With all the negative press, is eBay worth the risk?
MM
week goes by when I don't hear something negative about eBay or
PayPal, either in the press or on the internet. Obviously, the number
of transactions greatly exceeds the fraudulent cases, but it seems
when something does go awry, the little guy is more or less left in
the lurch to sort the problem out for himself, at his cost. I just
wonder whether the risk is worth it. Also, why is there no competition
for eBay worth the name? The competition such as it is is like minnows
to eBay's whale. Purely on fees alone, I should have thought a more
"seller-friendly" company would have started up by now.
MM
MM
This is an example of the kind of scam I'm talking about:
<quote (from another newsgroup)>
had a similar experience with a buyer in March who bought 5 CDs in 4
seperate transactions and provided a unconfirmed address. I sent all
the CDs and about a month later received positive feedback. However
110 days after the initial transaction I received notification from
Paypal of 4 chargeback claims which after a cursory investigation by
them, they supported. I lost £32 worth of CDs plus £28 in fees by
Paypal. I tried to argue the point about the confirmed address and how
was I to know that the buyer was using a card which could not be
verified but got bugger all response. I contacted 10 other sellers who
had sold to the same buyer at around the same time and
found we had all been had over by Paypal and the buyer. One seller has
managed to get his money back from the buyer despite her claiming to
have had her account hi-jacked. I argued that if her account had been
hi-jacked then that is unlucky, if however her credit card details
have also been used then it is either negligence on her part or fraud.
Again bugger all response. I did write to the FSA but they are not
interested either. I've now voted with my keyboard and will not accept
Paypal on any sales, I offer Nochex who do not operate a chargeback
procedure and seem to take better care of their customers.
</quote>
MM
ronald
You are correct. In consideration of the scamming sellers and buyers, and
the fact that eBay and PayPal buyer and seller protection is a scam, you can
only profit as a seller on eBay by having a 2000% mark-up or higher on cost.
Yes, that's two thousand percent. You can never profit as a buyer as the
goods on eBay are available on the net and on the street at better price and
with a full money back guarantee.
Watch for our resident eBay pimp, SCUZ Bustard to dispute all of this
information and call you a moron and a fool for being smart enough to avoid
eBay.
ron
Eric
"ronald" <rona...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1124978339.29f1c538485c146e315c0c459fc2e54e@teranews...
Yawn Yawn Yawn
--
Eric
SCAM Buster
This problems happened only because the seller ignored PayPal's
requirement to ship to "Confirmed" addresses only. That rule is put in
place to protect sellers from such fraud. If sellers choose to ignore
the rule, and ship to "Unconfirmed" addresses anyway, then it is
largely their fault they got stung. If you stick to the policy to ship
to confirmed addresses ONLY, then you will always know for certain
that the credit card used to pay for your item belongs to the buyer.
End of story!
SCAM Buster
MM
But millions of people will be 'on the road' somewhere and not at
their home address, which is what I take to mean the 'confirmed'
address. Students, business people, scientists, and engineers on
sabbaticals, roving reporters, veterinaries, rock musicians, actors,
and dozens of other professions and vocations, not to mention those in
their twilight years bumming around the States in a motorhome. Can
none of these folks reliably receive goods from an eBay sale? Must
they all return to their confirmed address in order to collect the
goods?
MM
ronald
Yes. A seller using PayPal can only ship to stay-at-homes in order to be
covered against scamming buyers who are of course smart enough to get around
that requirement anyway. Which explains why both eBay and PayPal usually
refuse to honour their buyer/seller protection claim. The real scammers
here are eBay and PayPal who admit that they don't have the manpower to
police every auction making eBay a safe haven for internet crooks.
ron
SCAM Buster
>
>But millions of people will be 'on the road' somewhere and not at
>their home address, which is what I take to mean the 'confirmed'
>address. Students, business people, scientists, and engineers on
>sabbaticals, roving reporters, veterinaries, rock musicians, actors,
>and dozens of other professions and vocations, not to mention those in
>their twilight years bumming around the States in a motorhome. Can
>none of these folks reliably receive goods from an eBay sale? Must
>they all return to their confirmed address in order to collect the
>goods?
