Unfortunately, there are a lot of unscrupulous people lurking around selling high priced items to unsuspecting buyers and then never delivering. The good news is that there are ways to limit your exposure to these frauds and become an informed buyer BEFORE you learn of these fraudulent sellers from first hand experience.

All it takes is a little research into your sellers history prior to bidding on an item and following some fairly simple guidelines after the auction you are bidding on and win ends. By following these guidelines, you should be able to significantly reduce your odds of having a problem transaction.

BEFORE BIDDING ON AN AUCTION

DO’S

Read the entire auction carefully, including shipping and payment information. This will prevent certain types of frauds. One such fraud involves a title that appears to be for an item such as a laptop, but in reality is for a wholesale list where you can purchase a laptop. Commonly the part about the auction being for a wholesale list is buried down at the bottom of the description or hidden in the shipping and or payment instructions. These sellers are hoping you are so thrilled at getting a laptop for a few hundred dollars that you skip over the this is a wholesale list part completely in your eagerness to bid before the auction ends.

If a title leads you to believe you are bidding on one thing and the description or picture in the auction leads you to believe it is a different item, write the seller. It could be an honest mistake, or an attempt to defraud bidders.

Do your research on the product. For example, find similar items and compare features. Make sure the item you are considering bidding on has all the necessary parts. In the case of a computer. Does it have a hard drive or CD installed? If used. be sure you know what pieces are not included with the auction. Regardless of what might be pictured be sure the description does not have a disclaimer such as power supply missing or figures shown are not included. You will then know what exactly you are buying.

Contact the seller with any questions you have before bidding and do not bid if they fail to respond to your email.

Check a seller’s feedback (FB). Do not just look at a high FB number and power seller or verified id icons and believe that means a reputable seller. Read the comments. Look at what the items were that the seller had FB left for. Items to look for in a potentially dangerous, high risk seller will be:

Length of time on Ebay. Most scammers look relatively new to Ebay, or have stolen an older unused Ebay account. So, look at how old the account is for high dollar items. If the seller is relatively new and selling expensive items, there is a possibility that you will never receive the item after paying for it. Same holds true for an older account that has not had activity for a while and then has high dollar items put up for auction.

Look at the FB percentage. Anything under 99% I would shy away from. This does have to be factored into the amount of total FB the person has received. A person who has sold only 10 items and has one negative FB, might be ok to buy from depending on the items sold and reason for negative comment. Negative FB reads, Item received broken, seller refused to refund. Seller response to FB reads, Buyer refuses to return item for refund. In that case, I would forgive the FB and not include it as a flag for a potential problem with the auction. However, a negative FB that read Never received item would definitely put up a red flag for me.

Compare the number of unique positive FB to the total number of positive FB. If there is a large difference in the 2 numbers, then the seller has a lot of multiple sales to the same bidder and repeat buyers, which indicates that the seller has gained these buyer's trust. This holds true only for the sellers with hundreds or thousands of FB. For the seller with only 25 FB and over half from the same individual, this may mean he has 2 accounts or a friend has padded his FB to appear more trustworthy.

Look at the items a seller has positive FB for. If he was the seller of the items, were they high dollar items or low dollar items? Some sellers will sell low dollar items in order to get good FB then will sell high dollar item, which may never be sent. This is because a large number of bidders will not check what the items sold were or the dollar amount and will believe the seller is reputable. If he was the buyer, are the items low dollar items bought to get more FB and appear reputable.

Check how many negative FB a seller received in the last few months compared to how many positives. Read why they received them and on what item they received them. Some high volume sellers do go bad, or end up with an inventory problem for a specific item.

A large number of recent negative FB left could indicate that the account has been stolen and is being used for fraud or may indicate that a seller has taken on more auctions than he can handle effectively.

Check the shipping for the item you are bidding on and compare them with other shipping costs from other sellers. Some sellers sell their items for a very low starting price and have high shipping charges. Remember a modest handling fee added to actual shipping cost is appropriate as a seller does have a lot of overhead involved in packing and shipping.

Do not assume that because an auction has a shipping calculator that you will receive a fair shipping and handling cost. Check what the shipping calculator says your shipping and handling will be.

If you read the words, Actual shipping and handling charges rather than a set price or shipping calculator immediately write the seller for a quote. REMEMBER, the seller can set the handling fee and may be including gas to get to the post office, upkeep on their car to get it to the shipper, their time, etc. Be clear before bidding what your shipping and handling will be.

Check the payment options and be sure you can comply with the seller’s form of payment before bidding.

DON’TS

Do not bid at the last minute on an auction you have not reviewed thoroughly. Read these auctions and follow the do’s above before bidding.

Do not give in to the temptation of buying from the seller without bidding through Ebay. You have no protection from Ebay for items not purchased through Ebay’s auctions or stores.

