There are many eBay scams out there to keep an eye out for when you are selling on eBay. This article will cover a few of the known and not so known scams to be aware of. Whether your a causal seller, or a professional seller on eBay, you need to know about these scams so that you can take measures to prevent or recognize if its happening to you.
Bid Shielding
This scam is something you need to watch out for as a seller on eBay. Basically the scam is run using two separate eBay accounts. The scam works like this. You put your item up for auction. Lets say your item is worth $100 and you have no reserve. The first bidder (scammer) comes along and bids $5 on your item. Right after that, another bidder working with the first bidder comes along and bids $200 on your item. Since your item is only worth $100, you receive no more bids for the duration of your auction. Right before your auction ends, the first bidder backs out and cancels their bid, leaving the $5 bidder the winner, effectively shielding all other potential bidders because of the $200 bid.
Because of the potential for this scam it is always good to have a reserve on your auction. Also, I would put some sort of disclaimer on your auction stating that if you suspect bid shielding on your auction, you reserve the right to back out of the sale. Its always a good idea to keep an eye on your auctions and watch for this type of behavior. If you suspect this is happening to you, be sure to report the parties involved to eBay right away.
Wholesale List Scam
This scam takes advantage of the fact that many people dont pay close attention or read the fine print on an auction. This scam is targeted at buyers who are looking for deals on electronics and technological items on eBay. The wholesale list scam is basically an auction that looks like the seller is offering a great deal on a product like an iPod for example. They may have a buy now price of $40 for an iPod that is worth $150. However, if you actually read the fine print on the auction, you will find that you are not really buying the iPod. In fact you are purchasing a wholesale list.
To avoid this scam, just be sure that you read the entire details of the auction before making a bid or a purchase. Basically, just use common sense. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is, so read the auction carefully.
Bad Check Scam
This eBay scam is exactly what it sounds like. The bad check scam is simple. Someone purchases your item and sends you a check as payment. You receive the check, and send out the item. However, 2 weeks later you find out the check bounces and now you are out your item and the money.
To avoid this, simply do not send out any products until the check has cleared.
Spoof eBay Emails
This eBay scam is an attempt to get your personal information and/or eBay account information. Basically the scammer sends you an email that looks like its from eBay. The email may direct you to a website (that also looks like eBay) where it asks to you verify your information. In reality, the website is created by the scammer to collect your personal information and use it for identity theft. The scammers can be very tricky and make everything look very official.
To avoid this scam, you need to be wary of any emails that you get. The first thing you need to check is the email header. Emails from eBay, will have ebay.com as the last part of the senders email. Also any links that are in the email may be directing you somewhere other than where they say they are. Also copy and paste the links into your browser, and only visit official links that start with eBay. If anything seems suspicious to you, forward the email to eBay and wait for their response. They will let you know if its legitimate or not.
In conclusion, most people you run into on eBay are good honest people and not out to scam you. You may do business on eBay for years and never run into any of this. However, occasionally these things do happen so its important to use common sense and use your best judgment when it comes to this stuff. Just be aware that it can happen, and take the necessary precautions and you will be fine. There is a lot of money to be made on eBay, so dont let anything scare you off. Keep yourself armed with knowledge and information and you will be successful out there in the auction world!
M.D. Robinson is the webmaster of several neat sites where you can find useful and Free information along with many how-to articles that cover a large variety of interesting topics. Visit, http://internet-business-bay.com
Written by: M.D. Robinson
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Since I have consumer rights I contacted eBay to ask for contact details and what I got back was half an address and a telephone number registered to an hospital. I asked eBay for more information so I could take civil actions but they did not reply. Other people contacted me and told me that this particular trader has had several accounts closed down already and they to would like to contact him.
It seems to me that eBay are only concerned with getting paid and you can bet payment for the advert of the car I brought got paid no trouble.
Since eBay won’t protect buyers I decided to write a program that list all the cars the seller has sold in the past along with technical details for each car and in some case it provides an average selling price. See http://ebaymotors.freeblogit.com/
Later I will be publishing a list of sellers on the internet who are not registers as a business and are selling several cars a month with links to cars they have sold in the past in an effort to get eBay to protect buyers and ensure they don’t hide behind the data protection act when asked to provide details and to pass on more information so that fraudsters can be tracked down.
eBay are quite able to stop this practice and all they need to do is write a bit of SQL like
Select Count(*) from Sales Where Count>5 and ItemCategory =Car AND AccountType=’Private’
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