>
>MM
Yes, that is very true. But that is what make PayPal so special as
compared to accepting Credit Cards directly through a standard
merchant account.
If I accept a VISA let's say through a standard merchant account, I
have no way of verifying that the address provided to me is the
buyer's "real' address. Thus I am open to fraud on at least 2 fronts:
1) The card holder claims that he did not receive the merchandise; or
2) The card holder claims that he did not authorize the payment, such
as in the case of a stolen card. In either case, I would be beat as I
would have zero "real" proof of the transaction.
If I pay through PayPal on the other hand, I am protected in several
ways: 1) I know for 100% certain that the address I am shipping to is
the card holder's "real" address provided of course it is a confirmed
address. 2) I have 100% proof of delivery to that "confirmed" address
which will be acceptable by "any" credit card company as proof of the
transaction. 3) If the buyer still refuses to accept that he
authorized the transaction, and issues a chargeback against PayPal, he
will more than like lose his PayPal account as that is something which
is specifically stated in the PayPal agreement.
Did you know that 90% of all eBay sellers now accept PayPal as one of
their Payment options. You will find that most of the scammers do not
accept PayPal. The reason should be obvious.
There are those who state that they did issue chargebacks against
PayPal and they still have their PayPal accounts in tack. They are
simply not telling the truth. Ronald I suspect is one such person
which is why he now holds such a vendetta against PayPal. After all,
Ronald's transaction was for a mere $28.
There are several other reasons why you are much better protected,
both as a buyer and as a seller if using PayPal, but that will be for
another time. ie. My book!
SCAM Buster
dobypinch
Well if you choose your categories and are patient it is probably worth the
risk. I once took a real estate appraisal course and to get an acceptable
value you need a) knowledgeable buyer and knowledgeable seller b)
sufficient time generally considered no less than 60 days and c) I forgot
the third one. Auction sales are not to be used in comparables as they are
considered distressed sales. In my opinion ebay's most common selling
format is a auction/sealed bid sale hybrid. Often the seller is not
knowledgeable and lists low as it costs less to list low and the ebay
auction time format probably is not long enough and lots of folks wait to
the very end and may get distracted, I have snoozed and lost out on good
deals. if your category of interest generally closes an 30 cents on the
dollar and there is a 5% chance of a total rip off and a 15% chance of
falsehoods in the listing or email responses in the long run you will come
out ahead. My free advice is not to trust anyone who locks the capital
letters on.
Also depends on what you need or want. If you have a 50 year old tractor
with a cracked head and can't find a good one after spending hours on the
phone long distance to tractor parts lots you can have ebay email you when
one shows up in their system. ebay has created a niche for people to take
tractors apart and sell the pieces which did not exist before. Those folks
do not want a negative feedback saying they listed a good part and it was
junk. With all the mergers of companies and changes of distributors large
chunks of parts inventories find their way to ebay every now and then where
supply far out paces demand.
As to whether you are more secure sending a postal money order through the
mail making ripping you off mail fraud or playing the pay pal game has been
debated here before I really do not know which is better but most of the
folks taking tractors apart (at least the brand of tractor in my favorite
searches) do not accept pay pal.
If you would specify what category you are thinking of doing some buying in
perhaps I could be of more help.
Fran
MM wrote in message ...
oBay
If this is such a Universal condition for PayPal's protection of their
own users...why does PayPal even allow the UNconfirmed category to
exist? Why not require everyone using PayPal to be 'confirmed' at all times?
--
rolob...@earthlink.net
I's bid on that for a bit 'o' the bleedin' obvious!
tlagiloi
but then it seemed obvious....
they want a certain -looseness- so bad things can happen
to a % of their clients....and still support scammers
which makes ebay $$$$
SCAM Buster
wrote:
>SCAM Buster wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:25:11 +0100, MM <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:11:53 +0100, MM <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >>I have yet to buy or sell anything on eBay. This is because hardly a
>> >>week goes by when I don't hear something negative about eBay or
>> >>PayPal, either in the press or on the internet. Obviously, the number
>> >>of transactions greatly exceeds the fraudulent cases, but it seems
>> >>when something does go awry, the little guy is more or less left in
>> >>the lurch to sort the problem out for himself, at his cost. I just
>> >>wonder whether the risk is worth it. Also, why is there no competition
>> >>for eBay worth the name? The competition such as it is is like minnows
>> >>to eBay's whale. Purely on fees alone, I should have thought a more
>> >>"seller-friendly" company would have started up by now.
