Buyers requesting I text them regarding offer I accepted from them to purchase???

[jsebastian65]

Hi Everyone,

I've occasionally sold and most bought on ebay for the last 20 years. I recently got laid off and decided to start sourcing and selling items.  

I've just listed a quite a few items, two of which are relatively pricy, $70 and $100. I listed them both late last night and when I got up in the morning had offers from buyers for $20 and $30 over my starting bid price.  I accepted the offers and sent an email to the buyers thanking them for the offer and telling them I accepted and needed prompt payment so that I could have the item shipped within 24 - 48 hours after receipt of payment.

Now for my question.  Both of these (different) buyers responded asking me to text them on their phone numbers to "ask questions [so they may arrange purchase].  Is this normal????

Texting is the same as receiving messages from the ebay platform, in that your still typing in a question and receiving a typed message.  I'm afraid to text them as on another platform they warned sellers not to do this due to high probability of fraud.  

Please let me know if anyone else has had this request and how you handled it.

Thank you in advance for any information you have to share.  It is weird that this is the first time this has happened with two transactions within three hours of each other. 

Waiting to hear from y'all!

Judy

[ckimodog]

@jsebastian65 

Now that you know, you'll be fine.  Like I stated earlier Ebay has changed a lot over the years and some of it not for the better.  We see these scam attempts posted daily on these boards...in multiples!

Happy Selling!

PS Nice shop!

[jsebastian65]

@simply-the-best-for-you, thank you for the response. 

The items listed were higher priced than most of my recent listings, but I agree I would think they would have gone for much more lucrative targets than mine!  I appreciate your and the rest of the networks replies!

I love this network. Thank you all.

[jsebastian65]

Thank you for the added suggestions. Very helpful!

[jsebastian65]

Thank you!  It is nice to know folks like you all have each other's backs.  I  don't feel I need to go it alone as much.

Thank you for the "store" complement.  I'm still an individual account. Trying to come up with the right name, get it registered and come up with the funds to set up the matching bank account.  I'm afraid to get too many items listed until I have an official store.  I can see it being a nightmare to convert all the listings into a new store site.

I'd love any tips you have to share.  I'd like to make this my main gig.  I'm tired of the corporate turmoil and interviewing for new positions has become a mess!

Cheers and Happy Selling!

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@jsebastian65 wrote:

Thank you!  It is nice to know folks like you all have each other's backs.  I  don't feel I need to go it alone as much.

Thank you for the "store" complement.  I'm still an individual account. Trying to come up with the right name, get it registered and come up with the funds to set up the matching bank account.  I'm afraid to get too many items listed until I have an official store.  I can see it being a nightmare to convert all the listings into a new store site.

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@jsebastian65  no nightmare at all.  It happens automatically.  You just set up your categories & they populate fairly automatically.   It's been over a decade, so I can't remember exactly how it works, but I remember it was easy & I had a lot of listings at the time.