Want to "scam-proof" ebay sales

[ihrsetrdr]

I haven't been selling on ebay for several years, due to multiple bad experiences with either inept or downright crooked ebay buyers.

I need to have a wider market place for some sale items, so I'm going to give ebay another shot.

The last time that I had a inept or crooked buyer, was from a brand new ebayer, who obviously did not read the auction description,

paid for and received the item...then turned around and slapped a Paypal dispute on the transaction, claiming "item not as described".

That was not true, HOWEVER ebay/paypal evidently did not bother reading the auction either, because they firmly sided with the inept/crooked buyer.


Is there any way a small seller can protect themselves from unscrupulous buyers, and being ground-up in the ebay-paypal money machine?

 

[trekky]

Best bet Call Ebay, i have done this a few times and it has worked everytime, one time i sold a broken Xbox 360 and a person bought it and must have thought they could fix it (even told me they tried).
they opened a case, ebay sided with him.... i called ebay, and the person reviewed it and was like " why did they do this clearly he was wrong". and gave me a full refund of the refund(even though that guy also kept his refund)




:Edit Minor grammar fix

 

[Jeff G]

It's difficult with so many people trying to 'pull a fast one' and get something for nothing, but if you're honest in your ads and make it VERY clear the condition, I imagine a quick call to ebay should get any dispute resolved correctly. I've been selling for a long time, on and off, and I haven't had any issues personally. It's worth a try if you're looking for a new market, just remember that ebay takes 10% of your sales and Paypal get another 3%. So if you sold an item locally for $200, you'd have to sell it for $230 on ebay to make the same amount. Some times it's easier to sell locally for 5% less then to sell on ebay and loose 10% in fees.

 

[TimoneX]

As a seller, crooked buyers just use paypal to steal from you. I gave up on that place years ago after being repeatedly robbed.

 

[Alaric]

Is there any way a small seller can protect themselves from unscrupulous buyers, and being ground-up in the ebay-paypal money machine?

As far as I know the only sure fire way is don't use ebay. Ever. For anything. It's worked for me for several years now. Sad, but I gave up on those crooks a long time ago.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

As a seller, crooked buyers just use paypal to steal from you. I gave up on that place years ago after being repeatedly robbed.

As far as I know the only sure fire way is don't use ebay. Ever. For anything. It's worked for me for several years now. Sad, but I gave up on those crooks a long time ago.

Pretty much the way I'm seein' this, too bad...ebay was fun back in the day.


Anyone sell on Amazon? I buy there alot, since limiting my ebay 'exposure'....

 

[Jeff G]

Facebook marketplace is popular now, as well as apps like "Let Go" and "Offer Up". They're more local type sales, but it could help get some additional exposure

 

[freakdiablo]

Anyone sell on Amazon? I buy there alot, since limiting my ebay 'exposure'....

I work with someone who does. The topic of fraud protection never came up directly, but he did say if you go through the process of shipping something to Amazon, let them deal with the storage and shipping to seller, they cover a fair amount of the BS before it even gets to you. Downside being they take a larger cut than simply posting a listing then shipping to the buyer direct, obviously.

 

[Alaric]

Honestly, the hassle of selling stuff any more is why I didn't sell my RX 480. I was going to unload it when mining prices were through the roof and get my daughter a 1070 when prices came back down. Just didn't want to go through the hassle.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Honestly, the hassle of selling stuff any more is why I didn't sell my RX 480. I was going to unload it when mining prices were through the roof and get my daughter a 1070 when prices came back down. Just didn't want to go through the hassle.

I understand that, all too well. There is a lot of stuff I have, that has value, but I'd almost just be inclined to toss it to e-waste, and avoid the heartburn of dealing with a scammer.


Now, I was just looking at some ebay auctions of items similiar to what I'm planning to list...I'm seeing a number of the sellers offering:

30 days money back, buyer pays return shipping

I wonder if that might strengthen a seller's hand, in dealing with an attempted paypal dispute scam...?

