Am I BEING SCAMMED AS A NEW SELLER ON EBAY... NEED HELP -

[justyjuice]

I have been with ebay for 20 years... sold a couple items in the past.. recently been on a rampage to sell off all my gaming consoles... finally had someone buy it now for an old modded RAR ps2 for 500 dollars... I have had a pretty good eye for scammers but this one has me! 

Because my old account was initially opened when I was living in Canada I had to open a new account in the US since I now reside here... the old account kept going to ebay.ca and was annoying... AFTER selling my item as a "Buy it Now" ebay notified me they would hold my funds until I switched the Canadian account back to a Canadian address instead of my Current USA. So I open a new account ..but it has no Positive Feedback.  

So, Ebay suggested I make the new account and start all over... so I did.. and i have been hit up by a couple of gift card scammers... now I am SO SCARED to sell to anyone and I don't know who is real or not.. i sold my ps2 today for $500... plus the customer was billed for shipping.. total sale was $588.64... after ebay fees im supposed to be paid $364... but since the account is new... EBAY says they are holding my funds till November 17th 2023... this is a long time... i have read horror stories of sellers selling expensive items ... shipping it... then waiting for money to clear ... and the buyer claiming they did not receive the item, or putting a claim it's damaged and getting their money back, never returning the item and BOOM I'm out my PS2 ... How do I protect myself from this??... The Buyer has 562 reviews... with  100% feed backs which is nuts....  and has been a member since 2012... HOWEVER, I have seen other scammers for gift card scams with 100% feedback... with hundreds of reviews... How is EBAY allowing this... Any HELP or tips on what to do here..  this sucks bc I really want the sale to be real and I feel bad if this is real buyer... this seriously sucks for everyone. I hope someone can help me before I ship anything or cancel anything.. this one is tricky... 

[justyjuice]

thanks will do!! 

[justyjuice]

Yeah I haven’t officially shipped anything … this is why I made this question page…. To help me make a decision… I feel exactly the same way as u … maybe it’s just best I cancel it is how I’m feeling in easy as well..  

[kensgiftshop]

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@justyjuice wrote:

No it’s nuts because if this is a scammer I don’t know how he got so many great reviews … and will likely keep his account and lord knows how many people he has scammed… I’m not saying it’s nuts he’s got so many positive reviews… yet can be a complete criminal and u would never know with so many positive reviews 

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If I bought your item, would you ship it?

Having 100% on their feedback isn't unusual.

I've never had a negative, does that make me a scammer?

When you sell on line, you have to decide before listing anything, if it's worth taking the risk.

[kensgiftshop]

Think about the buyer.

They found a seller that hasn't sold anything in awhile and now they list gaming systems using stock photos, which is usually a red flag.

How does the buyer know that you're not a scammer?

They look at your feedback and it looks good, but how do they know you haven't scammed a lot of people and just got the bad feedback removed?

Should the buyer take a chance and buy not knowing if they'll get their item or loose their money?

[normanfoxlee]

Well, looks like it was a misunderstanding from the both sides. When I received a message from the seller outside the eBay platform (via text) looking for some identification I automatically decided that this is a scam scheme to steal the identity. Like, it is really in the eBay rules about not doing any communication outside the eBay and never provide any IDs or private information.

When I refused, seller next asked to cancel the order (which buyer cannot do, of course, till the past delivery day). I contacted eBay support via chat and explained the situation. They decided to open the refund request and cancelled the order immediately. I believe they also suspended this new seller account as I cannot revise my negative feedback that I left for it after I finally figured out what was going on.

[normanfoxlee]

Also, I was scammed many times as a seller. But all the problems were when I was sending gift cards and TCG cards via regular mail w/o any tracking numbers. Buyer can always report them as "never received". So nowadays I always send everything higher than $5 via USPS 1st-class paying around $3 for shipping myself. Even if there will be no profit at all or even minus.