Ok we as seller have all had to face Nigerian scammers and other such yuk from scammers out there.   As a powerseller who sales only video games I have finally gotten to the place where I am seldom bothered by them! YEAH! I average selling 50 consoles each week, so I have had to face these scammers alot. Here are a few tips to avoid scammers and more than likely get a sale.

 1. You are able to mark what countries you will ship to when you sale an item.  Look at the bottom of the shipment page when you are listing.  There you will find selling preferences.  Click  on edit preferences.  From here you have the option to BLOCK bidders from countries that you do not ship to. Once you do that it is now impossible for nigerians or any other country where you do not ship to bid on your items.  Also in the selling preference you have the option to block people with negative feedback. Block people with low feedback, etc..

 2. We got tired of people using our buy it now auction only to be a non paying bidder later. Now that really hurts. On the shipping page (or it may be on the pricing page) of your listing make sure that you place a check mark beside require immediate payment when you list a buy it now option.  That way if someone wants to buy it now, they have to pay for it now.

3.  Tired of people contacting the ebayers that are bidding on your items offering to sale them the same thing but cheaper. I hate that stuff. There are 1000's of internet stores on the web and people like to contact those who are bidding on your item and tell them about their great little store where they can get the item for much cheaper. On the shipping page, (or it might be on the pricing page) make sure you mark private listing. No one can see who is bidding on your item so it is immpossible for them to contact your bidders and make those offers.

4. Also, if you have more than one item for sale, you also have the problem of some ebayers who are still wet behind the ears bidding up every item you have only to fail to pay for them. Ouch that hurts. When you edit your selling preferences you can disallow low feedback ebayers from bidding on more than one of your items at a time.

5. Also, when selling electronics this is very important.  You need to write down the serial number or place a irremovable warranty seal on the item to identify the item.  A few people want to buy an item, claim it was defective, than send you back an item that they already had, that is identical to the item you shipped, but not the item you shipped to them.

 6.  State a return policy. While it seems like your protected to say SOLD AS IS.. or to say i'm not responsible for shipping loss or damage yada yada, often those comments make you look more suspicious in a dispute. Often paypal will decide in favor of the buyer if you stated the console works good, but is sold as is.  It is assumed that you lied about the condition of the system and then said sold as is... to scam someone into buying something broken at a high price. The best thing to do is set a time limit on returns, such as, returns accepted within 24 hours of delivery.  That way if they drop it and break it a week later, and claim you sent defective, you have leverage with paypal against the chargeback because returns were stated must be returned within one day.  Seriously sometimes people will contact us 30 days after delivery and claim we sent them a machine that doesn't work.  A return policy defines how long the buyer has to contact you about it.

7.  Never end a listing to sale an item to someone who is going to puchase the item outside of ebay.  You open yourself to a scam this way.

8.  If someone bids on your item and the bidding has gone up alot higher than what that item ususally sales for on ebay,  it is usually someone that wants you to ship c.o.d. or something like that.  Illiminate those bids before the auction ends.  Everytime my items go up 30%  higher than what the item usually sales for it usually ends in a nonpaying bidder that was just trying to MUSCLE out someone else.  Bidding is addective and also competitive! 

Good Luck