a return to sender on it. It had already made it to customs and we would not be able to get it back until it cleared customs at the other end. At this point in time we were out the $116.00 it cost us to ship it.
Then we get a call from Fedex. The stop shipment order never made it to the ring. The person it was delivered to refuse to pay the Indonesian custom charges. Indonesian customs would not release the ring unless some one paid the $381.00 custom charges. Fedex explained to them that there was a stop shipment on the item and it should never have made it to customs. Indonesian customs response, not their problem, the custom charges had to be paid or they confiscate the ring to pay the charges.
We spent a week talking with Fedex trying to sort this out. We were told to pay the custom fees or we would never see the ring again. We agreed to pay. To help us, Fedex agreed to pay for the custom fees and then bill us so we could make monthly payments. Ring was to show up on a Tuesday. That day, no ring. We decide to wait until Wednesday afternoon before calling Fedex. Wednesday morning we get a call from Fedex. The Indonesian customs now wants over $900 for us to get the ring back, they had added about $600.00 in storage and handling fees for the week we were talking to Fedex.
Fedex stepped in at this point and said “no way”. They started negotiations and after about a month they were able to get the Indonesian Government to step in. We still had to pay the initial custom charges of $381.00 though. So by selling my Grandmothers ring on eBay we were out $497.00. The other sellers lost the rings. The person who bought them asked that they put a low value on the ring so they would not be charged the custom fees, so the rings were delivered right to them. Others lost them to the Indonesian customs because the customs fee was so high. We were the only ones to get the ring back. This person did get away with it, and nothing will be done to them.
Did we contact eBay and Paypal over this? Yes! We had to use emails though as there seems to be no way to contact them any other way. The end result was they refunded us our insertion fee and final auction fee. That is all they do for sellers. There is no protection for sellers, just buyers. That was it. EBay did nothing for us, even though some one had used a legitimate eBay account. Paypal at lest looked into it. About a month after they had contacted us about the possible fraudulent transaction they let us know that it was a fraudulent transaction. That was it. No explanation for how this happened, and no help with the debt we now have because of the sale.
We learned from this experience. If some thing seems to good to be true, it is. Hold all Paypal transactions for at least 3 days to make sure it is a legitimate purchase, then ship item. Do not list large ticket items or items you are not willing to loose. We do not sell on eBay anymore.
We shared out story with quite a few people and were told quite a few other eBay horror stories. Most are from sellers. Why, because eBay does nothing to protect sellers, just buyers and then only for 30 days. Common buyer stories, items were purchased, product was never shipped, and not the item bid on, did not work or was damaged. As long as it was with in 30 days eBay would negotiate for a new product to be shipped or money refunded. Paypal is best to use when buying because if you don’t receive the product ordered you can cancel the transaction with in 30 days and get your money back.
None of this does the buyer any good it the seller was using some one else’s account, fraudulently posting items for sale and then never shipping. You never know who actually put the item out for sale. The person whose account was used usually has no idea who or even how some one posted listings on their account. Another one is to open an eBay account list lots of products, get the payments and shut down the account.
This has been happening a lot. They have you send the money through Western Union and you never see the product or your money back. As a buyer you need to make sure you read the whole ad. If it says “as is” then what you get is it, and chances are it does not work or is damaged. If there is no shipping and handling fee listed, do not bid until you know what the cost is. I had one person charge me $10.00 shipping and handling for a $1.00 item that only cost $2.00 to ship. Check every thing out, and if you have any questions get them answered using the eBay emails so there is a record of the emails right on eBay.
Sellers get hit harder and more often then buyers. People will send bad cheques, which is why you never ship until the cheque clears. The most common scam is people get the product and then say they never received it and expect you to send more products or refund the money. You pay extra to have items insured and signature required when product is delivered. It may cost you more but it stops people from being able to say they never received it. And if they actually did not well then the insurance you paid for should cover that, it was a delivery service problem.
