ebay for cash

[nwo75200]

Quote:

Originally Posted by simbob

well any body got any ebay scare story's? ie you got ripped off by someone?

yes i have

I've bought a gf4ti 4600 that came DOA and the seller did not want to give me my money back

[fpantovich]

I have been selling off and on on eBay for a few years now...just take it slow is the best suggestion...just like anything, don't try to rush to make the big bucks, heh...if you are just gonna sell a few of your own things on there or whatever, then eBay is great...if you are going to try to become an eBay eCommerce Seller, then you need to deliver a good product at a reasonable price and ship it as quickly as possible...the faster the product gets to the customer, the happier they will be. Just be certain that you put disclaimers, warranty info and all other pertinent information in the auction itself. Always make the auction very professional as this will make the customer feel more comfortable bidding.

As for a horror story, yeah, I have a bad one. Back when I used to play Diablo 2 LoD, I was a huge SoJ reseller. I would buy them super cheap and sell them at about 3-4 times my cost. Well, as with any business, there were a ton of scammers.

Back before PayPal was bought by eBay, it was VERY easy to put in a fraudulent claim for not recieving goods on digital content, such as in-game items. Well, within the course of 2 weeks, I had 3 different people buy out the vast majority of my auctions. Totalled to right around the $750-850 mark for all of them combined.

Well, I accepted the payments because they had large eBay ratings and were PayPal verified. I don't leave feedback as a seller until it's been left for me, so I had them leave me feedback after the delivery. They did so, which had no power back then with PayPal.

Well, at the 30 day mark, every single one of them put in a fraudelent seller claim on PayPal against me and won, even though I print screened every transaction ever done and kept copies of all the e-mails. I sent all those to PayPal and I didn't even get a response. They just refunded the money no questions asked or answered. So, I lost the profit money and the out-of-pocket costs for all those SoJ's.

I was quite annoyed, but I just got past it and made my eBay Auction rules even more strict and descriptive and put an agreement on digital content in there, heh. Anyways, good luck, ttyl.

[njolakoski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fpantovich

I have been selling off and on on eBay for a few years now...just take it slow is the best suggestion...just like anything, don't try to rush to make the big bucks, heh...if you are just gonna sell a few of your own things on there or whatever, then eBay is great...if you are going to try to become an eBay eCommerce Seller, then you need to deliver a good product at a reasonable price and ship it as quickly as possible...the faster the product gets to the customer, the happier they will be. Just be certain that you put disclaimers, warranty info and all other pertinent information in the auction itself. Always make the auction very professional as this will make the customer feel more comfortable bidding.

As for a horror story, yeah, I have a bad one. Back when I used to play Diablo 2 LoD, I was a huge SoJ reseller. I would buy them super cheap and sell them at about 3-4 times my cost. Well, as with any business, there were a ton of scammers.

Back before PayPal was bought by eBay, it was VERY easy to put in a fraudulent claim for not recieving goods on digital content, such as in-game items. Well, within the course of 2 weeks, I had 3 different people buy out the vast majority of my auctions. Totalled to right around the $750-850 mark for all of them combined.

Well, I accepted the payments because they had large eBay ratings and were PayPal verified. I don't leave feedback as a seller until it's been left for me, so I had them leave me feedback after the delivery. They did so, which had no power back then with PayPal.

Well, at the 30 day mark, every single one of them put in a fraudelent seller claim on PayPal against me and won, even though I print screened every transaction ever done and kept copies of all the e-mails. I sent all those to PayPal and I didn't even get a response. They just refunded the money no questions asked or answered. So, I lost the profit money and the out-of-pocket costs for all those SoJ's.

I was quite annoyed, but I just got past it and made my eBay Auction rules even more strict and descriptive and put an agreement on digital content in there, heh. Anyways, good luck, ttyl.

Now this is the worst story I ever heard. That must have sucked to lose all that stuff. Id be so pissed

[-FMA]

Why the crap did you quote that whole post?!?

Anyway, *boom*, awesome post, very nice job!
(Tell Detritus I love you)

[fpantovich]

yeah, I was VERY pissed, but the way PayPal was back then, unless you had a tracking number and delivery confirmation, they didn't care what other stuff you had as other means of proof. It is a little better, now, however, ever since eBay bought them out, heh. Thanks, ttyl.

[dzee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by -FMA

Why the crap did you quote that whole post?!?

Anyway, *boom*, awesome post, very nice job!
(Tell Detritus I love you)

Who cares why he posted it all
why you on 14k & it takes 10minutes to load up text or something

[*boom!*]

Quote:

Originally Posted by -FMA

(Tell Detritus I love you)

Oh...I will.

Like anything, feedback will tell the world about a buyer or seller and, like I said before, the items that you sell will also lead to certain clientele. Of course, feedback is not a guarantee but I can't tell you how many times we get questions from newbie buyers not understanding why the seller they bought from is so horrible when they have a fb rating that's horrible and the comments by other buyers are horrible as well. If you do your research, you should be fine as a buyer. Sellers don't often get screwed over (unless there's false claims with the post office or PayPal) because the product is in your hands until the transaction is completed i.e. you aren't out your product if the buyer doesn't pay.

One thing to watch out for is product swapping. I've never had the problem but posting on eBay's boards will open your eyes to many things. Basically a buyer will purchase an item, claim it was poorly described, damaged, etc. and ask for a return only to swap an item they own for a better one, yours. There are a few ways around this. If a buyer claims that an item was damaged in shipping and insurance was not purchased, ask for a picture of the item. I had a buyer do this to me once and after I asked for a picture I never heard from them again. I know sellers that use a pen with ink that's invisible except when held up to blacklight. That way if a buyer requests a return then you can tell them you will issue a refund when you verify your seller's mark. If the mark isn't there, you know that you can deny the claim. Fortunately, dealing in the antiques and collectibles market lends one towards dealing with a more upstanding set of people, if you will. You aren't likely to sell a carnival glass bowl to an 18 year old McDonald's employee that will ask you to wait to be paid until they can get enough cash together. I'm not stereotyping...I'm just giving a point.

