Offers from a buyer to purchase in quantity

[fishing-101]

Recently I have received several offers to buy an item of mine from different buyers. Interesting that 5 or 6 different buyers all offer the same amount, they all have 100% positive feedback, all have there feedback as private, all have nothing for sale on eBay. So it looks like a scam of some kind. Question would be that I am curious how this is played out. Since a buyer can only receive positive feedback, then being you can not read any of it, no way to tell what a previous seller may have said.

[aldente28]

Buyers can make their feedback private? This is news to me. Not sure what good feedback is if you can't read it and it can only be positive. I think the answer would be "none".

Regarding the offers. Maybe it's a bot situation. I don't know if that means anything about legitimacy. Bots can be used for arbitrage, which implies the buyer intends to resell the item. I don't know. It could be fraud of some kind, but I don't have any information that would suggest you can draw this conclusion.

[futuremarine2011]

 now i i assume you know whats suppose to be the correct response to  your question. if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. follow your gut feeling on things like this and save yourself a whole lot of grief.

[clemowbooks]

Buyers who have private feedback may be buying stuff that they don't want nosy family members to know about.

Or they may be embarrassed about what they are buying. I saw one poster who was embarrassed that her purchases of a common medical device , nothing amusing never mind embarrassing, were visible in her feedback.
Or they may just be unusually paranoid about being stalked online.

That they all have exactly the same offer is strange. The suggestion that it may be a bot looking for particular mass marketed things and with a set price in mind seems reasonable.

Look at the feedback again. All buyers have 100% FB, but if your customers have a long gap between their past FB and any current FB, or if the early FB was for, say, Legos and baby toys, then a gap then offers on your electronics, they may be hijacked accounts.

If that is the case you might want  to contact eBay through FB or Twitter where apparently the reps have more flexibility than the poor souls being held captive in Customer Service, and give them several names and your suspicions.

You will not get any real validation, but if you follow those suspicious accounts they may suddenly go NARU.

You could also counter -offer and see where that takes you.  If you do make sure you remind the customer that shipping is not included in Offers and that you do not ship overseas or to forwarders*.

*Forwarders are the second most secure addresses you can get, after PO boxes, but overseas buyers will cost you 4.4% in PP fees rather than the 2,9% for US based PP accounts.