eBay question

Screeeech said:
They've been doing this for a long time now, it sucks - Paypal are probably one of the worst companies I've ever dealt with.

There isn't much you can do about it, just make sure you add the tracking number to the transaction and make sure you send to the seller's verified paypal address,

In terms of spotting scammers, difficult these days - things I'd avoid would be;

  • People with zero feedback
  • People with brand new accounts and feedback that all looks similar
  • People bidding way higher than it's worth (happened to me once, turned out to be a 419 scam)
  • People asking you to send to an address different than their registered paypal address (happened to a guy at work selling a 1080, buyer was using a stolen account
  • Note the serial numbers on the item (to prevent a scam buyer from claiming it's broken, and returning their already broken product to you and keeping the one you sent)
In terms of the paypal hold - a little thing I learnt is this;

Once it's showing as delivered on your tracking - ring the paypal call centre and tell them, in my experience they check the tracking number then release the money on the phone - however it's hit and miss (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't)
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Adding to this, i would even avoid people with low amounts of feedback - it really doesn't take long to build up 5-10. And if all that feedback is all relatively new over a short space of time would raise some eyebrows.

Also make sure you're selling to a UK buyer, and offers from overseas i would avoid.

Screeeech said:
Yeah, that sounds like a massive pain in the ass.

Quite funny how they just gave up though, I always said to myself - I'd never pay if I was scammed in such a way, unless told to by a court - which in reality, over a few hundred or even few thousand - is probably never going to get that far, let alone lose.
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Also not to mention you'd have a better chance of arguing your case (and to someone who would actually listen). As opposed to ebay/paypal being satisfied that an item broken/empty box received is clearly the sellers fault.
 
robfosters said:
Just had a bloke called Anton with zero feedback asking if I could ship to Finland.

What could possibly go wrong?
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Yeah I mean - chances are it'll probably be fine... But I personally wouldn't risk it.

Unfortunately if it's an auction, I don't think you can actually block zero feedback bidders - you can only block buyers with more than 2 negative transactions in the last 12 months, so if he bids - you'll have to manually cancel his bids and block his user id.. (it's about 6 months since I last sold anything, so what I'm saying may be old)
 
Little update. Good news, camera sold, buyer paid and PayPal didn’t hold the money. It’s sitting happily in my bank account.
 
robfosters said:
I’ve had to stick my camera on eBay as I haven’t been able to sell it on here. With a few of my previous transactions though, the payments has been pending in PayPal for quite a while. My account was pretty new at the time.

I really don’t want the money to be pending in PayPal while I have to send such an expensive item off to the buyer. My account is now 5 months old and has 26 feedback, 100% positive. At what point do PayPal stop holding funds until the buyer has received goods?
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It's not often I sell on e bay (just sold a few things and haven't sold anything for 5 years on e bay).
I word my listing like this...
Extensive photos have been taken of the item.
Serial numbers have been written down and photographed.
A security pen had been used to protect myself from fraud and photos taken.

I have never ever had a problem (not that I sell much) as long as you cover yourself.
 
robfosters said:
Little update. Good news, camera sold, buyer paid and PayPal didn’t hold the money. It’s sitting happily in my bank account.
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Still very much of mind eBay is great and not anywhere near as bad as scare stories you hear (on here for example).
If I posted a thread for every time I had a good ebay sale it would add a lot Of balance.
 
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