Overview

There are so many scams being run on eBay that it would be impossible to list them all in one guide.  Add to this the fact that new scams are popping up every week.  The purpose of this guide is to show you how to spot a scammer before you place a bid on an auction by researching the seller's feedback.. Even though this guide is directed at the eBay Coins & Paper Money category, this information can be used to spot dishonest sellers in other categories as well.

HOW TO RESEARCH A SELLER'S FEEDBACK

When you first look at an auction listing, ignore the seller's feedback number and feedback score.  Many scammers know how to pad their feedback and many have used feedback extortion to keep their feedback score higher than it should have been.  Feedback extortion involves the seller threatening to leave negative feedback in retaliation for buyers who leave negative or neutral feedback for the seller.

The seller's reputation is the most important thing that you should check and this can be determined by reading the feedback comments that have been left by previous buyers, especially the negative and neutral feedbacks that have been left.  You will often find a pattern here, such as "Never received item", "Item not as described", "The coin was seriously overgraded", "Seller sold me a fake", etc.

Also look for the number of mutually withdrawn feedbacks.  Some sellers will respond to negative feedback by leaving negative feedback for the buyer, even if the buyer paid immediately after the auction.  Then they will tell the buyer that they will withdraw the negative feedback if the buyer does the same.  Since the buyer doesn't want negative feedbacks on his record, he will agree to withdraw his negative feedback.  Many dishonest Power Sellers have managed to keep their feedback scores high by using this tactic.  Even though the negatives have been removed, the comments remain, so read them.  It is important to know how many mutually withdrawn feedbacks the seller has on their record.  A large number of mutually withdrawn feedbacks should be a red flag.

You may also notice that many of the seller's positive feedbacks are actually negative or neutral comments left by buyers who didn't want to leave a negative and receive one in return.  Also read the replies that the seller leaves for those who have left negative feedback, as well as the feedback that the seller has left for others.  After reading some of these comments, you will get a feel for the kind of person the seller really is.   You would be very surprised at some of the feedback comments that some sellers have left for unhappy buyers.  I have seen everything from offensive comments about the buyer's mother to outright racial slurs left in feedback comments by sellers.

Since it is impractical to read all of the feedback comments for sellers with hundreds or thousands of feedbacks, it is much easier to go to toolhaus.org and check out the seller's negative, neutral and mutually withdrawn feedback.  The toolhaus.org web site also offers a free download of the "eBay Neg/Neutral Feedback Tool", a search box that makes it much easier to view a seller's negative, neutral and mutually withdrawn feedbacks.  This plug-in is available for IE7 and Mozilla Firefox 2 (it also works with Firefox 3).  You just type in the seller's eBay ID and it will show you the negative, neutral and mutually withdrawn feedbacks and comments that have been left for that seller and the replies that the seller has left for the buyers.

Feedback extortion has become such a problem on eBay that it caused eBay to implement its new feedback policy on May 20th.  Now sellers can only leave positive feedback for buyers.  Some scammers have already been working on ways to get around this policy.  One well-known scammer, who is also a Power Seller, is now stating that anyone who leaves negative or neutral feedback will be placed on their Blocked Bidders List in an effort to intimidate buyers.  I am certain that others will find different ways to get around the new feedback policy too.


If you are new to the eBay Coins & Paper Money category, I would recommend that you check out the Coins & Paper Money Discussion Board here:

Ebay Coins & Paper Money Discussion Board

There are many friendly people there who will be happy to answer any questions that you may have about coins and currency of any kind.

For an interesting discussion on the types of coin scams being run in the eBay Coins & Paper Money category, look here:

The New Coin Scam Thread

This is my first Guide and I would like to thank you for taking the time to read it.  If you found this guide to be helpful, I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to vote YES at the bottom.  Thank you.

Update (10/26/08)

It has been 5 months since the new feedback policy went into effect and I have noticed that the scammers are coming up with ways to intimidate buyers into leaving positive feedback, just as I suspected.  The most common method that I have noticed is the seller placing a line in their listings that states "We have an automated system for returning feedback that will leave the same feedback for you that we receive from you", or something similar.  The truth is that the only options that the seller has is to either leave positive feedback for buyers or leave no feedback at all, so don't fall for this ploy.  Sellers cannot leave "false positives" either.  If they leave feedback for the buyer and leave a negative comment, the buyer can have eBay remove it, as it is against eBay's new feedback rules.

I mentioned the toolhaus.org  free download of the "eBay Neg/Neutral Feedback Tool" earlier in this guide and I strongly recommend it.  Now, eBay is only listing the negatives and neutrals for sellers over the past 12 months.  Toolhaus.org lists them all.  Some sellers with high volume sales can have a 100% positive feedback score showing on eBay, but if you check the toolhaus.org site, you will see that isn't necessarily so.  A seller may have several negative, neutral and mutually withdrawn feedbacks that go back beyond the 12 month period that eBay now uses to calculate the seller's feedback score.

As you may have noticed, some scammers have already read this guide and apparently didn't like it.  I would appreciate it if you would take a second to click on the "Yes" button below if you found this guide to be helpful.