The first paragraph below is covered in our Motorcycle, and Scooter review purchasing guide, But we have gone much deeper here.

Many sellers on eBay are legit, but it never hurts to do your home work, and check them out.  Many small businesses have a web site.  We do and a toll free number as well.  We are also a member of the New England Better Business Bureau Our Company Member Id Number 92050.  A scammer will not go to these lengths to steal money, but rather would try and get you to send untraceable funds such as a Money Order, Money Gram, Cashiers Check, or even a Personal Check without giving you much information in return about them.  Even a Personal Check once it has been cashed, and cleared leaves you in a terrible bind. 

By looking at a Sellers feedback you can tell much about them.  I have personally reported 100s of phony items on eBay where the aucton was listed under a persons account who had not even used their account in some time, or they have never sold anything only bought stuff and now there is 20 items under their user account up for sale, or a few show cars, or the person has unbelieveable prices but zero feedback, and are a new user, has a very high value item with no reserve posted, or a very low Buy It Now price. 

This also happens on eBay frequently where scammers will clone another sellers listing, and then put a buy it now price for 5-6-7K on it when it is a 20K plus vehicle.  Some times they will make it so you cannot bid on the item, and if you try you will only pop open your email client to send the seller an email.  These people will also take over another persons eBay account which is done through a phony emails asking the account owner to update their User info, or some other phony email by clicking on a link within it.  There are more examples of this below. 

The scammers have gone far above and beyond this though to steal your account info, and gain access to your eBay account or even better for them your papyal account as well if you have the same password to both accounts, This Is Not Recommended.  The phony emails range from a false unpaid item reminder, to an offer to buy your product outside of eBay, to an item not received complaint.  These people also will offer to buy an item from you send you a Cashiers Check, or Company Check that appears to be legit but is not at all.  They will ask to over pay and send their own shipping company to pick up and want you to send the over paid amount back to them in any number of ways then you never hear from them again because by that time the over payment amount has been scammed and when oyur bank figures out the check is fake you end up payoing the price.

Protect yourself, and your information do not ever answer a second chance offer that does not appear in your eBay My Messages folder after you have typed in the eBay.com domain name in your broswer and logging in to your account that way you can visit the My Messages folder from inside of your My eBay area to see if a second chance offer is in there.  I also recently noticed that second chance offers made to us that are legit appear in the Watch Items list area as well.

Never respond to any email by clicking on a link whether it appers to be from eBay Paypal a Bank, or anyone else.  Even if it is a threat to report you to eBay for non-payment of an item, a threat to report you for not sending an item, a request to update your info on eBay, or Paypal, or your Bank, and even if it says you won a lottery for millions. 

Never offer personal information or passwords this way no matter how real it looks no bank, online auction site, lottery commision, or anyone legit is going to ask you to do this.  No one from outside the country or inside the country can give you 20 Million dollars because they believe you are a possible relative of Don Juan who died tragically, and his whole family died with him, and no one is around to claim the millions in the bank he left behind so you have been sought out if you spilt the money with the person contacting you.  And Bill Gates along with AOL will not pay any money to forawrd an email everyone knows how far and how fast an email can travel in a short period of time and the truth is no one cares.  The internet is full of scams, use your head.  If it sounds to good to be true then it usually is! 

Not that a great deal cannot be found on the web becuase I firmly believe it can be.  I run my business through the internet and over the phone, and our prices on street legal scooters, and motorcycles are great because we work directly with the manufacturer, however check out people, and companies you are considering doing business with and ask lots of questions, and if the information is not flowing freely, and knowlegbly from the source then use extreme caution. 

Don't be made into a Victim from greed, or ignorance no one is going to scorn you for asking questions, and checking something out unless they have something to hide.  However do not be a pest once they have given you all needed information to make a buying or selling decision, and you have committed to the purchase or sale.  If you feel comforatble then remember the legit seller has a business to run, and will not enjoy being bothered day in, and day out for information.  Communication is good just do not over do it.  Read the Terms and conditions and read the auction all the way through.  You cannot blame a seller who takes 2 months to deliver something if in the auction it states it could take up to 2 months to deliver this item to you. 

Never give personal information over the phone, or through a link in an email.  No one, but no one who is legitimate will ask this of you.  What I mean here is, Date Of Birth, Social Security Numbers, or Bank Account Numbers are not required to buy an item, and no seller needs this information.  It is ok to place a credit card order over the phone, or through the web on a web site that offers a secured area to purchase products, because most card companies will protect you from fraud however still always check the company out first.  If you cannot find a contact phone number on their web site.  Be cautious legitimate companies will usually have a phone number somewhere in most cases, and often a toll free one. 

Any email from eBay or an eBay member that cannot be found by physically typing in the eBay.com domain name to your browser, and logging in to your members account directly through the eBay site is a phony one.  If the message does not appear in the My Messages folder then it did not come from eBay, or an eBay member.  Also watch for accounts with Zero feedback, and New Members trying to scam you. 

As an eBay Motors Power Seller, and an internet marketing specialist I have seen many attempts to scam our own business through the internet, and eBay and attempts made to other buyers and sellers over the years.  Recently things have gone to a whole new level, and the scammers are working harder than ever at trying to fool us.  I have covered some things above, but want to go deeper now with some examples of scams, and some simple ways to protect yourself. 

Recently we received some emails which were attempts to gain access to our ebay account information one was done by saying we had not paid for an item, the other was done by a supposed buyer, Who had not purchased anything from us, but claimed to have paid for an item already.   This was done as though we had filed a non payer dispute over it which we had not of course. 