Do not bid more than you can afford. Payment is always required before 10 days and in some cases earlier based on what the seller has in his payment instructions.

Your bid is a binding contract to purchase an item. So, if you are not sure you want the item, do not bid. If you bid and do not pay, Ebay will record this and after a couple of non paying bidder strikes, Ebay will suspend your account and you will be unable to use Ebay. Of course, if you bid and later have a catastrophic event happen to you, write the seller. Most sellers will understand as long as they do not find that you have abused this in the past. However, be prepared to pay for the auction or take the non-paying bidder strike if they do not agree to mutually not complete the auction.

AFTER YOU HAVE BID ON AN AUCTION

Check on the auction you are bidding on frequently.

If another user is consistently outbidding you, check out the user. This usually applies to other bidders with low feedback scores. Check what items the other bidder is bidding on. Are they only items from the same seller? Do they only bid on items from this seller? If so, you may be the victim of a seller who is shill bidding. Shill bidding is when the seller or a seller's friend bids their item up with the purpose of inflating the price. This is against Ebay's policies, report it.

Decide on a top amount that you are willing to bid. Then you can either place a proxy bid or be prepared to manually bid your top amount in the last minutes of an auction.

Check for other sellers with the same item up for sale, being sure to apply the same pre-bidding screening to them. If items are the same, take note of the other seller’s auction just in case the auction you are bidding on goes over the price you wish to pay. REMEMBER that you can not cancel a bid on one auction just because you found it cheaper elsewhere. This is not allowed. It is important to do your homework before bidding, not after.

AFTER WINNING THE AUCTION

Check the seller’s feedback one last time. In the event there is a large number of negatives added since you first checked, go to the Trust and Safety Community board and post a help needed giving your reasons for distrusting the seller at this point. You can also call the seller and discuss the issue with them. If their contact information is not current or you are unable to contact them within a reasonable amount of time, you can file an invalid contact information report with Ebay. If Ebay suspends the seller, you are not obligated to complete the transaction.

If they are not suspended and you are still very hesitant to complete the auction, you have two options. One is pay for the auction and hope for the best. If it is a high priced item, you would want to wait until the last minute to pay the seller in the hopes they become suspended, or not pay and take the non-paying bidder strike if the seller decides to pursue the auction. A lot of scammers will threaten a non paying bidder strike to extort the payment, but rather the strike than to be out thousands of dollars. Remember that you will be suspended from Ebay if you fail to pay for more than a couple of auctions.

Contact seller within 3 days of auction ending. This is a requirement. Contact can be payment.

Pay for the auction with a method that the seller accepts only. Otherwise, you run the risk of your payment being returned and a non-paying bidder strike applied to your Ebay account.

Check payments are usually held 10+ days to allow the funds to clear the bank before shipment.

Money orders generally assure fast shipment once they are received.

For extremely high priced items, you may wish to use an escrow service if it is agreed upon by the seller. If an escrow service is used, only use Ebay’s approved escrow service. Ebay safe harbor does not run an escrow service. If you are in doubt about the escrow service, write Ebay a short note and they will clarify it for you.

Paypal payments are a preferred method of payment for many sellers as it provides some protection against a fraudulent buyer claiming non-receipt of item. If using Paypal, be sure you have a confirmed address on your Paypal account, as most sellers will only ship to a confirmed address. Paypal also provides protection for the buyer if the auction has the Paypal buyer protection logo on the auction. It insures in most cases that your item will be shipped out within 7 days of your payment. It also protects the buyer in cases where the seller does not ship an item.

For your own protection, do not pay via a link in an email. Log into Paypal’s secure site and then pay for your auctions.

I recommend always purchasing insurance on your item just in case it is lost by the post office. A seller is obligated to show proof they shipped the item only.

AFTER PAYMENT SENT

Most sellers notify buyers when they ship their item. You do want to wait a reasonable amount of time after an item is shipped before assuming it has not been shipped or lost. Most sellers use some sort of tracking and are more than willing to send you that information.

If no shipment notification received within 10 days of payment (more days required for payments made by check), definitely contact the seller for that information.

If seller uncooperative in providing shipment information, contact Ebay and Paypal to open a dispute. There are limits on the number of disputes that Paypal will pay on under the buyer protection policy. The dispute will cause Paypal (if used) to freeze the amount of your payment until proof of shipment is received or dispute is settled. If the seller does not have the funds, it will create a negative balance in their account and any funds received into Paypal will be frozen until the payment is covered or dispute is settled. Item Received in condition stated in auction or better - Leave positive feedback for your seller.

Item Received in condition worse than stated in auction - First step is to review the auction again, looking specifically for something in the auction, which may have revealed the condition to you. Many times in our zeal to purchase something, we fail to read that crucial part about a stain or small place on seam.

