Scam?

[nbrooks503]

I used to sell my camera equipment on Amazon with no problems, but they've since changed their policies about the sale of certain brand names.  This is my first time dealing with ebay as a seller and I listed a Canon camera with accessories a couple of days ago.

Within 5 minutes I received a full price offer, but rather than go through the ebay system, I received a forwarded email from the buyer through the ebay system asking me to provide my paypal detail to an email address.  I advised the buyer that was a violation of the policy and that everything needed to go through ebay which generates the invoice and provides the necessary payment details.  I figured it was a scam and sure enough the buyer account was created the same day, located in Malaysia and the address the camera was to be shipped to was a warehouse in Pennsylvania (according to googlemaps).

After my response I never heard anything else - waited the two days for confirmation of payment, and then cancelled the transaction and relisted.

Right away I got two inquiries about the camera, both wanted me to ship overnight and both wanted me to contact the email address they provided to give them my paypal info.  Told them the same thing, and then decided to amend my listing to include the payment instructions with a sentence that I would not respond to anyone who wants me to contact them via email as it violates the ebay sales policy.

I'm assuming these are scams or the beginning of scams - how prevalent is this kind of stuff, because I'm seriously considering just removing the listing and selling directly to a reputable camera dealer for a lesser but guaranteed price.

Thanks

[fashunu4eeuh]

Sorry to hear of your difficulty. New sellers of high priced items sometimes find themselves targets of scammers. So glad you had good instincts and know policy. Sadly, some take the bait and lose their items. How prevalent is it?  Very hard to say, but we find it happening regularly from posters here in the forum. I’ve personally never been scammed but like you, i am cautious.

[kensgiftshop]

New seller, selling an expensive item, you will be contacted by a lot of buyers scammers, trying to steal your camera.

[a_c_green]

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@kensgiftshop wrote:

New seller, selling an expensive item, you will be contacted by a lot of buyers scammers, trying to steal your camera.

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The flip side of that is that seasoned buyers will be wary of dealing with you, too, for fear that you may be out to scam them.

At minimum, if you're determined to sell that here, at least remove the Make Offer feature so that you can list it as Fixed Price with the Immediate Payment Required option enabled. That way no one can snatch it off the market without actually paying you for it first. (This does not get you past various delivery-related scams, though, such as fake damage or empty-box claims.) You should probably consider selling that locally for cash.

[nbrooks503]

Thanks for the responses.  I did list it with only a buy now option, although I offered free shipping and would probably reduce by the sales tax amount.  However I'm just leaning to run it for about a week, not answer any queries that try to get me to contact them via their email.  Amazon was a much better platform in my opinion, but they've limited the kind of sales that can be made.  I think with all the potential for claims that it is not as described etc it's probably not worth my trouble to sell on ebay.

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@kensgiftshop wrote:

New seller, selling an expensive item, you will be contacted by a lot of buyers scammers, trying to steal your camera.

---

The flip side of that is that seasoned buyers will be wary of dealing with you, too, for fear that you may be out to scam them.

At minimum, if you're determined to sell that here, at least remove the Make Offer feature so that you can list it as Fixed Price with the Immediate Payment Required option enabled. That way no one can snatch it off the market without actually paying you for it first. (This does not get you past various delivery-related scams, though, such as fake damage or empty-box claims.) You should probably consider selling that locally for cash.

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[ittybitnot]

 through the ebay system asking me to provide my paypal detail to an email address.

Classic scam.   If you manage to get a real buyer, beware of the "change the shipping" address ebay message often sent by a person with a different ID that is indeed not your buyer.