Ebay selling question
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I am a very infrequent Ebay seller. Last item I sold was several years ago. I placed an item for sale yesterday and because my email address had changed I missed notifications for 24 hours. Today, I checked the site and noticed several offers (this was NOT an auction but a fixed price Buy It Now). Several offers were low balls but a few offered up to 17% above my ask price. I confirmed the highest offer. I have received no reply yet, so my questions are as follows:
1- Could some of these buyers be trolls (the highest bidder had joined Ebay just today and had poor English)?
2- How long should I wait till I give up, cancel and go for the other offers?
I have already contacted the highest bidder with email and sent an invoice through Ebay.
PS: I just found some information here:
http://pages.ebay.com/bestoffer/faq/Can I take back an offer?
Offers are binding, just like bids. You’re not allowed to retract bids, except under special circumstances. Learn more about our best offer policies.
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Sounds like a classic Nigerian scam! Per my gut feeling. I received this message from the fake bidder:
Am the buyer of your game on ebay.Yes i got the invoice and i will let
you know as soon i carry out the payment .Will you be able to ship
out tomorrow Morning to my step son as a Valentine gift working with
UNICEF in Nigeria? Because I work away from home with the US Marines,
and there isn’t anyone at my residential address,so i will like you to
ship directly to him…
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If they haven’t paid in 48 hrs start the process here
Then relist or make 2nd chance offers to other bidders. You may want to let them know you have a higher offer and will get back to them if that person backs out.
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Call eBay now don’t wait 48hrs tell them succinctly & plainly as possible what has happened so far. Have them read the back & forth emails. eBay will easily recognize what’s going on. Ask them to help you cancel the sale to the scammer. Again say as few words as possible, keep it simple, don’t say more than needed. Thank the eBay CSR before, during & after. Be humble.
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@vegasvegan Thanks, I actually called Ebay, canceled and relisted. This was Buy It Now with Best Offer option. I received high bid (bait and switch) offers and the one I picked seemed too good to be true (Nigerian scam artist). They first gave me a U.S. address (bait) and then switched to a Nigerian shipping address (switch). Ship it to us first and we will pay you later!
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@richard thanks for posting your experience. I’m a small time seller and it hadn’t occurred to me that this could happen. I only list But It Now so bidder has to pay immediately.
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FYI at least in the past the buyers address wasn’t PayPal confirmed. So to be covered for sellers protection it has to be.
So I say something like:
Deliveries cannot be made to AK/HI, US Protectorates, APO/FPO & PO Boxes.
Ships only to confirmed PayPal addresses in the contiguous United States.Contiguous United States so buyer doesn’t bitch they didn’t know I don’t ship to timbuctoo.
1As a USA citizen I have the right to criticize my government. My thanks for this is endless in magnitude.
2 Replies
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Fake bidders have poor English, no (zero) reviews, and very strange usernames such as g.e.o.r.g.e.g.a.r.y12345, etc. I learned my lesson!
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@zapjb I’ve been shipping to AK/HI/protectorates/P.O. boxes as long as they have a confirmed address.
Years ago someone purchased from me BIN and had rating of 0. When I researched I found they’d bought a lot of stuff that same day including some gift cards. I messaged eBay w/ my concerns and they told me not to ship the item. Turned out their payment wasn’t going to fly.
Buyer ended up having their acct closed.@zapjb if you didn’t know it you can block bidders. Have been very few since I went to BIN w/immediate payment required.
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Sold my hot Gaming Console for 7% less than Buy It Now price and already shipped it. 3 initial bidders with offers equal or much higher than my ask price were Nigerian scammers. All had opened Ebay accounts on the same day or the day after my listing with scammy usernames and zero ratings. Oh, yeah!
We are pleased to inform you that the payment from xxx is still pending and will not be released into your PayPal account until we receive the shipping details of the item from you. We strongly believe that you have been notified.
