help with ebay seller preferences

[alfio]

hi all

i've been buying and selling on ebay for years but, as of late, for some reason i seem to be attracting a lot of dead beat buyers. i've tried limiting my sales to US-based buyers only, i will only ship to the US, and i opted not to sell to ebayers with -1 feedback. is there anything else to do?

the last item i sold was purchased by a guy who had +20 feedback (some old, some from people who are no longer registered, and some for $0.01 items). it seems like the whole feedback thing is backfiring on ebay and it's not really working.

anyhow, any ideas would be welcome. thanks all

alfio

[rkawakami]

I haven't sold anything on eBay in quite a long time but I believe that there a way to define your "auction" as "immediate payment", however that means you must use the Buy-it-Now feature, thus you are no longer really offering an auction.

As far as feedback goes, I just read this article which talks about some researchers who are studying feedback fraud on eBay. A tool I use (which was suggested by another poster here) is toolhaus.org. Go to this site, plug in the eBay ID of the seller/buyer in question and get a list of just the neutrals and negatives received or left by that user. Of course all of this is null and void if your buyer is like me; I almost exclusively snipe my auctions.

[tomh009]

Are your deadbeat buyers ones that won't pay -- or something worse?

I have been on eBay since 1996, so a lot of my feedback is from users who no longer exist.

[tselling]

I require bidders to have a paypal account. It cuts way down on the scammers... probably also the number of legitimate bidders, but its worth it to me.

[rkawakami]

I require bidders to have a paypal account. It cuts way down on the scammers... probably also the number of legitimate bidders, but its worth it to me.

That's another good suggestion but it doesn't prevent hijacked accounts from ruining your auction. Just in the last three months, I've personally been involved in three (or was it four?) watched auctions where I've either been outbid by a hijacked account or the price was bid up falsely. Normally you get two accounts bidding against each other and driving the price of, say a "dead" laptop for parts, over $1,000 way before the end of the auction. Those are easy to spot and stay away from but there were two times my 6 second snipe was outbid by a hijacker.

[jdhurst]

i've been buying and selling on ebay for years but, as of late, for some reason i seem to be attracting a lot of dead beat buyers. i've tried limiting my sales to US-based buyers only, i will only ship to the US,

And you think only selling into the US will limit fraud??
/me scratches head.

... JD Hurst

[rkawakami]

And you think only selling into the US will limit fraud??
/me scratches head.

Yes, actually that would of helped for the hijacked accounts I mentioned in my last thread. During one of the "storms" of hijacked bidding, there were several United Kingdom accounts dueling back and forth on many laptop auctions. Some of them were driven up over $10,000. Granted, it won't prevent every hijacked account from affecting your auction, but it can be one thing you can do. If you don't intend on shipping internationally it makes perfect sense to do this.

[tomh009]

And you think only selling into the US will limit fraud??
/me scratches head.

Yes, actually that would of helped for the hijacked accounts I mentioned in my last thread. During one of the "storms" of hijacked bidding, there were several United Kingdom accounts dueling back and forth on many laptop auctions. Some of them were driven up over $10,000. Granted, it won't prevent every hijacked account from affecting your auction, but it can be one thing you can do. If you don't intend on shipping internationally it makes perfect sense to do this.

So do people do these bidding duels with hijacked accounts just for fun? I don't see how they could possibly be making money out of it.

As for the overall hijacked account risk, are US accounts better protected against hijacking? Limiting shipping to US does limit the potential bidders, including eliminating those of us in Canada.

[rkawakami]

So do people do these bidding duels with hijacked accounts just for fun?

As far as I can see, yes. Here's a couple that I just found (probably will go dead in a few days as eBay removes the auctions):

Private bid history so you can't see where the bidders are from:
IBM THINKPAD T-22 for $65,300

Top two "bidders" from the UK:
Toshiba Satellite P25 for $10,099

Top two "bidders" from the US:
Toshiba Notebook L35-S2151 for $10,000

As for the overall hijacked account risk, are US accounts better protected against hijacking?

No. My guess is that the hijacked accounts are being generated by phishing expeditions.

Limiting shipping to US does limit the potential bidders, including eliminating those of us in Canada.

I think there's a "North America" selection to limit sales to the US and Canada. That can eliminate some of the fake bidding, but it's not all of them.

[tfflivemb2]

Private bid history so you can't see where the bidders are from:
IBM THINKPAD T-22 for $65,300

You really think that I paid too much for it?

[rkawakami]

You really think that I paid too much for it?

You have GOT to give me a good reference when I apply for a job with your company !

[tfflivemb2]

You have GOT to give me a good reference when I apply for a job with your company !

You'll always have a good reference from me...but you know, I'm the kind of guy that stays at home and practices yoga and chi, in tie-dyed shirts. Whats work? jk

[JHEM]

Steve = Maynard G. Krebs!

[rkawakami]

Steve = Maynard G. Krebs!

Without the link to the wiki article, that reference is probably beyond 90% of the people here. But it DOES seem to fit him j/k Steve!

[pianowizard]

So do people do these bidding duels with hijacked accounts just for fun? I don't see how they could possibly be making money out of it.

There are at least two possibilities, which aren't mutually exclusive. 1) These are other eBay sellers selling similar items. Screwing up competitors' auctions might channel bidders to their own auctions. 2) These are done by owners/employees of other auction sites, to discourage people from selling on eBay.

[rkawakami]

There are at least two possibilities, which aren't mutually exclusive. 1) These are other eBay sellers selling similar items. Screwing up competitors' auctions might channel bidders to their own auctions. 2) These are done by owners/employees of other auction sites, to discourage people from selling on eBay.

