Suspicious offers?

[kr7198]

I have a buy it now item for sale that accepts offers. Over the course of a week, I have received 5 offers for 50% below my asking price. The first two I gave counter offers but the buyer never responded. The next two I declined and one is still open. What is suspicious is that each buyer is from the same city & has the same zip code. Also, they all had the same offer within a day or even hours from each other. One user sent the same offer twice. Is it possible that the buyer is trying to scam me? Or is it just some person who wants the item for really cheap and they think that sending me an offer 5 times from different user names will make me accept? Or am I just paranoid?

[downunder-61]

Just ignore the offers unless they are decent, or you can set your lowest price as auto decline.

AFAIK a buyer can only offer 3x then they are done, maybe this is why they are using different accounts.

Sounds like abt of game playing and I personally would block each id they have used to offer as low ball offers are insulting.

[bimm_corp]

@kr7198 

>I have received 5 offers for 50% below my asking price.

I don't fool around with such nonsense. 50% or lower offer goes straight to BBL.

[postingid7659]

Why not click the box to auto-decline offers below a certain dollar amount?

[releasethekraken_1]

Suspicious offers are the ones that are for more than the asking price.

[varebelrose]

Thats not suspicious, thats just low-balling. Yes, probably the same person, just block them and move on. Personally, I found that on listings that I would accept offers, it made life easier to set the auto-accept and auto-decline amounts so that I never even had to see offers.

[coolections]

@bimm_corp 

I've had several offers accepted by sellers that where at 50%. I would have never offered that low but when  sellers have the BIN price 50% above the normal selling price it never hurts to ask. OP, how do you know this is the same guy with 5 I.D.'s ?

[jhr-4800]

I removed "Best Offer" on all my items for sale.  I have only BIN prices.  but I continue to get messages from want to be buyers at 50% off.  My guess, is that they might be reseller's, or just cheap people.  I just ignore them, or let them know that I am not taking any offers at this time.  

[this*old*attic]

What's suspicious about low balling?

I had an offer of my own accepted yesterday for 25% off, which I consider a pretty cheap discount.

There used to be much speculation that Ebay's servers made items "visible" or "turned off the faucet" in a rotating pattern around the states or areas. I never believed this personally but, hey.

Most likely an over anxious buyer or simple coincidence.

[this*old*attic]

@downunder-61

I (kind of) disagree. Here's why:

1. Lowballers might figure the seller will counter somewhere in the middle or at the price they are truly willing to pay.

2. It's a chance to open dialogue. I just say, "I can't go quite that low, but I'm happy to meet you in the middle at XXX. Hope we can do business!" (note: my counter is much closer to original price but "middle" sounds better)

3. Politeness is a smart business strategy. They may not like one's counter, but could return for something else later.