People will claim the product was damaged when received. Always take a picture of product before you send it, and again insure it so that if the shipping company damages it it is their problem. You have to get a picture of the product showing the damage when the person receives item. The problem sellers have is that they damage the item on purpose, or have a similar item damaged and claim it is the same one. This was a problem an eBay seller selling laptops was having. He recorded and photographed all numbers on the laptop and was able to prove several times that the item people claimed to be the one he shipped to them was not the same one.
Another scam he came across was people would receive his product, scratch it up, take a picture of it and claim it was received “damaged” or not as advertised in the eBay ad. It was always cosmetic damage. They would then email him and say refund me half the money because the product was damaged or I will give you a bad review for sending damaged goods. This one there is no real way to protect yourself from. You don’t give them the money they try to trash your reputation. Your only recourse is to refute the damage claim through eBay feedback.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
5 ways to make money on ebay
This is for those who are still willing to try and make some money on eBay. This is some good advice on eBay selling. Make sure you still play is safe, don't get taken.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Ebay sucks! Boycott ebay!
This is a consumer report on people who have had problems on eBay. There are a lot of people being taken by thieves on eBay.
read more digg story
read more digg story
66 year old man finds his baby book on eBay
How would you like to be looking on eBay only to find something of yours beings sold. This is what happened to this guy. His baby book was being auctioned off. This is a strange story, but has a happy ending.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Yet Another Reason Why eBay Is A Total Joke
I can’t believe eBay is still in business considering the huge number of scams that seem to pervade the site like flies on you-know-what. Just this past week I attempted to use eBay to auction off two notebook computers and quickly discovered that this was an impossible task thanks to all the scammers who now appear to have almost complete control of the site. Yes, you heard that right. Complete control. The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Friday, December 21, 2007
How to retract a bid on eBay
Why would any one want to retract a bid on eBay? The idea is that you want to win the item right. Well I have retracted a couple of bids over the years. One of them was because I put the wrong amount in, $100.00 instead of $10.00. I use the bid retraction form and retracted my bid of $100 and then bid the $10. I did retract one bid because the seller would not respond to my emails once I put the bid on the item. I realised that the computer part may not work with what I already had and needed some more information. I never got the information, even after I retracted my bid. I did not want to take the chance of buying some thing I could not use. The retractions showed up on my feedback for 6 months, but it did not cause sellers to reject my bids. It might have been different if I had retracted a lot of bids.
EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.
If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.
When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.
EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.
Source: eBay
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca
EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.
If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.
When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.
EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.
Source: eBay
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Clues for when not to bid on eBay
There are a few reasons not to bid on an item on eBay, you do not want to bid to early and drive the price up, there are unanswered questions or the auction itself is questionable. There are a lot of clues for when not to bid on eBay, you just need to know where to find them or interpret them. If some thing about the listing or the eBay seller does not feel right, that is a big clue to not bid. Never bid on an item at the last second unless you have already done your homework. This is how most people get taken for, when they try to snag a great deal but are in such a hurry that they do not fully read the ad or contact the seller about information missing in the ad, like shipping and handling costs.
If you want a good deal then hold off bidding until near the end of the auction, but do your homework first. This way you know what you are bidding on and what all the costs are, and you can try and get it at the lowest price possible. If you bid early on you can find the price going up as you bid against other buyers. If you hold off on your bids you can also see if the price is going to be more then you want to pay. Sometimes once you put a bid on something you can get caught up in the bidding and end up paying way more then you wanted to. You can see this all the time, one items price is way up there and going up as two people get into a bidding war. Then there is the same item right under it with no bids or only one bid and it sells for way less.
