Serious Selling troubles HELP

[starlinggirl99]

First time seller (my son's phone).    Rookie mistake.  What was I thinking. 

BACKGROUND.

Listed item for bidding.  Winning bid refused to pay.  Cancelled after 4 days, no fees.  Good.

Offered item to second highest bidder - i didn't know it would be RELISTED - it was a one day listing.  I didn't hear from bidder. Listing was over.  WILL I BE CHARGED FEES? 

RELISTED phone, now my two possible 3 bidders are out of the country - BRAZIL.  My listing is for USA shipping only.  I canceled the winning bid due to living in Brazil.  Then the next bid ALSO  lives in BRAZIL, which I want to cancel.  Whose to say the third bidder isn't also in BRAZIL - which has a very low bid?   What if I'm being scammed by these brazilian bidders (I don't know).  

There is less than 24 hours left.   I looked for a way to contact ebay directly but couldn't find out how. 

What should I do?  Can I cancel the listing?

[klhmdg]

cancel the bids then cancel the listing....

This is something you should sell locally. This is a high scam item and you will lose the $ and the phone.

If you are determined to sell the phone here set up the listing for US only.

[vintagecraze50]

If you do not want to sell stuff international you have to go into your account and cross off all those locations that are not in the USA. If you feel uncomfortable selling if this person wins, you can cancel the transaction but ebay will put a defect on your account. 

[starlinggirl99]

I'm pretty sure I did exclude everything except the USA.  I don't see Brazil on this list however.  Take a look.  If it was an option, I would have selected it to exclude.  

Shipping to: United States

Excludes: Angola, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, French Polynesia, Libya, Mongolia, Suriname, Guyana, Panama, Mauritius, Brunei Darussalam, Chad, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Bahamas, Bermuda, Iran, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Western Sahara, Bolivia, Laos, Congo, Republic of the, Seychelles, Sudan, Guadeloupe, Venezuela, Somalia, Burma, Cuba, Republic of, Reunion, Yemen, Barbados, Belize, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Martinique, Dominica, Niger, French Guiana, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua, Tajikistan, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Honduras, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos Islands, Botswana, Eritrea, Swaziland, Lesotho

[starlinggirl99]

Hi klhmdg,

If I cancel the listing, will I be affected negatively?  Will I still be charged a fee.   In the end, I may just cancel and pay the fees and chalk it up to lesson learned.  UGH.  NO THANK YOU EBAY.

[pikabo-icu]

Did you block them in both site preferences & exclude all international bidders in your listing?

That should prevent them from bidding. 

[luckythewinner]

There is an extremely well-defined market for used phones. 

If you insist on selling it on eBay, pick a price and list it at Fixed Price with no offers and immediate payment required. If someone contacts you about buying it, tell them they must buy it through eBay and pay you through eBay. 

Offers, request for you to text or email them, claims that they cannotpay through PayPal, offers above the asking price, etc. are all scams so ignore them. 

If someone messages you asking you to ship it somewhere else, that is another scam (hint - it's is probably not the actual buyer, but someone trying to 'hijack' the item and redirect it). 

Even if someone buys it and pays for it, they can still scam you and steal the phone.

[starlinggirl99]

Hi pikabo-icu,

I'm guessing I didn't if two separate international bidders were able to bid.  I thought the shipping selection would prevent international bidders.  I don't recall an exclusion to prevent international bidders.  Do you think I can modify the listing now? 

ugh.  such a rookie here.  I thought I was doing my son a favor.  I'm going to pay for this one.  smh.

[eunster1313]

(Can I cancel the listing?)

Give this a good read.

Ending a listinghttps://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/canceling-listing?id=4146&st=1... 

[kensgiftshop]

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@starlinggirl99 wrote:

I'm pretty sure I did exclude everything except the USA.  I don't see Brazil on this list however.  Take a look.  If it was an option, I would have selected it to exclude.  

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Even if you exclude the other countries, International buyers can still buy using freight forwarders in the US.

[downunder-61]

Please don't sell it on eBay, as said it is a scammer's dream and you have low feedback which is another target for scamming.

[duffy4444 · Accepted solution]

   Phones, computers and electronics are very high scam items, both in the US and internationally. With relatively few feedbacks, you are a prime candidate.

   A really big problem comes into play when shipping is involved, with scammers licking their chops over a "rookie mistake", as you call it, and shipping scams just widen the possibilities for scammer success.

   Sell locally, where you have much more control over the transaction and can require cash, and you take shipping scams out of the equation. Yes, it may take longer to sell, but at least you are much less likely to lose the phone AND your money.

   DO what you can to get rid of the Brazilian actors and international interest, and sell it either with Ebay Local Pickup, or on a site like CraigsList.

   Finally, read down at least a few hundred of the posts on this Selling forum, and become educated and acquainted with the scams and the heartaches of those well-intentioned and honest Ebay sellers who lost their high-value item AND their money.

   Glad to see you hesitated and didn't accept the sale and ship it!

Cheers, Duffy

[starlinggirl99]

Thank you so very much for the article.  I found it very helpful.  It seems that I need to cancel the bids, then cancel the item/phone.  I'll likely end up paying fees and get a 'bad' mark against me. 

I hope I can somehow explain to ebay my situation and get the 'bad' mark removed.   smh. 

[pikabo-icu]

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@starlinggirl99 wrote:

Hi pikabo-icu,

I'm guessing I didn't if two separate international bidders were able to bid.  I thought the shipping selection would prevent international bidders.  I don't recall an exclusion to prevent international bidders.  Do you think I can modify the listing now? 

ugh.  such a rookie here.  I thought I was doing my son a favor.  I'm going to pay for this one.  smh.

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I would definitely end the bids, problem with address if you have to select a reason and add both those ID's to your blocked bidder list. 

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/BuyerBlock 

[duffy4444]

   Paying a few fees and maybe getting a demerit is a whole lot better than the potential loss of the phone AND your money thru a forced refund... and do what pikabo-icu recommends.

 - Duffy