Are these sellers legit?

Question

Hi everyone, I’m planning to buy a projector and came across a few eBay sellers who are offering very low prices. All of them are new accounts with no reviews or feedback. Can someone help me understand how to verify if these sellers are legitimate?
The sellers are:
1. guangzhouxijuns-0
2. dongguanshizixiandi-0
3. guangzhouzhouying_0
4. guangzhouqijiudian0

Any guidance on how to check their authenticity or whether I should avoid them would be really helpful. Thanks!

eburtonlab · Answer

@f0rmah3sh

No one can tell you for sure whether a new seller with no experience is legitimate or not. Not every new seller is a scammer, but scammers open many new accounts and because of that, scammers are over-represented among new sellers; likewise, scammers are under-represented among experienced sellers with excellent feedback for selling.

You should be very wary of new sellers registered overseas selling multiple quantities of new, name brand equipment at prices much lower than trusted sellers. Scammers often list items at low prices as bait to scam buyers, and then deliver something else -- or nothing -- while making it as hard as possible to get a refund. It is better to avoid an obvious scam than to have to go to great lengths to try and get a refund after the fact.

In general, you can avoid a lot of headaches by choosing to purchase only from established sellers that have recent and past positive feedback as a seller for selling items in the same category that you intend to buy. If someone is selling a dozen apple watches, but has no feedback, or only has feedback as a buyer, or only has feedback for selling dress patterns or fishing lures (actual examples I have seen), perhaps wait until they have a track record of positive feedback for selling electronics before you buy from them.

You might miss out on a good deal from a new seller once in a while, and nothing can guarantee that you won't still run into an issue anyway, but you can avoid a lot of potential problems by choosing to do business with established sellers. Anyone can put together a listing that looks nice -- it is not hard at all to simply copy an existing listing -- but it is much harder to create a history of consistent sales and positive feedback.

For more experienced sellers, you can learn a lot about the sort of seller you are dealing with by checking the seller's feedback page to see where the seller is registered and to notice if the seller has any negative feedback. If you see negatives indicated in the table of recent feedback, you can choose to exclusively see each type of comment by clicking on the numbers shown in the table. Reading negative or neutral comments can often tell you if a seller has a pattern of problems with items not matching the descriptions, canceled orders, late deliveries or item location misrepresentation.

If a seller has a pattern of too many serious negatives -- or just not enough positive history -- it is often better to find another seller with a better track record to do business with.