Secondly, remember that condition is relative. Mint and like new should mean perfect or pretty close, all others are kind of up for grabs. What might seem excellent to one might only be good to someone else. Some clothes sellers have taken to having a scale on their about me pages showing what the condition grading scale they use means. I have read where good condition can even mean small holes in an item.

Third, remember that sellers are human too. They do make mistakes. Sometimes what they thought was black was really dark, dark green or blue which cannot be seen unless in sunlight. Alternatively, they might have missed a little stain when looking over the item. Write the seller and politely inform them of the condition. Many sellers will request picture of tear, stain, etc and may offer a partial refund. Some sellers will not give a partial refund and instead will offer a refund of your payment on return of the item. (If you choose this option, be sure and send back with delivery confirmation). Many sellers will accept returns and only refund item cost, not shipping charges either way. In addition, some will just refuse any remedy of the condition.

If you have to contact the seller, do so immediately. Sellers tend to discredit buyers who wait a week or longer after delivery to come back and claim something is wrong with the item they received.

Based on your experience, be fair to the seller and leave appropriate feedback. If the seller was cooperative and helpful in solving the problem, please state that in feedback. It helps both them and you, as other sellers will research bidders' feedback too. If the seller was uncooperative, you may want to consider negative feedback to the seller, though in most cases the seller will in turn leave you negative feedback as well. On lower priced items it may be to your advantage to just mark it up to a lesson learned and move on or leave neutral feedback instead.

If the item is significantly different than the item stated you could file a dispute with Ebay and/or Paypal. Be advised that for small differences or subjective wording, you probably will not win the dispute.

If the item is a very expensive item, you may decide to take additional steps after exhausting those listed previously in an attempt to recover your loss. These include reporting the seller to appropriate law enforcement officials, filing a fraud report with the postal service for any payment sent through the postal service, and disputing the charge on your credit card if payment made through Paypal and funded with your credit card (you must first file a Paypal dispute and lose before using this option or risk having your Paypal account closed).

Item Received Damaged - If an item is received damaged and insurance purchased, keep all packing material, box and item together, as shipping carrier will generally need to examine it before paying the claim. Either party can initiate a claim for damaged or non-receipt of an insured item, however the cooperation of both parties is necessary in order for the claim to be processed. In most cases of damage, the buyer starts the claim process as they have the damaged goods in their possession. However, if the item was a very fragile glass item shipped with NO padding or protection, the shipper will most likely refuse the claim, so you do want to contact the seller about something like this before filing claim.

Another point to remember when dealing with damaged goods is that some items can be damaged just by excessive jostling. Some electronic items are especially sensitive and while the box may not appear to be damaged, the item might have been damaged just from the jostling.

Always inform a seller of your intent to file a claim for lost or damaged goods so they may be aware of the situation and have all their paperwork in order to facilitate the claim process.

Item never Received - In cases where the seller has proof of shipment and package is lost, request that the seller file the claim as they have the proof of shipment and insurance. Claim times vary depending on the carrier, so be patient with this process. The seller has no control over the length of time USPS or UPS takes to settle a claim. Most sellers will only refund after claim process has been completed. In some cases, refund will come directly to you from the carrier. If that happens, please notify the seller.

In cases where the seller can not provide proof of shipment and package is not received contact the seller immediately. Sellers and shipping carriers tend to discredit buyers who wait a weeks or months to claim something was not received. Waiting makes the whole transaction seem a deliberate attempt to get something for free. Of course you must wait an appropriate amount of time based on shipment method used and time of year. For instance, media mail can take weeks to be delivered even at the best of times while priority mail is generally delivered within 10 days. At holidays, delivery time is much longer, so please consider this.

If a seller claims it can not be shipped for a few weeks due to a back order situation, you might want to stop the transaction right there and take appropriate actions to dispute the transaction through Ebay. Both Ebay and Paypal have a time frame in which a dispute must be opened in order to qualify for a refund.

If the item is a very expensive item, you may decide to take additional steps AFTER exhausting those listed previously if you were unable to recover your loss. These include but are not limited to reporting the seller to appropriate law enforcement officials, filing a fraud report with the postal service for any payment sent through the postal service, and disputing the charge on your credit card if payment made through Paypal and funded with your credit card (you must FIRST file a Paypal dispute and lose before using this option or risk having your Paypal account closed).

Based on your experience, be fair to the seller and leave appropriate FB. If the seller was cooperative and helpful in solving the problem, please state that in FB. It helps both them and you, as other sellers will research bidders' feedback too. If the seller was uncooperative, you may want to consider negative FB to the seller, though in most cases the seller will in turn leave you negative FB as well. On lower priced items it may be to your advantage to just mark it up to a lesson learned and move on or leave neutral FB instead.