>> >>
>> >>MM
>> >
>> >This is an example of the kind of scam I'm talking about:
>> >
>> ><quote (from another newsgroup)>
>> > had a similar experience with a buyer in March who bought 5 CDs in 4
>> >seperate transactions and provided a unconfirmed address.
>> >I sent all the CDs and about a month later received positive feedback. However
>> >110 days after the initial transaction I received notification from
>> >Paypal of 4 chargeback claims which after a cursory investigation by
>> >them, they supported. I lost £32 worth of CDs plus £28 in fees by
I would agree, except that PayPal is International, and the CC
approval process in some Countries (and even in some areas of this
Country), does not facilitate Address Confirmation.
SCAM Buster
SCAM Buster
wrote:
>always kinda wondered that myself......
>but then it seemed obvious....
>they want a certain -looseness- so bad things can happen
>to a % of their clients....and still support scammers
>which makes ebay $$$$
>
PayPal would love nothing better than to be able to confirm "all"
shipping addresses, Tlagiloi. The problem is that the CC processing
facilities of some Countries (and even some areas within Canada and
the USA) do not have that feature.
SCAM Buster
tlagiloi
killfile me already like you said you would!
anything you say is IGNORED.
you're a known liar....
so can't believe anything you say.....
you're the scammy who cried wolf one time too many......
next thing you know you'll say.....look! the sky is falling!
fool me once, shame on you......
fool me 2x.....not gonna happen......
there were your racist comments....your lies.....
your constant badgering & belittling of people without provocation....
and then there's those aspects of your personal life.....
that came out on this group about you and your sex with your pet....
that are just too disgusting for words......
go away.....
SCAM Buster wrote:
>blah blah blah blah blah
>
> SCAM Buster
C.h.R.i.S /-\ H.e.A.t.H.e.R
"MM" <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n7fsg1lr29rgej4rh...@4ax.com...
The confirmed address is that which matches the credit card billing address,
and need not be the persons main home.
Most people who are on the road, certainly professionals would have someone
at "home" to accept the mail.
There is also mail forwarding, PO Boxes, mailing addresses etc etc.
What does it matter where they are, as long as delivery has been made and
proven?
Chris
C.h.R.i.S /-\ H.e.A.t.H.e.R
Ron, I'm sorry but you wrong.
Someone sends me an item, and i'm not in. Someone else signs for it -
delivery has still been made.
It need not be the intended receiver who signs for the item, but the item
has still been delivered anyway. That is where the buck stops, at delivery.
Of course eBay/PayPal don't have the manpower to police every auction. It is
not realistic to expect so. I'm sure your local crime figures prove that
even the wealth of the richest countries cannot offer 100% protection from
crime.
eBay is NOT a safe haven for crooks either. The power of the "community" is
police in itself, and you will find that in areas which have neighbourhood
watch and general community policing by citizens, crime is low, and crime is
prevented.
Trust me ron, if eBay/PayPal was as bad as you claim it is, then neither
would still be in business.
Put it this way, you can call them scammers all you like, but I'm the one
who made a successful (goals surpassed) income off ebay, and still makes one
via paypal. I worry not! I don't need to :)
Chris
C.h.R.i.S /-\ H.e.A.t.H.e.R
"dobypinch" <doby...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:M_wPe.1429$rj.801@lakeread07...
