So I have a worrie where hopefully you guys can help me with. I’ve heard a lot about sellers who got scammed simply because the buyer said he didn’t receive anything or at least not what he had purchased. If he then opens a case the seller kind of have no chance seeing that eBay/PayPal 9 times out of 10 sides with the buyer. This thought keeps me up at night (alright not really but it does scare me tho). What if you sell a high end item worth a couple of 1000s and somebody does this to you while you can’t do anything about it?
Straight forward: what do you guys (or girls) do to prevent this from happening? Is there a way to prevent this from happening or do you just need to take the risk that somebody doesn’t have bad intentions? Is there some way to prove that you shipped the (right) item so you have the advantage when somebody wants to pull a scam like that? I know that filming the process helps but personally I think it doesn’t make that much of a difference.
Thanks for the help and sorry if my grammar isn’t the best!
Over $10 I use tracking. Over $750 I use signature delivery. Once tracking shows delivered you are protected under eBay’s seller protection.
I have only ever been scammed and lost money on under $10 items when I don’t have tracking as it is an open and shut case whereby as you said eBay sides with the buyer. I can’t think many sales over $10 (besides international) where I lost the entire sale amount over a scammer.
In the theoretical worst case scenario where a buyer opens a fraudulent return and sends back a worthless item there isn’t a ton that can be done but that is exceedingly rare. 15,000+ eBay sales and I had it happen once on a ~$50 ish item that eBay decided in both of our favors (I kept money and eBay refunded buyer out of their pocket). If it ever happened with a multi thousand dollar item you would involve the police and open claims for mail fraud against the fraudster which would likely work quickly to resolve the issue. $10,000+ transactions happen all day every day on eBay and are shipped through the mail with no issue. Honestly the higher price you go it does get a bit scarier due to the values but I’ve noticed that the higher the price the less issues and the lower the price the greater the issues by far.
I would say just use common sense, the scammers are thankfully a small minority, I’d avoid fore sure buyers with 0 feedback or that ask weird questions. I’m not very familiar with selling on ebay, since I sell my stuff on other sites, but I learned that buyers that ask weird stuff or try to bargain the price alot should be blocked instantly. Also the cheaper my products, the worse the buyers are
But yeah, in general you should calculate your prices with a 2-3% buffer for those incidents.
I think I’ve mentioned this in the past, and it may vary depending on country. If you use the correct postage you should be insured up to the amount your item sold for.
If the person receiving it says they didn’t get it, the post office will refund you for the full value of your item as long as it does not exceed the coverage for that particular postal service. This also means that if any investigation is carried out, it will be done by the postal service, and I am quite confident if they start getting claims of items not being delivered to a particular address and conduct an investigation concluding the postman actually delivered the item, it will be passed on to the police.
Either way, if you are responsible enough as a seller to chose the correct coverage and postage for the item you are sending, you will be immune to this type of scam. Also you get to build a nice blacklist of idiots that pull it off once and then try it again and message you saying ‘I am trying to buy from you and ebay doesn’t let me’. So not only do you get immunity from scams but also catharsis.
Some sellers prefer to save a few bucks on postage and end up having bitter experiences, but I understand in some countries Coverage may be expensive. In my opinion, if you are not willing to pay full coverage for the sale price, at least get covered for the amount the card cost you.
