4 Tips to Help You Avoid eBay Scams

There are a whole host of people that have been scammed and defrauded on eBay, with many following the ebay scam emails they are sent. eBay is meant to be a place that is fun to bid on and sell items, but, it has now been a fun place to bid on items and to sell items – you should be aware of a few tips to help you spot scams and how to avoid them, or you will quickly become a person who has lost their money to eBay scams. Now, if you have been already scammed, then there are some immediate actions that you should take to correct the situation, but, generally in many instances the scammer gets away with it! The best thing you can do is to take the following steps to avoid being scammed:

1. Use Paypal when buying stuff – you could avoid some scams easily by utilising the payment method of Paypal, when you are a seller or a buyer. eBay owns Paypal, and generally Paypal is the preferred method to be used by people who sell and buy on ebay, why?  Well, if you are a buyer and you have been scammed or the item is less than satisfactory when it arrives you can open up a dispute and demand a refund. Paypal requires the seller to show proof of postage and that it arrives in the same condition to you as it was sent, or they will generally return the money you have paid to your account.
2. Use Paypal when selling stuff – when you are a seller you are best to only accept Paypal as a payment method. This will prevent a check from bouncing or the chances of the buyer initiating a credit card charge dispute. Instead, the buyer who is trying to scam you will have to dispute the charge through Paypal, and with you already having the proof that the product is shipped you can combat these scammers.  However, you won’t be able to prove that the product has arrived in the condition that was expected by the buyer, if you have a case of a refund, then you should demand the item be returned to you before the refund is issued.
3. Avoid the bidding scam – this is where two separate ebay accounts are setup, with inly one person operating both of them, or with a friend having two separate ebay accounts.  What happens here is a very small bid is placed on the auction item with one of the accounts, and this is followed by a very high bid from the other ebay account. Just before the bidding is due to end, the high bid is cancelled or withdrawn and this leaves the low bidding amount that wins the auction. However, some sellers have gotten around this by placing a reserve price on their bids which acts as a ‘hold’ to secure the lowest winning bid possible for any one auction item.
4. Place a notice on your pages – If you are selling on ebay, then you can further protect yourself by putting a notice on your auction pages that you have the right to back out of the sale, saying that you can do this if you think there is a fraudulent buyer on the auction. As a buyer and a seller you should also be cautious of spoof emails, as many times they appear to be from ebay but are not. The email can claim that they need to verify your details, such as login data for your eBay account, providing you with a link to confirm  However, if you follow that link, the site will look exactly like ebay, but is a scam site where they will get your ebay account login details as well as your credit card and Paypal account details too! eBay won’t ever ask you to do this especially by email, and if you do receive an email like this then you should report it to ebay immediately!

If you let scammers into your ebay arena then it may spoil your eBay fun!  The best advice is just to use common sense and air on the side of caution, ensuring that everything will run smoothly. If you notice something suspicious the to avoid getting into an ebay scam, report it.