> HI,
>
> Well if you choose your categories and are patient it is probably worth
> the
> risk. I once took a real estate appraisal course and to get an acceptable
> value you need a) knowledgeable buyer and knowledgeable seller b)
> sufficient time generally considered no less than 60 days and c) I forgot
> the third one. Auction sales are not to be used in comparables as they
> are
> considered distressed sales. In my opinion ebay's most common selling
> format is a auction/sealed bid sale hybrid. Often the seller is not
> knowledgeable and lists low as it costs less to list low and the ebay
> auction time format probably is not long enough and lots of folks wait to
> the very end and may get distracted, I have snoozed and lost out on good
> deals. if your category of interest generally closes an 30 cents on the
> dollar and there is a 5% chance of a total rip off and a 15% chance of
> falsehoods in the listing or email responses in the long run you will come
> out ahead. My free advice is not to trust anyone who locks the capital
> letters on.
There is a simple business rule that applies to anyone selling:
Know your product, Know your buyers, Know its worth, and you know you have a
sale.
Buyers can fall in love with a product on appearence alone, but they can
fall out of love if you can't tell them more about it. Keep the buyer
interested. Once they lose interest, you have all but had it - and you are
not a good salesperson.
NEVER sell anything you know nothing about. The mystery is a novelty which
soon wears off. Repeat business is doomed.
If you sell Art Deco furniture, and you describe it well, are well informed
about it, and it's history, you will have buyers asking you if you can
obtain x,y or z. Why? Because they know you know your stuff on the subject,
and i'd rather pay more (as a collector) for someone who is likely to
swiftly obtain other items I may be interested in.
Have you ever come across a seller who contacts you with "I have found
something I know you will love..." - They took the time to a) know you, know
what your tastes are, and they will inflate your own budget due to that. As
a seller, in my favour, as a buyer I am a sucker for buying things I don't
need, but I dearly want them!
Compare that to a catalogue of a mismatch array of items from another seller
asking "Surely there is something there you want" - maybe so, but would he
get as much for it as the other seller. I very much doubt it!
As a seller, when communicating to prospective buyers, collectors, I like to
guage what their tastes are, and there are tricks of the trade to get them
to tell you what they want without them knowing it.
Key to success is research and hard work. Dont just stick any old crap and
expect to be a huge success. Success is not defined by sales, but by the
value of those sales, and the value of the buyers, their friends, and the
sales they generate. I used eBay as a stepping stone. I am very fortunate to
say that the majority of my buyers keep in contact, informing of additions
to their collections...(ala, one of the tricks of the trade above).
I genuinely love what I do, it's never been a case of whacking out items and
counting the cash per se. I am a seller who prides himself on 110%
satisfaction in the products I sell. I'm good at what I do, because the
effort I put in is effort that is hard to match.
>
> Also depends on what you need or want.
Rule of thumb. A buyer will pay less for something they need, and more for
something they don't want. :) - a lot has to do with impluse buying, thus
neglecting their research into what it is they didn't want, but bid anyway.
I once had a buyer in the states, ship her a book to a UK Hotel, where she
was travelling to for business. She told me she didn't want the book, but
she chose it because my item description made her laugh. Bought the book as
a way of remembering the laugh when faced with tough boring meeting - not
quite what she said, but a 30's career woman in a room of 50's yr old
business men can get dreary I suppose!
If you have a 50 year old tractor
> with a cracked head and can't find a good one after spending hours on the
> phone long distance to tractor parts lots you can have ebay email you when
> one shows up in their system. ebay has created a niche for people to take
> tractors apart and sell the pieces which did not exist before. Those
> folks
> do not want a negative feedback saying they listed a good part and it was
> junk. With all the mergers of companies and changes of distributors large
> chunks of parts inventories find their way to ebay every now and then
> where
> supply far out paces demand.
Supply and demand vary often. You'll know that antiques dealers stockpile
products when demand is low and supply is high, and when that is reversed.
Well, a dealer with a stockpile of items that are now high in demand, good
dealer!
I have a lot of stuff stockpiled, it has been getting higher for about 2
years - I am admant I can make a healthy return.
In terms of motor parts, I can imagine there is an influx of various parts
on the market.
In transport terms, if people consider the famous London bus, the
routemaster (i.e the bus you board/alight at the back) is nearing extinction
on general routes in London, thus is going to be a huge commodity for
collectors. Many were re-engined, and finding the original leyland engine
and parts for original models might see price shoot up, despite the fact
there should be a lot of them knocking around North America.
