How can I prevent this scam when selling on eBay?? 0

[Ivan Ivanovitch]

This is my hypothetical nightmare scenario:

A bidder wins my $2000 coin.  I send the coin insured with tracking via registered mail.  The buyer is a liar who receives my coin but claims the package was empty or had a junk coin to weigh it down.  Buyer complains to PayPal who usually sides with buyers. PayPal takes the money from me and sends it back to him. Tracking and insurance is useless because the package was successfully delivered.  So I'm out $2000 and the precious coin.  How can I protect against this scam?  And why isn't it happening constantly?  I considered making a video of me placing the coin in the envelope, sealing it, and handing to the USPS employee all in one continuous shot but I was told eBay and PayPal don't consider this sort of evidence in legal disputes.   

[Revenant]

Well, you'd pretty much have to catch them posting a picture of it elsewhere or otherwise evidencing possession of it. Good luck otherwise I would think.

[CBC]

You can limit bidding to only established ebay users who have more than X number of positive feedbacks as a buyer.  That won’t reduce your risk to zero but at least makes the scammer invest significant effort in creating a history of positive transactions.

[Crawtomatic]

8 hours ago, CBC said:

You can limit bidding to only established ebay users who have more than X number of positive feedbacks as a buyer.  That won’t reduce your risk to zero but at least makes the scammer invest significant effort in creating a history of positive transactions.

I've had a few large dollar auctions close lately with non-paying bidders so I looked into some of this recently.  

Buyer Management:  https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

You can block buyers that have caused cancellations due to unpaid items automatically.  You can choose how many cancellations and the length of time to apply it to.

I did not see a way to block bidders by feedback score automatically, however, when I relisted the items that had non-payment I specifically indicated in the body that bidders with less than 10 feedback and/or excessive negative feedback may have their bids cancelled.  Then I had to monitor the listings within the last 30 minutes, and especially within the last 5, to cancel any last minute shill bidders or trolls.

I work in insurance so I've always got concerns of fraud.  Fortunately I haven't had a bad experience in the 20 years I've been on eBay.  Lost or damaged packages, sure, but nothing major that I've ever felt may be fraudulent.

 

[Ivan Ivanovitch]

Crawtomatic, those are good ideas for dealing with non-paying bidders, but what about  bidders who pay and then claim the package they got from me was empty, so PayPal refunds their money at my expense.  This way they get to keep the coin AND the money.

[jtryka]

This brings up a recent experience I had as a buyer, which was similar (I suppose in your eyes I might have been the "fraudster" but this actually happened).  I ordered something off e-bay, it was relatively small value, perhaps $40 and the seller shipped it and I received an e-mail from USPS saying it was delivered and at my mailbox.  I thought this odd since it was 8 pm and I had already brought the mail in, so I checked again and there was nothing there.  So now what do I do?  If I complain to the seller that I never received it, they would say we have proof the package was delivered!  It looks like I'm just out of luck.  I filed a report with my post office that although it said it was delivered I didn't receive it, and I also noted that the mail I got earlier in the day actually belonged to my neighbor which I put in his mailbox 2 doors down.  They said they would investigate and I never heard anything, but a week or so later, my neighbor came by with the package!  So I got lucky, but it raises some serious concerns about fraud, but also on the unreliability of the post office today!

[agentjim007]

Always use buy it now with too high a price (but not too high to scare off legitimate buyers) and make an offer. Then you scrutinize the buyer best you can. Check feedback of course, how long on eBay, primarily buyer or seller, anything else you can think of. I like long time on eBay and primary seller. They rely on trusting buyers and normally treat their sellers the same way. Others too but check them out. If they are sellers google them see if they have a store. Or just sell to a dealer problem solved. NEN has always been fair with me. They need to make money but offers have never been insulting.

Edited April 27, 2021 by agentjim007