eBay

leatherstocking · ‎08-23-2022

I have been selling on ebay for 20 years [ don't let my low FB profile number fool you, this account belongs to my husband ]. I have never seen a scam like this one!

I posted auctions for 40 + items in July after a period of not posting anything for sale. 2 items in particular have been bid on 4 times total [ twice each]. Both items had an automatic acceptance of an offer of a certain amount. Please see details below!

This effectively takes my item off eBay so others cannot buy it. After the first "sale" I called the Help line, because I sensed something was not right here, and I have called tech support, spoken to a supervisor, reported spoof emails and I have been told that eBay has done all they can???!!! I feel that someone is using software to figure a larger scam here.

Here are the details

- the "buyer" always has a zero rating when the bid is placed. The buyer is always "removed" or is no longer an eBay member within a day or two.

- the buyer name is a 4 or 5 letter name followed by a hyphen and a 4 or 5 digit number.

- the buyer never pays and eBay ends up canceling the sale.

- the item is always a $29.99 starting bid.

- the offer price is always $40.00.

- on my All Orders page, the item always has a 3 digit Sales Record Number, never a 12 digit number like all other sales. How can this be? WHY would eBay give a short number like this??

- 3 out of 4 times the buyer has had a vague shipping address, such as no apartment number, or a warehouse district address or just no address other than a town.

- the purchase is always made on Monday morning, after my items have re listed .

- one time the buyer asked for my cell number, which is a well known scam used a lot on Facebook to gain personal information.

Does this ring a bell with anyone. I have taken a few measures to try to end this. But at this point I am just curious as to what the con is.

leatherstocking

leatherstocking · ‎08-23-2022

I am with you on the auctions. Since people rarely make offers I think I'm going to do away with them completely. I also like listing one day a week, and my research says that Sunday evenings are when most items sell.

Good point about the BIN. My items are almost all under $25 and there is a very small profit as it is/ not sure promotions would work for me at all. Things seem to take a long time to sell because there is so much of what I offer on eBay. Soon, the headaches will force me to re evaluate if I really want to continue.

Thanks for all the help////

Anonymous · ‎08-23-2022

@leatherstocking wrote:
I am with you on the auctions. Since people rarely make offers I think I'm going to do away with them completely. I also like listing one day a week, and my research says that Sunday evenings are when most items sell.

Good point about the BIN. My items are almost all under $25 and there is a very small profit as it is/ not sure promotions would work for me at all. Things seem to take a long time to sell because there is so much of what I offer on eBay. Soon, the headaches will force me to re evaluate if I really want to continue.

Thanks for all the help////

Buy it Now constitute 85% of listings for a reason.

Auctions are appropriate only for highly sought after/hot items. They are inappropriate for odd, obscure, or low demand items.

ajs_coins_and_alchemy · ‎08-23-2022

@Anonymous wrote:
@leatherstocking wrote:
I am with you on the auctions. Since people rarely make offers I think I'm going to do away with them completely. I also like listing one day a week, and my research says that Sunday evenings are when most items sell.

Good point about the BIN. My items are almost all under $25 and there is a very small profit as it is/ not sure promotions would work for me at all. Things seem to take a long time to sell because there is so much of what I offer on eBay. Soon, the headaches will force me to re evaluate if I really want to continue.

Thanks for all the help////
Buy it Now constitute 85% of listings for a reason.

Auctions are appropriate only for highly sought after/hot items. They are inappropriate for odd, obscure, or low demand items.

I literally source on EBay for my future EBay sales. It's where I get inventory. I was originally buying bulk coin lot on auctions, and have now found it lucrative to target single item auctions. I have for the past few weeks been buying up auctions that offer a SINGLE item, that is in FAIRLY HIGH SUPPLY, I can buy it for a price that affords me a minimum of 20% profit upon resale after fees, shipping etc, and I list it as a BIN. These items are resold within 0-2 wks on average, of me getting them, and it takes me seconds to list them as they are simple standard items, not obscure, not strongly "condition" based, or anything that makes selling more intensive in terms of effort required.

I'm not becoming a millionaire, but it helps me maintain some steady inventory in that category, and the LITTLE work involved makes the money decently worth it. Auctions can really be pointless at times... Great if you like gambling, sometimes awful if you're trying to keep steady solid income.

dbfolks166mt · ‎08-23-2022

Buy it Now constitute 85% of listings for a reason. Agreed and the biggest reason is they are commodity items, Thousands of sellers listing the exact same thing with the only difference being price.

Auctions are appropriate only for highly sought after/hot items. They are inappropriate for odd, obscure, or low demand items. This one I would disagree with Odd and Obscure, Rare and Unique are perfect for auctions. It's really difficult to tell what demand is for those type of items.

coolections · ‎08-23-2022

Going by your I.D., if it is what I think it is then it probably has something to do with what you are selling. Freaky things attract freaky people. It is best to just list BIN immediate payment required.

pburn · ‎08-23-2022

@coolections wrote:
Going by your I.D., if it is what I think it is then it probably has something to do with what you are selling. Freaky things attract freaky people. It is best to just list BIN immediate payment required.

So, probably not familiar with the works of James Fenimore Cooper, eh?

leatherstocking · ‎08-24-2022

Yeah, just for the record I don't actually sell leather stockings, in fact I live in that general area and am headed to Cooperstown today. I don't consider what I sell freaky either lol Thanks, pburn for brightening my morning :+)

a_c_green · ‎08-24-2022

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
Buy it Now constitute 85% of listings for a reason. Agreed and the biggest reason is they are commodity items, Thousands of sellers listing the exact same thing with the only difference being price.

Auctions are appropriate only for highly sought after/hot items. They are inappropriate for odd, obscure, or low demand items. This one I would disagree with Odd and Obscure, Rare and Unique are perfect for auctions. It's really difficult to tell what demand is for those type of items.

Ayup. If an item has no commonly-accepted average retail price, put it up for auction and see how it goes. Just set your opening price to be whatever you would genuinely accept to sell it for if you only ever get one bid, and then every bid after that is gravy.

Every now and then I'll list something new (to me) that I don't normally sell, and it can surprise me.

albertabrightalberta · ‎08-24-2022

@leatherstocking wrote:
I indicated that I have already taken the steps that I can,

No you have NOT taken the steps to avoid this. Your listings are auction listings with best offers and with those types of listings, you won't be able to avoid non-payers. List your items as BIN with IPR (as you've been advised).

@leatherstocking wrote:

I re state - this is not a real "Buyer". Its a software program being used to scam or just troll people.

Whether it's a real buyer or not is irrelevant at this point. If you listed as suggested, you wouldn't deal with these types of buyers.

albertabrightalberta
Volunteer Community Mentor

dbfolks166mt · ‎08-24-2022

@leatherstocking wrote:
I indicated that I have already taken the steps that I can,

No you have NOT taken the steps to avoid this. Your listings are auction listings with best offers and with those types of listings, you won't be able to avoid non-payers. List your items as BIN with IPR (as you've been advised).

There are other alternatives and while BIN IPR will fix the problem with non-payers it also potentially introduces others. There is no one format that works for everyone or there would only be one format. There are pro's and con's to both auction and BIN formats it just depends on what works best for a given seller based on what they are selling. I use a combination of auction and BIN and have little to no trouble with non-paying buyers.