EBAY SCAMS : Defend Yourself !

There are millions of transactions on ebay every day, and most of them complete succesfully, however there are thousands of people out there who are making a living by scamming honest people.This guide will try to explain the most common scams on Ebay.

Items that are frequent targets of scammers: Kubota , XPS M2010 , XPS M1710 , Apple Ipod , Macbook Pro , Wii , PSP , Alienware , Harley Davidson , Yamaha , Sony Vaio , Apple Powerbook , Plasma TV 50" , Kawasaki Jetski , WII ,  Inspiron 9400/E1705 ,

BUYERS

Most of the scams are involved  in transactions valued over $100 and usually between $200 and $1500 electronics are the usual favorites of scammers, but anything over $100 could become a target.Here is a checklist before you click the buy button:

1. Payment method: Check the acceptable payment methods: The safest way to pay for ANYTHING on ebay is by credit card, via Paypal or Bidpay.When using paypal, make sure that you use the credit card payment option and not your checking account.
2. If the sellers accepts Paypal, check the Paypal insurance amount in the upper right hand corner, it should appear as $200 OR $2000 purchase insurance.If the insurance amount is $200 and your purchase was over $200 in case of a dispute, you should call your credit card company that you used for the purchase.
3. It is not safe to pay for anything over $100 using any form of instant cash payment such as: Western Union,MoneyGram,Banktransfer
4. Check the feedback of the seller, does the seller has a selling history? A 0 feedback seller who registered just days ago suddenly lists high priced electronics is an instant red flag
5. Check the description: If there is an email address on top of the description saying that you should contact the seller BEFORE BIDDING outside Ebay because they have a buy it now price, it means that it is a STOLEN account, and you should not complete any transaction there. In this case the sellers feedback is usually good-to-very good, but it is NOT the account holder who  posted those items, but in fact a hacker who stole the original owners account, and is usually located in countries like Romania,Russia,China or other countries. 
6. Check the feedback of the seller, if the feedbacks consists of mostly under $1 items, than it is very suspicious, scammers sometimes "purchase" feedbacks for 1 cent each, to make their feedback look good.Just type 1 cent in the ebay search window to see all the 1cent wallpapers,guides etc. for sale. This practice is called "feedback padding" The typical scammer routine in this case is that they would purchase lots of 1 cent feedbacks to make their feedback look good than list high priced items.

1. Make sure that the seller ships within 7 days, if he tries to stall beyond that, it is a red flag and you should file a paypal dispute, you have 45 days to file a dispute with paypal, and usually 60 days to file with your credit card company, but if the scammer emptied hes account than there will be no money on the account and the only recourse will be to file with the credit card company.

Lots of Ebay scammers are located in Romania, and Indonesia never send any money or merchandise there, if you do it is as good as lost, these scumbags are making a living out of scamming honest people.