>
> As to whether you are more secure sending a postal money order through the
> mail making ripping you off mail fraud or playing the pay pal game has
> been
> debated here before I really do not know which is better but most of the
> folks taking tractors apart (at least the brand of tractor in my favorite
> searches) do not accept pay pal.
Pay by whatever method you choose, that would make me happy. There are some
unscrupulous people around, but if everything is done with tracking numbers,
there is less of a margin to be ripped off.
Chris
dobypinch
sorry if I use improper ediquete in cutting down the previous posts
>There is a simple business rule that applies to anyone selling:
>
>Know your product, Know your buyers, Know its worth, and you know you have
a
>sale.
Well you are approaching this from the sellers side often the seller doesn't
wish to invest the time and effort and just wants to have fun listing stuff
they got for virtually nothing or sell pieces they have left over. How is
someone who has an item supposed to know if the buyers who know it's worth
(you need two of them to bid it up) actually will brouse the category during
the 7 day listing?
The origional poster stated he had never bought or sold on ebay so he or she
has a feedback rating of 0. Should he or she choose to sell perhaps they
would be better off paying a 20% commision to an entity in the business of
listing stuff for others (with a feedback rating in the thousands) and not
to have to deal with the packaging. The chances of two folks who would run
the price up for a seller with 0 feedback is what?
As for stockpiling stuff I hope the police in your jurisdiction spend more
resources investigating and prosecuting burglerys than the ones in my
juristiction. The public coffers fill up much faster handing out $100 plus
motor vehicle tickets than prosecuting and incarcerating hoodlums.
Fran
SCAM Buster
wrote:
>
>sorry if I use improper ediquete in cutting down the previous posts
>
>
>>There is a simple business rule that applies to anyone selling:
>>
>>Know your product, Know your buyers, Know its worth, and you know you have
>a
>>sale.
>
>Well you are approaching this from the sellers side often the seller doesn't
>wish to invest the time and effort and just wants to have fun listing stuff
>they got for virtually nothing or sell pieces they have left over. How is
>someone who has an item supposed to know if the buyers who know it's worth
>(you need two of them to bid it up) actually will brouse the category during
>the 7 day listing?
>
That is business. There is no guarantee that any item will sell, or
that it will sell for the price the seller expected to get for it.
>The origional poster stated he had never bought or sold on ebay so he or she
>has a feedback rating of 0. Should he or she choose to sell perhaps they
>would be better off paying a 20% commision to an entity in the business of
>listing stuff for others (with a feedback rating in the thousands) and not
>to have to deal with the packaging. The chances of two folks who would run
>the price up for a seller with 0 feedback is what?
>
Unfortunately FB plays only a little part in an item being bid up as
far too many buyers ignore FB. I have seen items from sellers with
excellent FB close without a single bid even though the items appeared
to me to be quite reasonably priced. On the other hand, I have seen
digital cameras and Laptops bid up to far beyond their values, and yet
being sold by those with little or no FB (and yes, scammer included in
this one). Unfortunately, there is little logic in the minds of many
buyers.
>As for stockpiling stuff I hope the police in your jurisdiction spend more
>resources investigating and prosecuting burglerys than the ones in my
>juristiction. The public coffers fill up much faster handing out $100 plus
>motor vehicle tickets than prosecuting and incarcerating hoodlums.
>
>Fran
>
Most police forces concentrate on crimes involving weapons and
personal injury or death. They often leave "non-violent" crimes to the
insurance companies to investigate, and the courts to eventually
resolve if someone decides to sue. And you are right, it is a monetary
issue. If a cop spends 8 hours handling out tickets at a local radar
trap, he may take in more than $30,000 for the day (Yes, believe it).
If however he spends the same amount time looking for burglary
suspects, the only ones benefiting from that, even if he finds them,
would be perhaps the insurance companies. Besides, insurance companies
have their own investigators, and often get the police involved only
to report the incident and then later to file charges if anyone is
found to file charges against
SCAM Buster
C.h.R.i.S /-\ H.e.A.t.H.e.R
"SCAM Buster" <scamb...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:kbbug1t43bkuvpsj7...@4ax.com...
