With the birth of the internet, scammers are able to reach more individuals than ever before. And unfortunately, with the technology available to them, these scams are appearing more and more legitimate every day. This can be hard for business owners who are trying to make a living selling on eBay. The time, money, and effort wasted on scammers can cost you more than you would ever imagine. This is why it is imperative to stop scammers before they have a chance to con you, to keep both you and your home business protected.
One of the most popular scams online today with auction websites is the overpayment scam. Scammers will offer to buy your item for significantly more than your asking price, saying that they want the item now and don't mind paying extra to get it. You, of course, agree, excited to make such a large profit off of an item that isn't really worth that much. But, there's a catch: the scammer wants to send you a personal check for more than what the selling price of the item is equal to. The instructions are that you cash the check, keep the appropriate amount of money for yourself, and then forward the remainder of the cash on to another individual, that the scammer supposedly owes money to. The scammer claims to trust you because he can tell you are a reputable seller.
When you take the check to the bank to deposit it, the bank will clear the check in five days. You think that this means there are no problems, and withdrawal the specified amount of money, ship the item off to the scammer, and send the additional money on to the person the scammer asked you to forward it to. Then, you find out a few weeks later that the check is actually a forgery, and now you are out both the money and the original item. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do in this situation to recoup your losses.
The reason this scam works is because banks in the United States are required to make available the funds from any check within five business days. A foreign check can take up to a few weeks to actually process, which means there is some lag time in between when the money is available, and finding out the check is actually legitimate. Scammers depend on this rule to make the scam work. They receive the additional money that you sent on to their "associate," who was either the scammer themselves, or someone working for the scammer. They also have the item, and you have no way of recovering it. The biggest problem in this situation is that you are not only out the money that was supposed to pay for the item, you are also required by law to pay back the bank for the amount of money you sent back to the scammer.
To protect yourself from this scam, never, ever accept a personal check from someone who wants to overpay you for the value of the item you are selling. This always means that the buyer is up to something. If they ask you to cash a check and wire additional money to someone else, do not fall for it. The only reason someone would ask you to do this would be if they were pulling this scam. A better idea would be to stick to PayPal, and refuse to accept personal checks. If someone tries to pull this scam on you, refer them to PayPal, and let them know they can sign up for free with their bank account if they would like to purchase your item.
As a buyer you are trying to find bargains i.e listings with the best price (Buy It Now Items) or listings with the fewest bids (Auction Items). Generally these listing are the ones that get the least amount of visitors, and most of the time it is because of missing keywords (Product Serial, Manufacture Name...etc) in the title field. Thus, the key is finding listings that contain misspelled keywords or listings that are missing important keywords in the title field. Since the default eBay Search box only searches the title field, you can often increase your chances on finding deals by checking the ?Search title and description? check box. The next thing you will need to know is the "Art Of Gaging An Item Price on eBay". A nifty way to find the going price for an item is by looking at the ended listings. To search for ended listings, simply click "Advanced Search" link found under the upper right hand search box. And then check the "Completed listings only" check box before beginning the search.
Always ?Find Reserved Price Auctions?. You will be amazed at how many people just don't bother bidding when they see the reserve price tag, most of times the reserve price is less then 10% of the item going rate which means huge savings. Remember however to place your bid in the last 10 seconds.
A nifty way to save cash on items is by offering sellers an end bid early option. The key here is that you will have to find recently listed item (less then 100 views) and from sellers with fewer than 50 feedbacks. Try to keep your initial offer to no lower then 10% of the regular eBay price (See Gaging Item Price).
If you are a pro on eBay then you will mostly likely only bid twice on an item. The first bid is optional and it meant to take the item out of the ?Buy It Now?, since you will be more likely to win the item at a lower price through an auction. The second bid should come on the last 10 seconds of the auction, this maybe longer if you are on dial-up
You can tell a lot about your competition (fellow bidders) by looking at their previously won items to see their bidding pattern. You will be amazed at how many people keep their last bid to a whole dollar, meaning you only need to add a cent to snipe them in the last 10 seconds. You will be more likely to win an item at a lower price on a weekday then a weekend. The reasoning is simple, less competition, most people with jobs will be unavailable or less likely to bid, and thus increasing the probability of winning the item at a lower price.
Did you know eBay occasionally issues Paypal coupons that could save you anywhere from (5 % -10 %) when paying for your eBay items.
You can save a lot from buying from sellers with little or no feedback. But again the key is knowing your seller so you don't get burned. Here is what I do before I place a bid, first I email the seller, asking him/her about the condition of the item. If he/she replies back then I check the email headers to get the remote ip address, I then go to a WHOIS database and verify the location of the seller. If everything is OK so far, I contact the seller through telephone to verify the item, its condition?etc. Remember that eBay only covers up to $175, so it's best to ask for insurance and always ask for shipping with tracking. Also I found its best to stick with Paypal as payment option.
As a buyer you need to be aware of the following points:
? Be suspicious of sellers with low rating. ? Be suspicious of sellers using stock pictures (pictures from manufacturers website). ? Sellers who use free email (Hotmail, GmailScience Articles, Yahoo..etc). ? Sellers who do not accept Paypal. ? Sellers who do not reply to email. ? Low rating sellers with 1 day listings.
Both Vickie Sayce & Anil Yadav are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Vickie Sayce has sinced written about articles on various topics from How to Sell on Ebay, How to Sell on Ebay and Parenting. If you want to make money on eBay while still raising the kids, visit to f. Vickie Sayce's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.
Anil Yadav has sinced written about articles on various topics from How to Sell on Ebay, Debts Loans and How to Sell on Ebay. Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to eBay, do please browse for more information at our websites.. Anil Yadav's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.