Even though I’m not that big of a seller on eBay, I’ve been receiving so many times private messages from people wanting to conclude the transaction outside of eBay so they can get a bit of discount. As far as I know this should not be allowed by eBay policies. So how do you guys behave in these situations?
I have nothing against discounting fees and giving people better deals. Also I personally like to respond to every message I get with a bit of kindness, no matter how ridiculous it might be. However I don’t feel comfortable putting myself into trouble to make someone else save literally a few bucks. I’ve tried to create an Instagram account with the same name of my eBay and putting that information on my personal page, but seems like nobody feels more appropriate to contact me there.
these people are just waste of time, I stopped replying to these kind of messages a long time ago. Most of the time people lure you outside of ebay just to haggle even more on the price.
I’d figure if the buyer is getting something out of it, the seller should be better off as well.
Clearly that’s not the case (and not that buyer’s intention), so don’t act on it.
If you want, you can have a standard message saved somewhere with a nice ‘no, thank you etc.’ that you can copy/paste to save you some time ánd remain kind to such a buyer.
Those buyers usually are not worth the time. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be polite about it if you’re going to reply anyway.
In my experience the buyer seems to think you owe it to them to make a deal since they are “saving” you on fees.
I stopped replying to these messages because the buyers seems to always want a tremendous discount and get upset when you don’t give them 30% off your list price.
A cautionary tale: I had an Urza’s Saga booster box up on eBay for $3300 or thereabouts. Buyer contacts me with a photo of his email address. To make a long story short, I end up selling the box to the guy for ~$2900 PayPal G&S. I then end the eBay listing. Within a week, I have a warning message from eBay and was charged almost $300 in final value fees on the item.
Point being: they have systems in place for detecting off-eBay deals. I’ve done off-eBay deals successfully a gazillion times, but you have to do it very carefully. I doubt that most buyers trying to work out a deal off eBay are trying to scam you. More often than not, it’s probably just someone trying to save some money. I don’t have an issue with dealing off-eBay, as long as the buyer has a long/positive feedback history. But I’m now much more careful than I was.
As a seller, I’d never accept the invite to do an off ebay sale from an ebay message. It’s not worth it to me to avoid those fees when I don’t know who the buyer is. Plus, there’s always the risk of ebay finding out and your account being dinged for it, really not worth it. Frankly, anyone who is serious about buying the item and can actually afford it will have no problem paying the ebay price.
As a buyer, I’ll search the ebay store handle and see if they have an IG tag. If they do, I’ll reach out and let them know I saw their item and am interested in it. I personally pay sticker price as any time I’m reaching out it’s because I can afford the item as is. Sticker price is paid to ensure a good relationship with the seller, I was willing to pay that price anyways and personally I always think having a good relationship with sellers is important. Never know when one is going to help out with a card you’re looking for down the road.
Ultimately, deals should benefit both parties and the vast majority of people messaging through ebay to get an off-ebay sale are only looking to save money on their end and not yours. It’s one thing to do someone a favour but you’d be taking on risk with little/no reward. Not worth it for an ebay sale.
Blocking them seems a bit dramatic. I message people sometimes my Instagram handle and have had several successful deals done that way where if the item just sold for $1,000 on eBay we do it for $960 or something privately and both save some money. I could see a lot of low ballers and scammers trying to do this though. Im surprised one of you guys got flagged for an image with an email address in it. That’s very surprising
I don’t think that’s why it was flagged. When you go onto a listing, there’s a contact seller button, and any message you send the seller through that is “regarding item #x.” So what I believe happened is the system saw that I ended an item that recently had messages sent about it. Then they can see that I received a PayPal payment from the email address that was (assumedly) attached to the eBay account that messaged me about the item in the first place.
I used to always get, “off eBay? Do you have an IG?”. I changed my eBay username recently and created an Instagram of the same name hopefully to funnel some sales off eBay. Lazy bastards can’t even search for my name so I still get those questions and I just reply I do all sales on eBay and it is against eBay policy to take sales off eBay so I don’t get blocked.
lol @ blocking ppl for asking. I hold no loyalty to Ebay and I’ve agreed to private sales. 10% fees + tax + shipping with Ebay not protecting me anyway? Why wouldn’t I entertain offers off-platform?
If eBay doesn’t do its job, they don’t deserve even 1% of your sale yet they demand 15% after eBay and PayPal are through with you. That doesn’t even account for shipping.
Screw Feebay. List things at high prices, put personal info in the description, take em down a month or so later after they’re sold.
I have done this before and it worked out great. I may have just gotten lucky. As the seller I used G&S on paypal. It’s risky however so is selling anywhere. Anyone could just clam you mailed them a brick.
I always try to buy my cards using PayPal friends and family or goods and services. Cheaper and eBay doesn’t collect the fee’s. I try to seek out members here’s eBays to shop from. Better to keep the money with in the community!
Hey guys, sorry for coming back to you late, I went to sleep just after posting the question.
I appreciate everyone’s advice. @sacari, if I blocked every one that sends me a message like that my blacklist would never end lol. Personally it would be definitely more in my style to copy-paste a default message like @megazone suggested, which I have considered doing. In my view it is a bit excessive to block, people might just not be aware this is not allowed. If they ask so, it probably means that they either do something similar when selling or have found some sellers complying with the idea.
I don’t blame your viewpoint though, after years of selling I guess you get tired of such things.