>
>sorry if I use improper ediquete in cutting down the previous posts
>
>
>>There is a simple business rule that applies to anyone selling:
>>
>>Know your product, Know your buyers, Know its worth, and you know you have
>a
>>sale.
>
>Well you are approaching this from the sellers side often the seller
>doesn't
>wish to invest the time and effort and just wants to have fun listing stuff
>they got for virtually nothing or sell pieces they have left over. How is
>someone who has an item supposed to know if the buyers who know it's worth
>(you need two of them to bid it up) actually will brouse the category
>during
>the 7 day listing?
>
That is business. There is no guarantee that any item will sell, or
that it will sell for the price the seller expected to get for it.
**
Exactly, but with hard work, you can have some idea of who will buy your
product, and the price you want to get for it.
Naturally, it doesn't always work like that, but if you sell something you
believe is junk, and it turns out to be not so junk afterall, whilst you are
happy it sold, you wouldn't be if you knew it was being sold to someone who
will sell it for 100 times what was paid for it. The fun element of ebay is
good for the novice. But listing anything for sale from my point of view as
a professional seller, I won't sell to bargain hunters :)
>The origional poster stated he had never bought or sold on ebay so he or
>she
>has a feedback rating of 0. Should he or she choose to sell perhaps they
>would be better off paying a 20% commision to an entity in the business of
>listing stuff for others (with a feedback rating in the thousands) and not
>to have to deal with the packaging. The chances of two folks who would run
>the price up for a seller with 0 feedback is what?
>
Unfortunately FB plays only a little part in an item being bid up as
far too many buyers ignore FB. I have seen items from sellers with
excellent FB close without a single bid even though the items appeared
to me to be quite reasonably priced. On the other hand, I have seen
digital cameras and Laptops bid up to far beyond their values, and yet
being sold by those with little or no FB (and yes, scammer included in
this one). Unfortunately, there is little logic in the minds of many
buyers.
**
I don't deal in electrical equipment, or at least, nothing modern. I
wouldn't buy a laptop on impulse, but it seems they do sell that way. The
bulk of my sales are collectible items, or items with a scarce availability
through normal channels. I know what I have, and who wants it, and what
they'll pay for it.
I do deal in regular items too, such as CD's and DVD's. Just for the impulse
factor, as it funds investment for other areas of business.
>As for stockpiling stuff I hope the police in your jurisdiction spend more
>resources investigating and prosecuting burglerys than the ones in my
>juristiction. The public coffers fill up much faster handing out $100 plus
>motor vehicle tickets than prosecuting and incarcerating hoodlums.
>
>Fran
>
Most police forces concentrate on crimes involving weapons and
personal injury or death. They often leave "non-violent" crimes to the
insurance companies to investigate, and the courts to eventually
resolve if someone decides to sue. And you are right, it is a monetary
issue. If a cop spends 8 hours handling out tickets at a local radar
trap, he may take in more than $30,000 for the day (Yes, believe it).
If however he spends the same amount time looking for burglary
suspects, the only ones benefiting from that, even if he finds them,
would be perhaps the insurance companies. Besides, insurance companies
have their own investigators, and often get the police involved only
to report the incident and then later to file charges if anyone is
found to file charges against
SCAM Buster
**
Firstly, I never said I stockpiled stock at home. I'm like any other
professional, the stock is in secure storage. The police point is mute. How
else are professionals supposed to store stock? Can't use burglary issue as
a way to stop selling!
secondly, the rest of that reply is accurate. It costs money to hunt
suspects of burglaries. Money has to come in to have police on patrol.
I should reply to the post made by Fran, but it isn't available on the
server! And i'm trying not to confuse by replying to both of you in one
post.
Chris
LINDA CUNDIFF
charge and you loose.
My thing is they will not allow me to leave,cancel all accounts ,just
go,seems it cannot be done. I have no problem with people doing what they
want with e-bay but be carefull ,haven't found anything that can remove them
yet .And have been trying for 4 months.news:djgrg1pisi02fun4h...@4ax.com...