Name…xxx
Street…xxx
City… Agege
State…Lagos
Zip Code…23401
Country…Nigeria
Address Status:Confirmed
Please respond within the next 24hrs Get back to us as soon as possible.NOTE: if you do not send tracking number as instructed your account will not be credited.
This is for the safety of both the buyer and seller.
Thank you for using PayPal!The PayPal Team .
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A friend of mine ran into a similar situation - but this scammer took it a step farther - shortly after the sale, she received a spoofed email that appeared to come from PayPal - subject line something like “Pending payment from Joe Scammer” - of course, the email had a link to a malicious website and fortunately she was smart enough to report it without clicking on it.
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@richard said in Ebay sell question:
Sold my hot Gaming Console for 7% less than Buy It Now price and already shipped it. 3 initial bidders with offers equal or much higher than my ask price were Nigerian scammers. All had opened Ebay accounts on the same day or the day after my listing with scammy usernames and zero ratings. Oh, yeah!
We are pleased to inform you that the payment from xxx is still pending and will not be released into your PayPal account until we receive the shipping details of the item from you. We strongly believe that you have been notified.
Name…xxx
Street…xxx
City… Agege
State…Lagos
Zip Code…23401
Country…Nigeria
Address Status:Confirmed
Please respond within the next 24hrs Get back to us as soon as possible.NOTE: if you do not send tracking number as instructed your account will not be credited.
This is for the safety of both the buyer and seller.
Thank you for using PayPal!The PayPal Team .What are you saying?
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@mikk1 said in Ebay sell question:
A friend of mine ran into a similar situation - but this scammer took it a step farther - shortly after the sale, she received a spoofed email that appeared to come from PayPal - subject line something like “Pending payment from Joe Scammer” - of course, the email had a link to a malicious website and fortunately she was smart enough to report it without clicking on it.
I received 3 Ebay/PayPal spoofed (fake) emails for my listing after I accepted the highest offer. The above is one of them.
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why is this in Finance?
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@my4mainecoons said in Ebay selling question:
@zapjb I’ve been shipping to AK/HI/protectorates/P.O. boxes as long as they have a confirmed address.
Years ago someone purchased from me BIN and had rating of 0. When I researched I found they’d bought a lot of stuff that same day including some gift cards. I messaged eBay w/ my concerns and they told me not to ship the item. Turned out their payment wasn’t going to fly.
Buyer ended up having their acct closed.@zapjb if you didn’t know it you can block bidders. Have been very few since I went to BIN w/immediate payment required.
Just out of curiosity, how did you determine that the 0 rating buyer had bought a bunch of items?
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@george2001 You’re right, he must have had FB but what caught my attention was the “join” date and low FB. IIRC he’d made a purchase from Gift Card Mall that same day and they’d immediately posted FB even though his payment probably hadn’t cleared yet. Can’t recall if there was more than that in history. I also looked at the address and it didn’t sound right. Something like ABC Manufacturing. I remembered reading about another seller having a problem with something like this. I contacted eBay. They told me that there was a problem w/ funding for this user. Within the week the user acct was closed but not before someone else I was online with was scammed.
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Before I sold my hot listing for $280 I had another offer for $265. I countered with $275 and received this reply. Does anyone know why the buyer couldn’t paypal $275?
Buyer: I would be able to take the $275 offer but for some reason Paypal won’t accept more than $265.55.
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zapjb said in Ebay selling question:
FYI at least in the past the buyers address wasn’t PayPal confirmed. So to be covered for sellers protection it has to be.
So I say something like:
Deliveries cannot be made to AK/HI, US Protectorates, APO/FPO & PO Boxes.
Ships only to confirmed PayPal addresses in the contiguous United States.Contiguous United States so buyer doesn’t bitch they didn’t know I don’t ship to timbuctoo.
AK/HI, US Protectorates are served by the USPS. That’s not timbuctoo.
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@skh12 said in Ebay selling question:
why is this in Finance?
Ha! Excellent question! I hadn’t noticed that and have moved it to Online Auctions. Thanks for the heads up.
