How to avoid *MOST* scam bidders on ebay

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Edinburgh/Southampton
I have had a lot of experience trying to sell phones and other items that Nigerians like to try to steal!

Usually the people in Nigeria will get hold of the credit card details of someone in the USA along with the address etc, then use those details to start an ebay account. Then the email comes after winning the auction 'Oh yes my husband happens to be a missionary in Nigeria, please send the phone there!'. If they do pay it will be a stolen card so you obviously won't get the money!

Anyway - ebay lets you BLOCK bidders that are registered in countries that you do not ship to, and through looking through a lot of accounts of the kind mentioned above, 99.9% are registered in US/Canada.

Usually even when you say you will only post to UK you still get them trying it on, but you can now actually block people from bidding unless they are registered in a country you wish to ship to.
 
Thats what I do now after some Nigerian scam to buy a mobile I had for sale.

I block anyone registered outside the UK, only post to UK (obviously not feasible for every seller), block anyone without a Paypal account and block anyone with a feedback score of -1 or less.
 
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Such a shame, I have been using ebay since 2000, but even 2 years ago I wouldn't have any trouble selling a phone... Now if you look through the completed items for phones, something sad like 85% were won by people with 0% feedback who obviously weren't going to pay.
 
Here are couple of helpful links:

Don't Be Scammed
http://members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=redalligator1

How to deal with scam buyers from Nigeria
http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1200015405&tstart=0&mod=1152357358576

Also if someone you're unsure of, is bidding on your item. Use eBay search to find out what items she/he bids on.

Go to eBay homepage and click on Advance Search beside search box and then click on Item by Bidder and type in user ID. You will find a list of items this user won/bids and it will help you deciding whether he's scammer. e.g. several similar cameras he has won.
 
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I know sometimes easier said than done, but you just gotta try to keep your guard up.

I got an email the other day asking payment for an item that I hadn't even placed a bid on. Stupid **********
 
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