@myatticcorners1 wrote:I just had a bidder that was from Sri Lanka, had zero feedback and just opened their account today. They bid up an item and I was suspicious, so canceled the bid so that the actual buyer can win the item. I tried to add the bidder to my blocked list and got the error message, "The following user(s) were not valid and therefore were not added to your list" How is a "not valid user" able to bid on my item? And since I can't add to my blocked list, will they be able to do so again?
Although it is possible you may have dodged a small bullet this time, none of the criteria you consider suspicious enough to cancel bids is actually so. This buyer did nothing wrong but try to buy your item. According to your worldwide shipping, currently you have Sri Lanka listed as a country you ship to. (See screen shot below.)
New buyers come to the platform every day—and they all start at 0 feedback. If sellers do not welcome them, our buyer pool shrinks and a viable customer could be lost forever. (Btw, guest accounts will show up as a zero sales history account.)
The whole point of an auction is for the buyer to bid up the product to improve profits for the seller. And since you threw this buyer overboard prematurely, you will never know if he was the “actual” buyer or not.
Nearly all your inventory is listed for under $10. At those price points, it is quite unlikely that scammers would target your listings. It is more likely this was a new buyer who has just been given the cold-shoulder unfairly.
The time to worry about fraud is if something egregious actually happens. Trying to manage one’s risk in this way, vetting buyers during the auction and canceling bids is every seller’s right, but it is acting out of fear and suspicion instead of seeing the auction to its conclusion. This is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I have never understood all these many worries over new buyers, as if they are anathema.
