How trustful are experienced Sellers on Marktplaats.nl" ?

Hello everyone,
I have a good deal with someone who is from marktplaats.nl. The seller has a 4 year and a half experience on the website. However, he does not accept paypal transfers, only bank transactions via bank numbers.

It is worth noting this website does not have feedbacks on sellers, the only information one can hold about the seller is his experience on the website.

What is the best way to make sure the person will not scam me ?

Thank you :blush:

best way to make sure you donā€™t get scammed; donā€™t pay via bank transfer lol, thereā€™s no protection for you if he decides he doesnā€™t want to send his item

only pay with paypal

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There is no buyer protection at all. I have used the site to buy a lot and got scammed once on a low value item, scam rate may be 5% based on experience, be careful about red flags. No 1 day/week accounts, always ask for their personal info, call them if needed, though the latter two advices may cost you a legit purchase if the seller is not up for it.

To be fair anything high margin you can just pick up by car, nothing is far away in The Netherlands, it does depend on the value though. If the seller doesnā€™t allow pick-up then thatā€™s also a red flag.

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He has showed me a few pictures of previous successful deals with higher values, and given me personal infos. I just donā€™t understand why some sellers donā€™t create paypal accounts ā€¦ The deal is for a lower value than 80 euros so going by car more than 200km far from me is not worth it unfortunately.

Maybe because they donā€™t need or want a paypal, another good reason is people who are unwilling to deal with returns and customer satisfaction And dont want to deal with paypal claims.

Iā€™ve personally only been scammed once on Marktplaats by some buffoon who was using mint photos of a card and sending played RIP in peperoni 85ā‚¬ā€¦ i guess the good ol saying remains; if it looks too good to be true it probably is.

And a little faith in humanity goes both ways, be the better man and the good wil notice you, Amen x)

I have experience in both selling and buying from marktplaats. With sellers, the only big issue is that the cards are usually unprotected, or in worse quality then advertised. Unless you explicitly state how to protect the cards during shipment, chances are pretty high they are send in just an envelope, without toploader, sleeve, cardboard or anythingā€¦
As for buyers: More than 50% say theyā€™ll come, and then donā€™t show upā€¦ Itā€™s so damn annoying sometimes, especially since you free your own time for their arrival.

Then again, more than halve of the buyers / sellers on marktplaats are friendly and nice to deal with. I havenā€™t had any problem buying puzzles from over 10 different sellers; and apart from some quality issues, most cards arrived without a problem. And all buyers I had so far were very happy with my customer service, and everything arrived without a problem (except for one lost package, which I refunded after 2 monthsā€¦)

If he sends prove of previous listings itā€™s probably ok. Out of curiosity, where does the seller live? Maybe itā€™s nearby for me to pick up (although I currently donā€™t have a car available, so it should be very near for me to do soā€¦)

Greetz,
Quuador

I hate being a buyer
I hate being a seller
I avoid Marktplaats as much as I can, but itā€™s a necessary evil.

As Quuador says. If a card is advertised as NM, be ready to receive a LP card without a sleeve. Of course exceptions, some dealers know how to act normal, ship normal and really sell as advertised.

ā† Like this guy :slightly_smiling_face: :wink:

Greetz,
Quuador

Easy to say about yourself :wink:

But today I had another Marktplaats encounter that can go in the books. Guy agreeing with my offer, then contacting me if there were more cards I wanted to buy off him. I couldnā€™t find any on his listing, so I asked just randomly if he had a few common cards and he was for real asking 2 euro for a common! ā€œBut this is the Troll and Toad price listedā€, I quickly pointed him to PokemonCardMarket.eu where I could scoop up the same card for 12 cents. And suddenly asking the original listing price for the item he accepted my bid on.

And this is exactly why I donā€™t like to deal on Marktplaats. At least 75% of the sellers donā€™t know what they actually selling and think anything not in the current set in the store magically gains a lot of value. The few sellers that know their product are on the top end of ā€˜completed listingsā€™ prices on eBay and will not budge to make a sale.

