Potential buyer from Ukraine with no feedback/rating.. I'm cautious here

[zigeepigee]

Hi there, I put up my first item for auction (a graphics card), and right now the highest bidder is a dude from Ukraine. It's a fairly recent account (Based in Ukraine, has been an eBay member since Apr 11, 2021). I'm worried because I did some googling and found a lot of sellers were scammed shipping to Ukraine where the buyer complained they never received the item, got a full refund, and in turn, the item! As this is my first time ever truly using/selling on Ebay, I'd like to know some best practices for avoiding getting owned.

Ryan

[assortedcollectibles]

His intention is to use it for GPU mining.

He will claim that it came in an empty box, heavily damaged or similar, open an "item not as described" case, return a box of used crayons on your expense making you furious and hating ebay forever.

GPUs are very easy to sell these days. Sell it locally for cash only.. save yourself the frustration.

There are tonnes of posts on this forum from sellers that have been scammed out of their GPUS.

[zigeepigee]

So what should I do? He'll eventually win the auction. There is another bidder who has ratings and just seems more trustworthy. I feel I'm screwed here lol

[fashunu4eeuh]

As a new and inexperienced seller, you are at a high risk of being defrauded out of your expensive item. I would never advise a new seller to list anything pricey or in a category subject to higher incidence of fraud. You are both. 

For Pete’s sake, take that listing down. If you want to sell on eBay, start small and learn the ends and outs of selling here. It is not as simple as “list, sell, and collect payment”. Ebay attracts new sellers with such marketing, but the truth is there is a wide learning curve to selling on eBay. Good luck.

[kensgiftshop]

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@zigeepigee wrote:

As this is my first time ever truly using/selling on Ebay, I'd like to know some best practices for avoiding getting owned.

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As a new seller, don't try selling a graphic card.

They are a high scammed item and there's a good chance you'll loose the card and any payment made.

[slati_2013]

My advice is cancel all bids. End the listing. Then block all countries you do not want to ship to before you list anything again. Ukraine should be on that list.

For such an expensive and sought after item, I suggest, no international shipping. Also use BIN instead of an auction.  That still does not guarantee you won't still be scammed, but your odds of avoiding a scam get better. 

[doug_5857]

Never post an item that you can NOT afford to give away.  Do you know what to do when you ship this order if it sells? Do you know the Money back Guarantee?

If this is your first item ever sold on eBay? 

Why does the account say that you have feedback older than 5 years ago. 

I also thought New Sellers had a Dollar limit.

It is also against eBay policies to mention the Buyers/Sellers name on the boards.

[nkmipgolf]

You only  ship to the USA so even if he wins cancel it due to his location. He should have never bid on it.  And I would never sell an item like yours to a new buyer outside of the USA.  eBay's policies makes it too easy to fake a return, refund, does not work, etc.

[zigeepigee]

Thanks everybody!

[reallynicestamps]

He'll eventually win the auction.

You can cancel his bid. Don't worry about giving a reason.

And then put him on your Blocked Bidder List.

Also, at this point in your career, you should not be selling overseas at all. I'm surprised eBay allowed you to. That should be a basic Seller Protection for newbies.

If he used a freight forwarding address, that helps you since most of the Money Back Guarantee ends when the US-based forwarder accepts the shipment.

And don't use Auctions.

Less than 15 % of transactions are auctions, because neither buyers nor sellers like them.

And they have a higher rate of Unpaid Items than Fixed Price.

Instead, when you are ready to sell again, use Fixed Price/Immediate Payment Required, which gives you up to 30 days of visibility (instead of seven) and only closes when someone actually pays up.

[thebestbuybaril]

There is also something where you can put parameters in for offers or maybe even Buy it Now people.   It says things like don't sell to anyone with no feedback, or who has already bought from you.  I can try to find and you can set it up.  I'll come back and post when I find it.

The "must pay immediately" on Buy it Now can be found when you make you listing and is where it says "payment handled through eBay."

I'm new but watchout for Suma with any random numbers after the name.  She even gets past the parameter thing.

[thebestbuybaril]

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@doug_5857 wrote:

Never post an item that you can NOT afford to give away.  <<<Just want to say that is some solid advice right there.  Change a few words and it works in many aspects of life.  I use a form of that with my students who bring expensive clothes and electronics to school and lose or break them.  

Why does the account say that you have feedback older than 5 years ago.  I am curious about this for a different reason.  We were off ebay completely for about 6 years. When we started back up, we needed a  new account due to inactivity or some **bleep** like that and we lost our feedback that we had from when we were sellers in early to mid 2000's.

I also thought New Sellers had a Dollar limit.

You thought right.  We don't have one for individual items, but we started in November 2021 and our limit is 1000 listings a month and a $25,000 in revenue limit a month.  This seems really high to me, but right now we only have about 35 things listed so anything seems high.

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For the OP just sell in the US for now, keep it simple so you don't get frustrated and don't have to deal with scammers.  If you google Ukraine in the community  here you will see nothing great is happening between here and there.   I have gotten a lot of help going to the Ask a Mentor part of the community and searching what I have a question on.  If you can't find the answer you can ask and the  people are really helpful there.   I also use the help from eBay chat thingy and ask for a call back.  I have done it 3 times and was called back each time within ONE  minute. I know people say it is bad, but it has been excellent for me (so far, knock wood).

[downunder-61]

@thebestbuybaril 

You can not set any blocks for (0) feedback buyers

[pewpew123]

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@slati_2013 wrote:

My advice is cancel all bids. End the listing. Then block all countries you do not want to ship to before you list anything again. Ukraine should be on that list.

For such an expensive and sought after item, I suggest, no international shipping. Also use BIN instead of an auction.  That still does not guarantee you won't still be scammed, but your odds of avoiding a scam get better. 

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terrible advice. that will do absolutely nothing. people from abroad use freight forwarders to buy junk on ebay, amazon, etc, because it's cheaper to have it shipped that way. it also makes it easier for them to side step import taxes if they know a guy somewhere.

it doesn't matter where the account is registered, be it US, Ukraine, North Korea, Mars, ebay will not block the buyer as long as they have a US address. i've sold more than 150k in tech last year. about $25,000 of it went to eastern europe, including some to Ukraine even though my account is set to only sell in the US and Canada. 

what's messed up is that ebay charges an extra ~2% fee on orders that are sold to people who's accounts are registered overseas, regardless of where said order is shipped. and you can't opt out. you have to bend over and take it 

[reallynicestamps]

ebay charges an extra ~2% fee on orders that are sold to people who's accounts are registered overseas,

And to us here in Canada too?

I think the reason for the additional fee is that the non-US buyer is using a non-US credit card (or PP account) and there are higher fees for accepting those based on currency exchange. I'm willing to be corrected if someone can show the receipts.