Unanswered questions are a big clue not to bid. If all the information you need about a product is not on the ad you do not want to bid until you have the information. This is so obvious but we all miss it, we assume and don’t question. If a listing has Silver you may assume it is sterling silver, but it could be silver in color, alpaca silver witch has no silver in it, or it could be sterling silver. If the eBay listing does not state that an item works or all pieces are there then you need to ask. Most people will indicate that some thing is as is or is to be used for parts when some thing does not work or is not all there. Some people don’t, they just do not say it works or everything is there. By contacting the seller you can get the answers you need and will often be helping the seller. They may not be getting bids because they never thought to let people know an item works or is all there. This gives them the chance to make some changes on their listing. On the other hand if the seller does not respond to your question before the auction ends, don’t bid, there is probably a reason why they will not answer.
The big unanswered question most people get caught on is shipping and handling cost. People assume the seller is only going to charge what it actually costs to ship the item, with maybe a little extra to cover packaging. Most of us learn this one the hard way. For me an auction was ending with in a minute, no shipping cost was given and I did not have enough time to contact seller before the auction ended. I bid and won a little girls dress for $1.00 and then end up being charged $10.00 shipping and handling even though the cost to send the dress was $2.00. The person did not list a shipping and handling cost so that if the price of their items were not as high as they wanted they just charged more for the shipping and handling. I had to pay or end up with a black mark against me on eBay. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Contact the seller to find out the shipping and handling before you make a bid. If they do not get back to you in time don’t bid.
If there are no pictures of the item or you cannot clearly see the item in the picture you may not want to bid. Not everyone has a digital camera and are unable to put a picture on, that is understandable but still risky for the buyer. You have no idea what you are actually bidding on, even with the best-written description. If the seller does have a very high ratting then it is probably ok. The real problem is when the picture is not clear. If a seller cannot be bothered to take a good picture then they probably don’t care much about what they are selling, and it is not in that great of condition or they are hiding something. Most people will make sure their product pictures are clear and easy to see the condition of the items. If some one puts a bad picture out you have to question their integrity and if you want to take the chance of bidding.
All that said and done the biggest clues for when not to bid is provided by eBay in the sellers feedback score. This is a great way to see what the volume of sales are, good and bad transactions and how other buyers feel about them and their products. If there is a problem it will show up here. Take the time to find negative feedback and see if it was a problem with the seller, the buyer or a shipping issue. If the seller has a poor track record you are not going to want to bid on their auctions. If some one has no sales yet then go with your gut, and remember every one started with 0 feedback. It is still not a good idea to buy a big ticket item from some one who has no or low feedback.
If something seems to be to good to be true it probably is. However if you do your homework you may end up just getting a really good deal. That is why we are all shopping on eBay in the first place.
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca
If you want a good deal then hold off bidding until near the end of the auction, but do your homework first. This way you know what you are bidding on and what all the costs are, and you can try and get it at the lowest price possible. If you bid early on you can find the price going up as you bid against other buyers. If you hold off on your bids you can also see if the price is going to be more then you want to pay. Sometimes once you put a bid on something you can get caught up in the bidding and end up paying way more then you wanted to. You can see this all the time, one items price is way up there and going up as two people get into a bidding war. Then there is the same item right under it with no bids or only one bid and it sells for way less.
Unanswered questions are a big clue not to bid. If all the information you need about a product is not on the ad you do not want to bid until you have the information. This is so obvious but we all miss it, we assume and don’t question. If a listing has Silver you may assume it is sterling silver, but it could be silver in color, alpaca silver witch has no silver in it, or it could be sterling silver. If the eBay listing does not state that an item works or all pieces are there then you need to ask. Most people will indicate that some thing is as is or is to be used for parts when some thing does not work or is not all there. Some people don’t, they just do not say it works or everything is there. By contacting the seller you can get the answers you need and will often be helping the seller. They may not be getting bids because they never thought to let people know an item works or is all there. This gives them the chance to make some changes on their listing. On the other hand if the seller does not respond to your question before the auction ends, don’t bid, there is probably a reason why they will not answer.