Now someone here mentioned that too good to be true deals often are scams, thatā€™s probably exactly what happened with my minty Dutch Charizard copy that would be only 15 eurosā€¦ Too good to be true. So if I wouldā€™ve used common sense back then Iā€™d have zero scams till this date :grin:

We donā€™t accept Paypal though because thereā€™s the big risk of false claims and practically you cannot defend against them. Iā€™m still worried about those on eBay though, but so far (20 sales into it) I havenā€™t been scammed yet, but Iā€™m not outside my 45 days for international purchases yet. Iā€™m not sure if 30 respectively 45 days is the limit for a claim, or if youā€™re only safe to say that the deal is completed 6 months after the sale?

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I use Marktplaats every now and then, almost every deal went great. But like Quaador says: be aware of the red flags.

I always ask them if I can pick the card(s) up (even though I donā€™t plan on it), as said previously I avoid new accounts. I also donā€™t pay right away, I wait a day or sometimes 2 to see if they put the ad on reserved. AND I look at their listing + pictures, if i donā€™t trust it I google the pics in image search to see if it turns up somewhere else.
BUT in the end itā€™s all about trusting strangers on that site, if you use bank transfer.

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The guy has accepted to create a paypal account so at least there is that, he seems very cooperative and willing to provide information.

One thing I donā€™t understand with marktplaats is how low their prices are for some of the cards, not that Iā€™ll be complaining but thereā€™s definitely a possibility to have extremely good deals there :blush:

Thank you for your opinions guys

Low prices on Marktplaats are mainly caused by parents selling off their kids cards when they moved to the next hype. But, from experience they list their cards at low prices just to lure people to them. Low prices are fine, but for more then one occasion I offer a dude his asking price of like 4 euro for a Zard, and totally no reply. Suddenly there is a bid for 12 and he contacts me saying because I had the first bid and I can take it for 15. Shill bidding is a very common practice on Marktplaats since day one, and due to a lack of buyers protection, feedback systems etc. but it being part of eBay every good looking deal can be a total rip-off.

Oh ok I see

How in the world do they not have a feedback system, I cannot see many downsides of having one except abusive and fake reviews

Becauseā€¦ the site started off early 2000ā€™s as a place for people to sell their stuff without any fees. If I am not mistaken (really have to dig deep into my memory here) the original idea was Marktplaats being an online fleamarket where everybody can set up a stand and sell his or hers stuff. You buy what you see.

The whole thing that attracts people to it, is that they can sell stuff without having to pay fees (I believe only exceptions are motor vehicles) for any advertising, no commission fees and this all comes with the downside of no feedback system and no buyers protection. This combined with the fact 95% of the transactions are done via bank transfer, and the law states if you transfer money yourself you basically take full responsibility for any possible loss.

I am not trying to scare people out of Marktplaats. But it being a part of eBay without enforcing basic things like eBay does devalue the Dutch eBay website (we miss a lot of features due to this, like e.g. Best Offer, no coupons etc.). I have an account on Marktplaats for over 10 years but that doesnā€™t mean anything. Because there is nothing that tracks your transactions, sales and purchases.

Just be careful with Marktplaats, it does nothing to protect you, your purchase or your money. All you can hope for people are sincere or have brains which allow them to see your point of view and accept PayPal etc.

Because the whole site was based on pickup, for dumping the old furniture, kitchen, tv set, stuff people replaced and were gonna take to the dump, instead marktplaats gave them a second chance to people who could still use them for a really low price.

It was never meant for some PokĆ©mon card flippers to dig in, itā€™s also not fair to call it the dutch ebay, yes Ebay acquired it but it wasnā€™t founded by Ebay nor does it share any features, bidding on marktplaats is most of the time pointless because it isnā€™t binding to buyers, and there is no ending date.
Itā€™s more comparable to Craigslist.

Honestly making the seller get a paypal to me seems overkill as hell, sometimes you just gotta take risks and trust your feelings. X)

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