They also use update your account info, or credit card info emails, and phony system manintenance emails, and many other forms of fraudulent emails to gain access to your eBay or papyal account as well.  These above are just a few samples of what scammers use.  One way that can help you to tell if it is from eBay, or not is the very top of the email will show your registered eBay name on your eBay account and your account user ID.  In other words it will show something that reads. Hello Jane Doe, or Hello John Doe (Cyclone Motors) then make a statement about how your registered name was included to show that this message originated from eBay.  Yet still be cautious as I said before.  eBay will not include a link that requires you to log in to your account through the email.

Another preventitive measure you can take is to download the eBay Tool Bar.  This also helps tell whether you are looking at a phony log-in page as well, and to Report the page to eBay if it is a fake.  I click on these email links just so I can report them.  You can get the Free eBay Tool bar by clicking the following link eBay Account Protection Tool Bar  Careful now the link above could be a scam looking to gain your account access information.  Of course it is not a scam, but you must protect yourself. 

So how do you find the eBay tool bar without clicking on the link?  Simple!  You are reading this guide on the eBay site already so you can go to the Help tab at the top of the page, and use that to get to the search box.  You will not be asked for any sensitive information until you finish your download of the Tool Bar and the information you enter stays on your computer.  If you do not feel comfortable with this then the next solution is to open a new browser window type in eBay.com and then follow my above instructions.   Type the words: eBay Tool Bar in the search box this will take you to a page with lots of useful links that you should browse through.  The tool bar helps identify phony sites that are not run by eBay, and allows you to report those sites in a simple way so eBay can take them down quickly, and the Tool Bar protects you from accidentally giving some scamming, con artist that is to lazy to get a real job your account information. 

If you suspect an email to be fake eBay has a couple of email addresses to report this type of email to them.  The first is Fraud at eBay.com or Spoof at eBay.com there is no spaces in these email addresses I had to put them in as eBay will not allow them to be posted altogether or with the at symbol on the guide section this their site.  Also Paypal has the same type of reporting accept the email addressses are followed by at Paypal.com instead, and I usually send these emails to both departments. 

One thing helpful to eBay and Paypal toward tracking down the original perpetrators of this stuff is, if you can include the headers of the phony emails.  This is pretty easy.  Most emails while closed can be selected without opening them.  If you right click on the email after selecting it on your mail client you will have the option of selecting one choice that reads Properties then choose the Details tab.  Copy this jumble of information that will make little sense to most people by right clicking and choosing the select all option.  This will highlight all the info.  Then right click again and select Copy.  Then you can open the suspected phony email, and click forward.  Type in the proper forward email address or addresses, and paste the headers you have saved from the properties field into the top of the email you are about to forward to eBay or Paypal.  It is not necessary to do all this, but it is easier than you think, and will help to shut down these con artist and scammers from taking advantage of innocent people. 

Another great thing that most people are unaware of is you can request a users information from eBay if they have bid on an item you are selling, or if you have bid on an item they are selling.  They way this is done is by using the following link Buyer Or Seller User Information Request  Or by going to eBay Help tab and typing in the words User information request, User contact information, or Seller Contact Information.  Again you do not have to use the link above or do it from this part of the eBay site you can open a new browser window to do it.  What you will need is the item number and the persons eBay user ID.  You cannot gain a users information if you are not bidding on their item, or they are not bidding on yours.  This information is only to be used once received to contact the Seller, or Buyer to validate they are legit, and not for any type of commercial or harrassment  If you do you may be suspended from eBay.  If the contact information especially the phone number is not valid email the Buyer, or Seller and let them know you wish to dicuss the transaction, but their phone number is not valid, and ask them to send you a valid phone number, and to please update their user information on eBay.  If the number is not in the USA or your own country if you reside elsewhere, then be very careful. 

On high dollar items, or low dollar items do not let yourself be fooled by anyone, and end up a victim.  It is worth a long distance call to make sure that the party you are dealing with is legitimate, and honest.  If the contact information is invalid report it to eBay by again using the following link Report Any Problems To eBay or selcting the eBay help tab then selcting the Contact Us link to the left side of the page. 

As a seller you can also set preferences for bidders with not less than a certain level of positives, and not more than a certain level of negatives.  If you need to cancel a bid select the bid number in the auction itself, and then scroll down to the bottom of the bids area there you will find a link titled Cancel Bids again you will need the user ID, and the item number to complete this process.  you can also block them from bidding again by using the blocking buyer feature, and entering their user ID, and saving the information after placing in the blocked bidder box.  This area of eBay can be found by using the following link Blocking Bidders From Bidding On Your Items or clicking on the Help tab and typing in Managing Bidders And Buyers then selecting the first link on the page titled the same as your search fraise. 

Sellers when you list an item you should make your auction private.  This will prevent others from seeing bidders identities of those that bid on your items.  This is free from eBay, and protects your bidders from potential scammers who often collect user IDs and after an auction ends especially so on eBay Motors and with high dollar items they will send out phony second chance offers to your bidders after the auction ends.  They will pretend they are you using the information you provided in the auction and will try to scam your bidders.  Protect your bidders, and use this free feature eBay offers you.  This feature also prevents your competition from contacting your bidders, and offering them a lower price on the same item stealing the sale from you. 

We care about people who work hard for their money, and do not like to see innocent people taken advantage of by people that do not want to work for a living.  We want eBay to be a safe trading environment for all, and if we work together it can be just that for everyone.   These Scammers, and Con Artist know no boundaries, and do not care who they Rob, or Cheat, or Steal from!  Many of them are over seas, and trying to take advantage of someone here making it impossible for legal retribution against these scum bags.  Do your part and help eBay be a fun place to get great deals, and meet nice new people.  Hope this guide helps anyone who reads it from being taken for a ride in a bad way! 

If you have any questions please feel free to drop us a line or give us a call at: 1 802 287 4132.  I am always happy to help.  Have a great day.