wanna buy something from ebay but no idea

K

kenny1999

Member
interested in a good offer by someone - he/she is a member since 2000 with seventy thousands something feedback and 99.6% positive feedback for the last 12 months. Is it considered to be low risk and safe buying from him?

most of time worrying about knock-off products.
 
Well yeah, that's a good profile. Ebay isn't 100% safe but I'll make the buy with that profile. Link to the item?
 
I always looked at the number of sales he has and the personal feedback. I also suggest using a paypal account. Just in case now or later a sale has to be negotiated.
 
From someone who buys stuff from ebay often: It's probably safe. I usually test it out and first buy something cheap that I need/probably don't need to see if they are legit.

Most of the time if they have a 99.6% positive rating, they are OK. Sometimes reading the negative/positive reviews is helpful. If it's a seller from China then a lot of times the negative reviews are about shipping etc. But I would read their reviews first and then... take the chance.

Hope that helps! :)
 
I wouldn't worry too much,As a buyer your pretty much always covered by Paypal if something goes pear shaped and Ebay always tends to favor the buyer also.

Id buy from that user,Infact my latest Ebay purchase i made his rep is 99.4 positive. :)
 
Sounds like you're overthinking it.

Also, as above you have buyer protection in case it isn't as described.
 
Thank you for all comments.

Yes I know about ebay's buyer protection. However, I just don't want to go through all the hassle of reporting to ebay, waiting, and returning the goods. I want to avoid risky seller at the first place, that's why I am asking here.

99.6% on 77xxx feedback is good rate, right
 
Facedesk.

You tell me, does 99.6% positive transaction rate make you comfortable enough to buy something?
 
With a seller I see with large over head I always search the negative feedback for the item and see if people had a problem with it.

So if the item listed is: Cell phone charger T888. I will go to his feedback, click on the negative feedback from the last 12 moths or whatever, chose 200 results, then press Control + F to find text on the page and find Cell phone charger T888. If there is more than one page of negative feedback go to each page of course and search for that item.

What really sucks is if the seller has made all items a private listing. Then you can't search for items that sold.
 
eBay is great for the buyers, but horrible for the sellers. A buyer can receive a perfectly working item, damage it during install, and then claim it arrived not as described and eBay will force the seller to accept the return and reimburse you.
 
Geoff said:
eBay is great for the buyers, but horrible for the sellers. A buyer can receive a perfectly working item, damage it during install, and then claim it arrived not as described and eBay will force the seller to accept the return and reimburse you.
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I have been hearing about this ''legends'' for years. but if there was no protection for seller, how come those guys risk selling expensive iPhone on ebay?

I once heard someone say that a buyer could receive a perfect nice product and then tell ebay that they don't receive anything and ask for full refund without returning the goods. I doubt.

I have tons of good products from good sources but I have not yet started a part-time business on ebay most likely because of the unsolved puzzlement.

I think there must be some secret behind the sellers to work out to protect themselves or otherwise they can be robbed off easily by those Nigerian or Chinese...
 
kenny1999 said:
I have been hearing about this ''legends'' for years. but if there was no protection for seller, how come those guys risk selling expensive iPhone on ebay?

I once heard someone say that a buyer could receive a perfect nice product and then tell ebay that they don't receive anything and ask for full refund without returning the goods. I doubt.

I have tons of good products from good sources but I have not yet started a part-time business on ebay most likely because of the unsolved puzzlement.

I think there must be some secret behind the sellers to work out to protect themselves or otherwise they can be robbed off easily by those Nigerian or Chinese...
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Nope that is correct. The buyer could receive a perfect iPhone, and claim he received a broken iPhone of a different model and eBay would make them refund him. The seller would likely get the swapped broken phone back and he loses out on a phone. This is why I don't sell on eBay anymore.

The reason people still do is it's rare that this happens, so usually a few out of every couple hundred isn't work giving up the business.

I was involved in one of these myself last year with a buyer who claimed the item I shipped him did not work, and he refused to try any troubleshooting. I had said no refunds once the item was bought, but he still filed a claim and eBay made me pay him back by automatically crediting him from my PayPal account.
 
Geoff said:
Nope that is correct. The buyer could receive a perfect iPhone, and claim he received a broken iPhone of a different model and eBay would make them refund him. The seller would likely get the swapped broken phone back and he loses out on a phone. This is why I don't sell on eBay anymore.

The reason people still do is it's rare that this happens, so usually a few out of every couple hundred isn't work giving up the business.

I was involved in one of these myself last year with a buyer who claimed the item I shipped him did not work, and he refused to try any troubleshooting. I had said no refunds once the item was bought, but he still filed a claim and eBay made me pay him back by automatically crediting him from my PayPal account.
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This is ridiculous.

