BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

[Inspector507]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Junkman,
As the scammers venture into new arenas to do their nasty work, there's bound to be people that have been burned and will want to stay away. I, myself, have had good luck so far, even sold a tractor on eBay. I did get the scammers e-mails a lot when I listed the tractor. I have bought a lot more than I've sold. Guess my bottom line is.......I like it, I use it.......if someone doesn't like it or use it........that's their decision.

 

[JDgreen227]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

centex,

Although I have never done business with Ebay as a buyer or seller, I think you are wrong to label the entire business community there are dishonest. In every group there will be people who are trying to make a fast buck at the expense of honest folks and Ebay is not an exception. HOWEVER.....

Unless you can personally attest to your statement that every seller on that site is trying to rip people off, please don't apply such descriptions. There are sure to be some bad apples in every group and I am sorry if you have had past experiences that lead you to label Ebay sellers as scam/ripoff artists.

Personally, my reasons for never buying on Ebay is because of inexperience, and ALSO from reading posts like yours who make inexperienced potential buyers wary that your description may be the truth. You have done a disservice with your words to the honest sellers and I feel you should not post opinions of this type.

Bill

 

[del]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Centex said: paraphrasing

Isn't ebay another spelling of scam...


You are entitled to that opinion, I posted recently about
my experiences in seeing MY tractor that was sitting in
MY garage up for auction!!! Stolen pics, stolen description.
The one bidder was VERY GLAD he was advised of this

Getting these bogus auctions pulled down takes awhile as
Ebay has its hands full of stuff like this, but there are
what 3? 4? MILLION things on ebay at any one time?

Ebay is another spelling of Scam only if you also think
LIFE is another spelling of Scam. You just have to watch
out as they come at you from new angles. There could be
1000 auctions a day that are scams, 10,000, and the result
is that it is still the same amount of dishonesty you'll
find in any other buying/selling method. I've had about
500 transactions on ebay, stiffed once, encountered 2
complete morons. Everyone else OK or downright nice.

Buyer Beware is always a good policy.

But what Junkman said, their stock, hard working good people...
all true but I'd take issue with that in that Enron had
good people and rising stock too, and look where
they are.

You never know, everything's a crapshoot. Keeps us all on
our toes. Business is getting harder and harder, even dealing
with customers in business is getting harder, people play rough
these days, I have encountered more rude people the last two
years then I thought existed.

Which is probably one of the reasons I'd rather be digging
up a stump on my tractor then most other activities!

Dig on!

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif<font color="blue">D</font><font color="orange">E</font> <font color="green">L</font>/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[California]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

As Junkman said, There are a lot of good decent people on Ebay.

Its just such a large environment that it has a full cross section of humanity including a few of the worst - probably in the same proportion as any city.

What you need to survive there is some 'street smarts' to recognise a scam. If you've ever bought anything at a swap meet or other unregulated venue you probably already have some of this sense.

Here's a tip to sharpen your instincts before venturing into Ebay:

Go to the Usenet group alt.marketing.online.ebay and read steadily for an evening. That is where the reputable sellers, and also frequent customers for hard-to-find collectibles, gather. The atmosphere there is like tractorbynet. Everyone is decent and helpful.

You soon recognise a few wise and experienced contributors, a lot of people who disappear after asking a couple of 'how do I' questions, and there's always some poor turkey who sent payment via Western Union for an expensive laptop to a first time seller in Malaysia or Rumania.

I've sold used computer gear on Ebay intermittently since 1998, maybe $20,000 total in about 250 sales. Plus I've bought some tractor parts there. My feedback is flawless - 225 positive feedbacks and no neutral or negative. There are lots of sellers there with 10 times that much experience and *no* dissatisfied customers.

A couple of negative feedbacks among a seller's large number of positives shouldn't give alarm, but read each one carefully since it does describe a situation where the seller and buyer weren't on the same page. Either of them could have been unreasonable.

After an evening of reading at alt.marketing.online.ebay I think anyone will have a better sense how to make a satisfactory purchase on Ebay.

 

[OkeeDon]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Junkman, thanks. I only have 24 feedbacks from both buying and selling on EBay, but they are 100% positive. What that means is that everyone has been satisfied with my performance. I have also been satisfied with the buyers and sellers with whom I've dealt.

When I'm done building, I plan to do a lot more selling. I work very hard to make sure everything is described accurately and the experience is as smooth as possible, and I have earned that 100% positive rating. I absolutely resent anyone who tries to brand EBay as a scam. There are scammers there, as there are everywhere, but EBay itself is a community of people who are working hard to present the best possible buying and selling experience.

Blaming EBay for the scams is like trying to blame your own home community for the scams that are perpetuated on gullible people every day, in every community in America.

I suspect Centex made the remark in a moment of jest, and I hope he'd be willing to withdraw it.

 

[Richard]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Centex...

I bought (refurbished, but brand new "looking") floor nailer for the hardwood floor I installed.

I paid $340 for nailer (they retail at Home Depot for roughly $460 I think) and I paid $50 for the box of staples. So I had roughly $400 involved.

I used 1/2 box of staples, so sold the whole lot on EBAY and put a minimum reserve of $350 on the nailer AND included the staples with it.

So, for $350, they got a nice price, AND maybe saved them $50 if they needed a modest amount of staples.

Bidding took it to $513 and I cashed the cashiers check yesterday. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif He could have bought JUST the pneumatic stapler for less than that...

Did I scam him? I had pics of item, described it accurately... He gave me a good rating on the sale, but he could have also felt "taken", though obviously, he controlled his own bidding.

 

[Boiler74]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

I've sold a bit on ebay, and haven't had any problems. And for the most part, like many said, there are good people just using ebay to market to a very large audience. BUT, ebay does need to have some quality control. For example, there is a JD 5410 on right now with a Buy It Now price of $6,000 with free WORLDWIDE shipping. Come on, it seems to me that they could filter out these ridiculous and bogus auctions a little better.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3074766098&category=40108

 

[spencer200]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

As long as the scammers keep mass emailing out id forms for people to fill out, and the gulible keep filling them out this sort of thing will keep happening. Just the free world wide shipping anywhere on this tractor included should be enough to make anyone suspicious. Shipping half way around the world would cost half the selling price for and individual to ship.

 

[Tractors4u]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Here is something fun to do with these people. They obviously have some sort of automated response system when you click on "Ask seller a question". It doesn't matter what you say they comeback with their sales pitch and then tell you it is in Spain or Italy or who knows where. Click on "Ask seller a question" and say something like my dog is purple or your mother wears combat boots and see what happens. I would send comments saying "This is a SCAM" and their reply was thanks for showing interest in out ATV, blah blah blah.

 

[California]

Re: BUYERS:WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS ON E-BAY!!

Boiler474,

It gets even better. Looking at that seller's 200+ feedbacks, *none* are for selling anything. All the feedbacks I read were for his purchase of Sega game cartridges and some Dish Network access cards.

Now he has two tractors for sale. He says email to get on his pre-approved bidders list. He offers to deliver the smaller one for free.

This could possibly be legitimate, Dad using his kid's ebay account to move his tractors. But there are enough clues here to dissuade any sensible person from bidding without first going to see the tractor at the seller's home. If its too far, forget it.

Anyone asking to get on that bidders list shouldn't be surprised for a request to send funds to the Netherlands or Singapore as the next step. It looks like Sega Kid's account has been hijacked.

Before making an Ebay purchase, a little bit of thoughtful investigation can avoid a lot of disappointment!