The fact is that fraud is a possibility but by carefully chosing your buyers (eBay allows you to set it up so that any buyer with a negative feedback rating or with any non-paying bidder strikes against them in the prior month cannot bid) and sellers, researching their feedback both left for others and received, you can get a pretty good feel for the person you're dealing with. Also picking items to sell that are not typically items that a 14 year old kid hijacking his mom's account will bid on, is also a way around some of the eBay pitfalls.

Is there anything else anyone would like to know?

[FatalException]

I've been selling on-and-off on eBay since 1998. The only bit of advice that I have to add for people new to eBay is that PayPal is the devil. I have had such difficulty and trouble with PayPal that I've stopped accepting it. Instead, I only accept BidPay and money orders sent through the mail as payment. Let me explain my dislike for the PayPal Giant...

See, a while back, Paypal popped onto the scene as THE way to pay for online auctions. Paypal was its own company when it started... it has since been purchased by eBay. eBay charges fees for using their service to list items. They also charge fees based on the ending value of the item you are selling (taking away still more of your money). That's ok, in my opinion - they're providing you, the seller, a venue to display and sell your stuff. Now, let's see what PayPal does. They charge fees for RECEIVING money (on all accounts except Personal Accounts - which are basically useless). Now what do you, the seller, get by being able to accept this payment online? You can accept a credit card or bank account payment transfer - two things which actually add convenience for the buyer, not the seller... as long as you get your money, does it matter to you HOW you got it? Ok, so PayPal speeds up the turn-around time so the product gets to the buyer faster by eliminating the shipping time from the buyer to the seller. Again, as the seller, as long as you get your money in a timely manner - does the extra 4 or 5 days of waiting for the buyer's letter containing their money order to get to you really impact you in any way? No. But the BUYER won't get their product as quickly... again, the speed benefits the buyer, not the seller.

Oh, and Paypal also provides transaction security and insurance... again, for the buyer. As a seller, Paypal can decide to cancel or suspend your account for investigation based on a single complaint from a single customer saying the product you shipped wasn't right or never arrived. So you, as the seller, pay a FEE to PayPal (and in turn, eBay) for all of these benefits to the BUYER... almost none of which benefit you, the SELLER. So why aren't buyer's paying these fees for these services? I don't know the answer, but that's just how PayPal, and in turn, eBay have decided to run things.

Bidpay, on the other hand (a Western Union company), doesn't require the seller to record a bank account number with them (a good thing for people who don't want their personal information stolen, as has been happening more and more frequently in the news lately.) All that is needed is a physical address and email address (you CAN tie a bank account to your BidPay account so you can accept the money right into your bank account, though I don't do this). If you don't tie a bank account to your BidPay account, you recieve your money from Western Union in the form of Money Orders mailed right to your door. They mail the money orders as soon as payment has been made - they don't hold the money until the product gets to the buyer or anything silly like that (which is called an Escrow service).

So why use BidPay? Simple - the fee for the convenience of SENDING the money is charged to the SENDER (the buyer). You, the seller, end up with ALL of the money you are due. For instance, if you sell something for $110 on eBay and a buyer pays you with PayPal using a credit card, the buyer gets charged $110 and you, the seller, only get about $103.00 (the $7.00 is taken away in PayPal fees). In contrast, if you sell something for $110 on eBay and the buyer pays with BidPay using a credit card, the buyer gets charged $117.00 and you, the seller, get $110.00 exactly, the amount of money you are REALLY due for your item. BidPay provides the same convenience and service as PayPal, but it places the fees where they belong - with the person sending the money and benefiting from the services of instant payment... not with you, the seller.

[*boom!*]

One thing to consider is that there are buyers that will only use PayPal if someone is offering it so unless you have a unique enough item that there's not another seller out there selling the same item, then you could actually lose money by not accepting PayPal.

For example, you have an item starting at $10 and accept PayPal, buyer 1 uses money orders, buyer 2 uses PayPal.

Buyer one places a proxy bid of $35, buyer 2 places a proxy bid of $37 so the item ends at $35.50.

If you don't accept PayPal buyer one places a proxy bid of $35 and buyer two doesn't place a bid at all so the item ends at the starting bid of $10.

I'd rather pay PayPal fees on a $35.50 transaction than get a money order for $10.

Of course if you sell items that are highly sought after then you might get the bids no matter what. Like I said before, I sell antiques and collectibles. I have had items end at $20 or higher with only a couple of bidders and 10 or less views. I could have easily lost out on money with what I sell.

[FatalException]

On the same token, I've found a large number of buyers don't even look at the payment options before bidding - frequently they bid (and win) my items and try to pay me with PayPal, only to find that I don't have a PayPal account. I email them and tell them about BidPay (and include a well-written PDF document that I've made outlining my reasons for declining PayPal), and then provide them with the option of mailing their payment or using BidPay. Not a single person has left me negative feedback or complained about my policies - if people want to get their product quickly, I find they elect to use Bidpay. Otherwise, they use money orders. And usually, from the research I've done and the research I've used on Andale, my items (just run-of-the-mill used computer components, for the most part) my items sell for prices above the average of similar components, some of which are even new in the box.

I'm just putting BidPay out there so sellers realize they have an option. While some buyers may not bid because they see PayPal isn't accepted, I don't think that's the case for most buyers on eBay.