I always don't understand and cannot believe that it's as rare as you said. Remember Ebay is open to the world. There are plenty of sneaky and intentional tech geek who are cheating every day every moments. Accessing to the internet, registering an account is very easy. If a phone can be cheated on ebay so easily as you said, I think most of the ebay business would have down already and only those selling cheap stuff stay. Now, 2015, I still see a lot of top-rate sellers selling expensive products to the world.

I believe there must be something about seller's protection.
 
Geoff said:
I had said no refunds once the item was bought, but he still filed a claim and eBay made me pay him back by automatically crediting him from my PayPal account.
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Yeah, it's lame they just yank it out of your account. Not sure if this is still the case but it used to be that when you got paid you could send the funds to another account. I had this happen once before where eBay auto-refunded the guy similar to your case where the item had no issues, the account went into negatives but there was no associated bank account. After a week or so they gave up calling and I never heard from the auction site again.
 
kenny1999 said:
This is ridiculous.

I always don't understand and cannot believe that it's as rare as you said. Remember Ebay is open to the world. There are plenty of sneaky and intentional tech geek who are cheating every day every moments. Accessing to the internet, registering an account is very easy. If a phone can be cheated on ebay so easily as you said, I think most of the ebay business would have down already and only those selling cheap stuff stay. Now, 2015, I still see a lot of top-rate sellers selling expensive products to the world.

I believe there must be something about seller's protection.
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Nope, just look online, sellers get the short end of the stick. eBay requires the seller to prove it was not a "not as described" item, which is basically impossible, unless you make a video of the device working, boxing it up, and dropping it in a mailbox. I've read many stories of something similar happening to people, and usually it's not very common but one time was enough for me, as well as many others.

When I stopped selling several months ago there was no seller protection. I've read stories of sellers with thousands of positive ratings and a 99-100% feedback rating, only to have a brand new eBay buyer file a claim "not as described", and eBay almost always sides with the buyer.

I'm sure they look at the number of claims per account, so one account can't be making countless claims without them catching on, but scammers can be smart.

beers said:
Yeah, it's lame they just yank it out of your account. Not sure if this is still the case but it used to be that when you got paid you could send the funds to another account. I had this happen once before where eBay auto-refunded the guy similar to your case where the item had no issues, the account went into negatives but there was no associated bank account. After a week or so they gave up calling and I never heard from the auction site again.
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I believe they will only take it out of your PayPal account, if you withdraw it to your bank they can't take it out, so in that case your PayPal account is suspended and you can't receive or transfer any more money - something not preferred if you're an active eBay seller.
 
I manage two client's Ebay accounts. Both have considered at one time or another to leave Ebay and open up their own web shops. They both had similar complaints about Ebay's ratings system and monthly fees. One client alone spends around 7000 Euros in monthly Ebay fees. Both of them thought they could save the monthly fees and create for themselves a customer base with a better rating system on an independent web shop. Although an independent web shop can be profitable, for some products it isn't a good business model. There were a few things they needed to consider: 1.) Sites such as Amazon and Ebay are popular because consumers can find everything they need in one place. Ebay is like an online mall. I know of customers who buy almost exclusively from Ebay. 2.) Their competition sells on Ebay. 3.) For the amount of products they sell, regardless of the fees, Ebay is still a profitable market for them.

After giving the clients some advice on customer service and how to raise their ratings, in the end they both stayed on Ebay. Plus, I installed an all-in-one e-commerce system that allowed them to more easily expand into areas such as Amazon and other similar online markets. And, through the e-commerce software I was able to set up an independent web shop with minimal cost.

Depending on your product, it's definitely worth it to sell on Ebay.
 
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WhoX said:
I manage two client's Ebay accounts. Both have considered at one time or another to leave Ebay and open up their own web shops. They both had similar complaints about Ebay's ratings system and monthly fees. One client alone spends around 7000 Euros in monthly Ebay fees. Both of them thought they could save the monthly fees and create for themselves a customer base with a better rating system on an independent web shop. Although an independent web shop can be profitable, for some products it isn't a good business model. There were a few things they needed to consider: 1.) Sites such as Amazon and Ebay are popular because consumers can find everything they need in one place. Ebay is like an online mall. I know of customers who buy almost exclusively from Ebay. 2.) Their competition sells on Ebay. 3.) For the amount of products they sell, regardless of the fees, Ebay is still a profitable market for them.

After giving the clients some advice on customer service and how to raise their ratings, in the end they both stayed on Ebay. Plus, I installed an all-in-one e-commerce system that allowed them to more easily expand into areas such as Amazon and other similar online markets. And, through the e-commerce software I was able to set up an independent web shop with minimal cost.

Depending on your product, it's definitely worth it to sell on Ebay.
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That is exactly it, you may lose a lot of money to eBay, but you are likely to have MUCH lower sales if you setup your own online shop, as why would they buy from some random company when they can get what they want all in one place? eBay is so easy to sell things on, if you want something gone in a few days almost anything can sell.
 
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