 

[TimoneX]

Doubt it. The trouble I had stemmed from buyers that were intentionally gaming the fleaBay/paypal dispute system. They'd seldom say word one to me, but instead launch a dispute claim almost immediately with paypal, usually claiming failure to receive item or item not as described. Irregardless of what happened next paypal would reach into my account, steal the funds, and give it to the buyer. Since they(paypal) have no way whatsoever to force the buyer to return the item the result was simply that the buyer got both the item and a refund...each time, every time. The basic problem as I saw it was that paypal always sided with buyers even when the dispute was with a seller that had hundreds or thousands of successful transactions...there simply wasn't any balance at all. In such a system it's only a matter of time before the real parasites show up to take advantage.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Doubt it. The trouble I had stemmed from buyers that were intentionally gaming the fleaBay/paypal dispute system. They'd seldom say word one to me, but instead launch a dispute claim almost immediately with paypal, usually claiming failure to receive item or item not as described. Irregardless of what happened next paypal would reach into my account, steal the funds, and give it to the buyer. Since they(paypal) have no way whatsoever to force the buyer to return the item the result was simply that the buyer got both the item and a refund...each time, every time. The basic problem as I saw it was that paypal always sided with buyers even when the dispute was with a seller that had hundreds or thousands of successful transactions...there simply wasn't any balance at all. In such a system it's only a matter of time before the real parasites show up to take advantage.

This all sounds quite familiar, and painfully true. I was just revisiting my ebay auction draft, trying to polish it up at bit,

but I have much reason to hesitate. No matter, it's not like I "need" to sell these components to make the house payment.


The one positive I can say about PP disputes...one time a couple years ago, I bought an old Apple Mac Pro case, quickly paid for it, and spent the next 3 weeks wondering when it was going to arrive.

Tried contacting the seller, no response. Slapped a PP dispute on his young @$$, and he suddenly got all vocal, popin' off with the f-bombs and shi..

Too bad for him, he apparently didn't realize that PP staff actually read the responses...he looked like a real douche.

I got refunded my money in entirety, he got banned.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Anyone sell on Amazon? I buy there alot, since limiting my ebay 'exposure'....

I work with someone who does. The topic of fraud protection never came up directly, but he did say if you go through the process of shipping something to Amazon, let them deal with the storage and shipping to seller, they cover a fair amount of the BS before it even gets to you. Downside being they take a larger cut than simply posting a listing then shipping to the buyer direct, obviously.

I'm reading Amazon's Seller Agreement ATM.


Whether for Amazon or ebay, I do not want to give them a bank or credit card account, maybe a reloadable credit card.

I do have an Amazon Wallet, it's empty right now...

 

[Automata]

I don't know if I've been lucky or what, but I've sold thousands of dollars with of stuff on eBay over the past couple years and I never had an issue, either buying or selling.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

I don't know if I've been lucky or what, but I've sold thousands of dollars with of stuff on eBay over the past couple years and I never had an issue, either buying or selling.

To be sure, I've had over 500 successful ebay transactions, with maybe a couple hundred being sales. Looking back, the type of item I had problematic sales experiences with...was with laptops.

I've got two laptops I want to put up for sale, perhaps I'm being apprehensive due to past experiences.

Edit- I found this bit of information I hadn't been aware of, my sales history:

View attachment 193101

 

[Audioaficionado]

Can't you set a requirement for the buyer to have a minimum score in successful transactions?

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Here's my buyer requirements, I set the features as tight as I was able:

View attachment 193100


Also, I specified to block international bids(except Canada) but that seems to fail, for reasons unknown.

 

[Audioaficionado]

I only buy because of all the hassles involved in selling.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Well, the two sales of laptops that went really wrong just put me off greatly. The realization that scammers can scam so easily, and have the upper hand in that marktplace was a real downer.

That being said, late last night I finally took the leap and listed a Macbook Air(the one in the classies) and bam! it sold, got money in da PP account. Thankfully, the buyer looks like he's on the up & up, I'm taking the package to the post office in a little bit.

 

[Tech Tweaker]

I don't know if I've been lucky or what, but I've sold thousands of dollars with of stuff on eBay over the past couple years and I never had an issue, either buying or selling.

I've had a similar experience. With over 100 sales transactions, and only had one buyer that outright scammed me. Plus probably 3-5 buyers that never paid or answered any PM's/emails.

My main problem lately is buyers that never leave any kind of feedback, either positive or negative, and don't respond to any messages.

Also, I specified to block international bids(except Canada) but that seems to fail, for reasons unknown.

Yeah, there are ways they get around that.

The most popular (and legal) way I know of is buyers from other countries will use US-based shipping companies to have the item shipped to them (I'm assuming they have to have some sort of account set up with the shipping company/courier) if the seller won't outright ship straight to them. I've had a couple of buyers from Russia that bought from me and then used shipping/receiving companies in DE (each had me ship to a different address in DE, so were presumably using a different company) to get around the fact that I didn't ship to their country (one of which came back a second time and bought something else), plus one buyer from Mexico that used a shipping company in CA, and another buyer in Canada that used a shipping company in WA I believe it was. Even though all of those countries were on my block list at the time the buyers' made their purchases from me.