eBay seller practices - should I be worried?

Soldato
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Hey all, welcome to another ebay thread :p

So I spied a rather nice guitar on ebay, and messaged the seller with a few questions - mostly stuff to do with the condition of the guitar and a few details of how it would be packaged and shipped. The item page suggested that the seller would be willing to do a deal on a hard guitar-case if bought at the same time as the guitar, but this would need to be discussed in messages before the purchase was made, I asked about this as well because I figured if they could do a cheap hard-case it would be more secure in-transit.

Anyhow, the guy replied with the answer to most of the questions, but then said for the pricing and deal with the case I'd have to contact the email in the listing. When I got a reply from there it suggested that if I wanted to pay their shop direct with Paypal I could have an extra £20 off the price of the guitar, or an extra £10 on top of that even if I wanted to pay by direct bank-transfer. My instincts and a quick google suggested that doing either of these would not be a good idea (due to the lack of buyer protection for transactions outside of ebay). So I messaged back basically saying thanks for the offers but I'm happy with the original buy-it-now price and I just completed the transaction through ebay as normal.

What do you guys make of this? Could it be genuine and the seller was just trying to avoid ebay and/or paypal fees? Or should I be worried? The ebay account has about 3,200 feedback and absolutely 100% positive including several positive feedback comments mentioning receipt of guitars specifically... Obviously by going through ebay + paypal properly I should have full protection from anything too serious...

TL;DR buying a guitar, seller tried to get me to complete transaction outside of ebay, which I of course did not do, but should I be wary of the seller now anyway?

Interested to hear what you think...

Rufus
 
Soldato
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I don't think he intended malice, just wanted to avoid the fees. But really ebay is so buyer centric you can just return a brick to him and paypal will still side for you.
 
Soldato
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I don't think he intended malice, just wanted to avoid the fees.

In a case like this it was probably fine tbh.

If it's an actual shop then they're not going to rip you off and even if they did choosing goods on paypal still has protection.

Well it's sort of hard to tell... in some parts his item descriptions make it sound like it is a shop, but then it says collection is not possible. I hope you guys are right but I'm still glad I completed the transaction through ebay - for the sake of a £20 difference in price I think it wasn't worth the risk.

What do you mean by "choosing goods"? From the reading around I did it sounded like paypal couldn't care less in cases where the transaction occurred outside of ebay

I'll post back if and when I find out whether I was just being a little paranoid (if it's legit the guitar should turn up Friday or maybe Monday)
 
Soldato
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Well it's sort of hard to tell... in some parts his item descriptions make it sound like it is a shop, but then it says collection is not possible. I hope you guys are right but I'm still glad I completed the transaction through ebay - for the sake of a £20 difference in price I think it wasn't worth the risk.

What do you mean by "choosing goods"? From the reading around I did it sounded like paypal couldn't care less in cases where the transaction occurred outside of ebay

I'll post back if and when I find out whether I was just being a little paranoid (if it's legit the guitar should turn up Friday or maybe Monday)

Buyer protection happens regardless of the avenue for the transaction.
 
Associate
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Talk about paranoid! It is possible to survive a transaction outside of ebay without getting ripped off you know, lol.

Guy has 1000's of feedback, all of it positive. Doesn't get much better than that really.
 
Soldato
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If you're particularly worried about it, I assume your paypal is linked to a credit and not debit card? Another potential layer of protection
 
Soldato
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TBH something like this is probably legit. They're probably able to offer the "discount" based on not having to pay ebay fees, so effectively by choosing to complete the transaction through ebay, you've paid their fees for them :p
 
Soldato
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TBH something like this is probably legit. They're probably able to offer the "discount" based on not having to pay ebay fees, so effectively by choosing to complete the transaction through ebay, you've paid their fees for them :p

This.. Exactly..

Though going through eBay means you can complain through eBay if anything goes wrong...

They weren't trying to scam you, just save themselves and you sone money...

The way you took provides you more peace of mind though.. :)
 
Soldato
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Talk about paranoid! It is possible to survive a transaction outside of ebay without getting ripped off you know, lol.

Guy has 1000's of feedback, all of it positive. Doesn't get much better than that really.

Definitely paranoid I know, hence why I came on here to check if I was being slightly stupid about it... I think I'd put it down to the fact that I've never bought anything this expensive off of the 'bay before, and of the other 30 or 40 cheaper things I've bought on there no-one has ever asked me to pay outside of the main site.

TBH something like this is probably legit. They're probably able to offer the "discount" based on not having to pay ebay fees, so effectively by choosing to complete the transaction through ebay, you've paid their fees for them :p

This.. Exactly..

Though going through eBay means you can complain through eBay if anything goes wrong...

They weren't trying to scam you, just save themselves and you sone money...

The way you took provides you more peace of mind though.. :)

Thanks guys, does put my mind at rest slightly, and it's not like I've wasted a lot of money by taking the safe route (£20 on top of a transaction of quite a few hundred £££s)
 
Soldato
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(Sorry for the double post, in a rush):

Buyer protection happens regardless of the avenue for the transaction.

Is that really true though? From what I read you get very good protection when using paypal via ebay itself, but paypal on its own has only relatively minor protection and even for that the transaction must meet some pretty strict conditions. Perhaps I just fell foul of the fact that searching for anything like this on the net almost always returns only the horror-stories :rolleyes:

If you're particularly worried about it, I assume your paypal is linked to a credit and not debit card? Another potential layer of protection

Good point, I didn't think of that
 
Soldato
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One thing I'd point out, as it is somewhat related....

Most couriers won't cover items like guitars and musical instruments if they aren't in a hardcase. They may flat out refuse to take it, or warn if it goes missing or gets damaged, they won't be paying out.

Perhaps if the eBay seller is a business seller who owns a guitar shop, they may have other arrangements with a business courier contract.... but its something to keep in mind.
 
Soldato
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I sold my macbook pro outside of ebay after listing it on there. bloke came round and paid cash in hand. Saved myself a small fortune in fees and he literally just looked at it and took it whilst i was trying to show him it working etc.

anticonscience said:
Sounds like he is stringing you along.

:D
 
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