The big unanswered question most people get caught on is shipping and handling cost. People assume the seller is only going to charge what it actually costs to ship the item, with maybe a little extra to cover packaging. Most of us learn this one the hard way. For me an auction was ending with in a minute, no shipping cost was given and I did not have enough time to contact seller before the auction ended. I bid and won a little girls dress for $1.00 and then end up being charged $10.00 shipping and handling even though the cost to send the dress was $2.00. The person did not list a shipping and handling cost so that if the price of their items were not as high as they wanted they just charged more for the shipping and handling. I had to pay or end up with a black mark against me on eBay. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Contact the seller to find out the shipping and handling before you make a bid. If they do not get back to you in time don’t bid.
If there are no pictures of the item or you cannot clearly see the item in the picture you may not want to bid. Not everyone has a digital camera and are unable to put a picture on, that is understandable but still risky for the buyer. You have no idea what you are actually bidding on, even with the best-written description. If the seller does have a very high ratting then it is probably ok. The real problem is when the picture is not clear. If a seller cannot be bothered to take a good picture then they probably don’t care much about what they are selling, and it is not in that great of condition or they are hiding something. Most people will make sure their product pictures are clear and easy to see the condition of the items. If some one puts a bad picture out you have to question their integrity and if you want to take the chance of bidding.
All that said and done the biggest clues for when not to bid is provided by eBay in the sellers feedback score. This is a great way to see what the volume of sales are, good and bad transactions and how other buyers feel about them and their products. If there is a problem it will show up here. Take the time to find negative feedback and see if it was a problem with the seller, the buyer or a shipping issue. If the seller has a poor track record you are not going to want to bid on their auctions. If some one has no sales yet then go with your gut, and remember every one started with 0 feedback. It is still not a good idea to buy a big ticket item from some one who has no or low feedback.
If something seems to be to good to be true it probably is. However if you do your homework you may end up just getting a really good deal. That is why we are all shopping on eBay in the first place.
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay
Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay2
I spent years selling on eBay and I have run into a few deadbeat bidders on eBay. If some one had not paid in 7 days I would usually email the person and try to find out what was going on. I don’t usually call because most people are in different countries and I don’t need the added expense of a long distance call. Most people would email back with an explanation for why they had not paid yet. Usually they just had not gotten around to it or were waiting for their money to get into Paypal. One was waiting for their Paypal account to be approved. I found that most of the people I contacted paid with in a few days.
Then there were the people who were not going to pay. I have had some interesting reasons. One man was quite upset because his 13 year old had used his account to put bids and several 100 items. He was not paying for any of them, and because there were so many he had not contacted everyone. One asked to cancel the order as she had an unexpected financial issue, and could not pay for it that month; she did ask that I repost it the next month if possible. Another just said he did not want the item, had never wanted it. Others never responded to my emails.
How I dealt with each deadbeat bidder depended on the individual bidder. The people, who had good reason not to pay, like the Dad or the person who ran into money problems I just did a mutual agree not to complete the transaction. As for the guy who never intended to buy the item and the people who never responded to my emails I reported them to eBay.
EBay sent each of them an unpaid item reminder to try and get them to pay. I had to wait to give the bidders a chance to pay. Some did once eBay became involved; all they needed was the official eBay contact. I have only had a few people not pay at this point. I filed for a final value fee credit. I do know that there are real consequences for not paying for items you bid on. The one guy who never had any attention of paying for the items he bid on lost his account very quickly. Others have been blocked from bidding on my auctions. The lady who ran into money problems did bid on other items of mine, but at first I was never very comfortable about it, but she did end up always paying for all other items of mine that she did win. She ended up being a loyal customer in the long run.
Rule number one when selling any place including eBay is to never ship or give the item to anyone until payment has processed. We made this mistake once, had a lot of items to ship and were waiting on the payment and item was shipped in error with a bunch of others. We were lucky as the person did pay for it in the next few days. Just keep in mind that as long as you don’t ship an item that some one has not paid for all you really loose is some time. More often then not I would offer the item to the next highest bidder and would still make the sale.