True. However, that could also backfire on them, if they are indeed other eBay sellers, as it can also make buyers leary of ANY on-line auction site.

[pianowizard]

that could also backfire on them, if they are indeed other eBay sellers, as it can also make buyers leary of ANY on-line auction site.

In the long run, yes, but these other sellers' auctions probably take place only several hours/days later.

[JHEM]

Without the link to the wiki article, that reference is probably beyond 90% of the people here. But it DOES seem to fit him j/k Steve!

I knew I'd be showing my age with the link Ray, but I figured there'd be enough TV-Nation watchers on the Forum who'd make the connection James = OLD anyway that it didn't matter.

90%?? Really? Far better role and show than Denver's later stint with Gilligan's Island.

James

[rkawakami]

Two times when I was outbid by an obvious "deadbeat" bidder pair, I contacted the seller and offered my own high bid. One accepted, the other did not. With the amount of phishing emails I see from both eBay and PayPal and looking at many of these bidding wars, I get the impression that what these people (fake bidders and phishers) are really after are two things:

1) To have fun disturbing sellers and buyers with obviously fake bidding wars; no financial benefit involved for them

2) To set up phony sales using an account that has good feedback in an attempt to extract a payment from a seller

If these were other sellers (eBay and non-eBay) trying to drive buyers elsewhere or discourage sellers from using eBay, then there are easier ways for them to do this. Why someone would take the trouble to craft (mostly bad) attempts at a phishing email, find someone who doesn't realize what they are and gives the phisher their account information, and then use it that account to disrupt other people's auction in the hopes of getting their's noticed, doesn't make too much sense to me.

[pianowizard]

If these were other sellers (eBay and non-eBay) trying to drive buyers elsewhere or discourage sellers from using eBay, then there are easier ways for them to do this.

Such as?

Even if there are other easier ways, these fake bids are nevertheless quite effective. I for one have never and probably will never sell on eBay because of these fake bids. Thus I stick to Craigslist and Thinkpads.com. One does get lots of phishing emails by selling on Craigslist, but those emails are easy to spot.

[tfflivemb2]

Without the link to the wiki article, that reference is probably beyond 90% of the people here. But it DOES seem to fit him j/k Steve!

I knew I'd be showing my age with the link Ray, but I figured there'd be enough TV-Nation watchers on the Forum who'd make the connection James = OLD anyway that it didn't matter.

90%?? Really? Far better role and show than Denver's later stint with Gilligan's Island.

James

Believe it or not, I used to watch Dobie Gillis, granted in reruns.

If only I were like him...

[rkawakami]

Believe it or not, I used to watch Dobie Gillis, granted in reruns.

Reruns? What are reruns? (ref. "Back To The Future"). I vaguely remember seeing a couple of the original broadcasts of that show.

[tfflivemb2]

Believe it or not, I used to watch Dobie Gillis, granted in reruns.

Reruns? What are reruns? (ref. "Back To The Future"). I vaguely remember seeing a couple of the original broadcasts of that show.

That is the second reference that to BTF that I have heard this week. A friend of mine was telling me about this red sleeveless ski jacket that he wore to a bar, and someone made a reference to the movie (can't remember what now).

[tomh009]

Even if there are other easier ways, these fake bids are nevertheless quite effective. I for one have never and probably will never sell on eBay because of these fake bids. Thus I stick to Craigslist and Thinkpads.com. One does get lots of phishing emails by selling on Craigslist, but those emails are easy to spot.

It depends on what you are selling, I guess. I have sold about 10 items on eBay with no fake bids (that I could tell at least!) and no deadbeat buyers. Also have never been outbid by one of these. On the other had, I have never sold a computer on eBay.

Craigslist can work well for popular items (computers, iPods etc) but the more unusual the item is the less likely you are going to find a local buyer. For example, I sold my Canon T90 on eBay for a decent price -- but there just aren't a lot of people looking for those in any given city.

[pianowizard]

On the other had, I have never sold a computer on eBay.

That explains it!

Craigslist can work well for popular items (computers, iPods etc) but the more unusual the item is the less likely you are going to find a local buyer.

I got really lucky once on Craigslist. A lot of 78 mostly classical CDs for $200, and someone bought the whole lot!

[alfio]

ok, after all these comments i went back into ebay and changed my preferences to more or less match what was recommended here.

i then posted an ipod for sale (on my partner's account) and thoroughly policed the auction booting bidders who did not meet my requirements. look at what happened: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... B:EF:US:11

the 'winner' ended up being someone without any feedback history, has yet to respond to an email and obviously has no intention of paying for the item. the result is that i wasted a week trying to sell this thing. any ideas?

alfio

[rkawakami]

Which goes back to my very first comment about "snipers". Bidding eight seconds before the auction closes doesn't give you enough time to cancel their bid. I'd wait a couple of days and if the bidder doesn't pay up, file a NPB, recover/credit your listing fees and try to sell it again, but remove the stuff about scams and fake bidding. That might be enough to attract the scum you trying to avoid.

Looking at the eBay account of the "winner", it seems like it's a hijacked account (activated in 2001 with zero feedback). Yet the winning bid is less than a bid increment over the second place bidder. That indicates that the $125.47 was actually the maximum bid entered by that bidder. In other words, they didn't put in something like $10,000.

You could always try the "Second Chance Offer" feature if you qualify.

[alfio]

turns out it was an actual buyer and they've paid. i guess all the good advice paid off, thanks all

alfio