So what are the eBay consequences for the deadbeat bidder? According to eBay a buyer automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if they win the online auction or use the Buy It Now feature. Bay’s unpaid item policy requires buyers to pay the seller for the items that they commit to purchase. EBay will issue a strike on the account of the buyer who does not honour their obligation to pay, unless the buyer and seller mutually agree not to complete the transaction. If a buyer gets too many strikes in too short a time period, their account will be suspended indefinitely. In some cases, limits may be placed on the buyer’s account in advance of suspension.
Basically if some one will not pay for an item with in the stated time on the eBay ad then you must report that the item has not been paid for. If you do not agree with the person not paying for the item you should not mutually agree not to complete the transaction. Let eBay know that the person will just not fulfill their side of the contract and eBay will take action against there account. You get your fees back and re-list the item. End of story for you. You move on; life is to short to waste it on jerks that don’t follow through on their commitments.
Source - eBay
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
http://www.medievalmagic.ca/
I spent years selling on eBay and I have run into a few deadbeat bidders on eBay. If some one had not paid in 7 days I would usually email the person and try to find out what was going on. I don’t usually call because most people are in different countries and I don’t need the added expense of a long distance call. Most people would email back with an explanation for why they had not paid yet. Usually they just had not gotten around to it or were waiting for their money to get into Paypal. One was waiting for their Paypal account to be approved. I found that most of the people I contacted paid with in a few days.
Then there were the people who were not going to pay. I have had some interesting reasons. One man was quite upset because his 13 year old had used his account to put bids and several 100 items. He was not paying for any of them, and because there were so many he had not contacted everyone. One asked to cancel the order as she had an unexpected financial issue, and could not pay for it that month; she did ask that I repost it the next month if possible. Another just said he did not want the item, had never wanted it. Others never responded to my emails.
How I dealt with each deadbeat bidder depended on the individual bidder. The people, who had good reason not to pay, like the Dad or the person who ran into money problems I just did a mutual agree not to complete the transaction. As for the guy who never intended to buy the item and the people who never responded to my emails I reported them to eBay.
EBay sent each of them an unpaid item reminder to try and get them to pay. I had to wait to give the bidders a chance to pay. Some did once eBay became involved; all they needed was the official eBay contact. I have only had a few people not pay at this point. I filed for a final value fee credit. I do know that there are real consequences for not paying for items you bid on. The one guy who never had any attention of paying for the items he bid on lost his account very quickly. Others have been blocked from bidding on my auctions. The lady who ran into money problems did bid on other items of mine, but at first I was never very comfortable about it, but she did end up always paying for all other items of mine that she did win. She ended up being a loyal customer in the long run.
Rule number one when selling any place including eBay is to never ship or give the item to anyone until payment has processed. We made this mistake once, had a lot of items to ship and were waiting on the payment and item was shipped in error with a bunch of others. We were lucky as the person did pay for it in the next few days. Just keep in mind that as long as you don’t ship an item that some one has not paid for all you really loose is some time. More often then not I would offer the item to the next highest bidder and would still make the sale.
So what are the eBay consequences for the deadbeat bidder? According to eBay a buyer automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if they win the online auction or use the Buy It Now feature. Bay’s unpaid item policy requires buyers to pay the seller for the items that they commit to purchase. EBay will issue a strike on the account of the buyer who does not honour their obligation to pay, unless the buyer and seller mutually agree not to complete the transaction. If a buyer gets too many strikes in too short a time period, their account will be suspended indefinitely. In some cases, limits may be placed on the buyer’s account in advance of suspension.
Basically if some one will not pay for an item with in the stated time on the eBay ad then you must report that the item has not been paid for. If you do not agree with the person not paying for the item you should not mutually agree not to complete the transaction. Let eBay know that the person will just not fulfill their side of the contract and eBay will take action against there account. You get your fees back and re-list the item. End of story for you. You move on; life is to short to waste it on jerks that don’t follow through on their commitments.
Source - eBay
Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
http://www.medievalmagic.ca/
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