Screening Buyers On Ebay

Not to be pedantic but how is he supposed to do this?... unless you mean not fulfilling your seller's contractual obligation after the fact.

You cannot block 0-feedback buyers or bidders. You can block those with negative feedback scores, but that is a meaningless setting since negative feedback cannot be left for buyers for many years now. You can prevent single-digit buyers from purchasing *additional* items from you within a 7 day period or who have a certain number of nonpayment strikes, but you cannot explicitly exclude low-feedback buyers or bidders.

If you cancel the transaction after the fact once you see the buyer's feedback, you could wind up in hot water with eBay for not fulfilling your obligations.

COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns drove many new buyers and sellers to eBay and other online venues, so there has been a larger than normal number of low-feedback users on eBay within the last 3 years... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

revenuecollector:: Good points. There are camera forums where people pay each other through PayPal, but could problems arise there too?

Any time you sell something to anyone anywhere, there is some level of risk. Even face-to-face exchanges for cash with unknown parties have risk.

The same way others do it. State in the description that if you have feedback of less than XXX, then first message before your bid to determine if your offered bid will be accepted. If they still make the bid, you have the right to cancel the bid and block the buyer.

But I agree, it is the planning before hand which is important as you have little flexibility after a sale meets your conditions.

I once contemplated having buyers undergo a urinalysis but ran into HIPA issues.

Was that when you were selling on Hipaastamp?

Torin,
I disagree with the method posted above and question the 'right' of a seller to not seller to anyone. (Can anyone say 'open yourself up to a capricious and vengeful discrimination lawsuit?)

Buyers can dispute cancelled sales with eBay. Yes, the reason/excuse used by seller could be 'Out of Stock' or 'Bad Address' and this would work a few times with a less than massive seller. But I doubt that eBay is going to tolerate a seller who habitually cancels sales using these excuses. And I doubt that anyone here (SCF) is going to help you up if you try this method and then find that eBay has suspended your account.
Don

For the record, I disagree with this approach completely and would discourage others from adopting it. It is against eBay's policies.

Everyone was once a low-feedback buyer. Actively jumping through hoops to circumvent eBay's policies out of fear of chargebacks, and cancelling transactions after the fact means you probably should seek an alternative venue for your sales.

Sorry, eBay sellers are allowed to block countries, states (one seller blocked just California), block buyers and potential buyers individually without reason all verified by eBay customer service all done for the sole purpose of protecting the self concerned seller.

Nothing and I mean nothing should be listed for sale on eBay that the seller cannot afford to lose and receive no payment. Likewise no buyer should actually expect to receive what they thought was a finished purchase.

When I purchased one item on eBay the seller cancelled the $50 sale because someone offered four figures for the item if the seller would get a certificate. I had the emails and (legally) recorded phone call to that effect. When I contacted eBay I was told that all they could do was note the sale cancellation with supporting information and make the sellers listing a bit more expensive and show lower in the displayed listing, however they could not force the seller to make the sale. APS had no interest in enforcing the sale either. In another case, with a $110 cover I received a $79 cover damaged, eBay, agreed, and force the seller to accept a return. I was blocked by the seller claiming the cover wasn't damaged when sent. I received an item which clearly differed from the listing picture which showed a QE4 with joined A-T but received a plain QE4, seller claimed he sent what was in the photo and if he did not, I still got a super price for the MNH set of QE1-4. Customer service at eBay said it looked the same to them and failed to take action and the seller blocked me. Funny the history for the seller showed him selling several examples of the set. These two blocking occurred within the last 6 months, to no sale 5-8 months ago.

But back to Torin's camera, 50% cash in hand might be better than 100% no cash in hand and loss of item.

One final suggestion for Torin is to contact via eBay messaging other sellers of cameras (or whatever specialty item) and ask them what to look for and how to protect themselves as a seller. The is one active seller on eBay who sells, stamps, postal history, Philatelic Literature film camera bodies, lens and attachments.

Regarding the comment we all start with lower feedback, I point out good buyers increase their feed back. Crooked, dishonest and theiving buyer don't achieve high feed back scores before eBay cancels the account.

In today's America, the rules seems to be set to protect the "identified victim" be it on eBay (the buyer) or the balance of businesses going cashless where the business's employee will not face a robber with a gun in the employee's face demanding cash is balanced against the poor and unbanked having the ability to purchase goods for the same store. Right now the poor and unbanked is a greater concern that the employees facing a loaded gun and loss of life for not handing over cash. Or the two year old birth of triplets story recirculating now: https://www.babygaga.com/parents-su...iplets-nicu/ where the citizen family was billed $4,000,000 (4 million dollars) for the uninsured birth of their triplets when a mother in the country via documented or undocumented entry would not be billed for the births, rather the Federal Government would pick up the tab for those poor. Life is not fair and the winners are often picked by emotion or politics with no relationship to correctness nor whom the truly harmed party was.


EDIT: Torin, send me a message on the SCF messaging system and I will provide the eBay seller's ID.

You can choose positive feedback and write a negative one.

As for this whole thread, I'd like to learn about Screening sellers On eBay.
Sure, there is reading the feedback, but there must be some warning signs like ambiguous descriptions, partial and misleading scans and descriptions, and so on.
I don't want refunds, too messy and time-consuming. I rather avoid it altogether.

That makes no sense. They retain a good rating and a buyer would have to read through pages of feedback to find the negative comment.




You answered your own question.

I would add that people need to check their greed at Ebay's door and stop looking for $1,000 stamps that start at 99 cents.

That's the only way you can give negative feedback, and sellers are not stupid, they'll know how to read laconic feedback or between the lines.
The other option is to argue with eBay and start a complaint. See how that will work for you.


a. As shown on the 330k stamps thread, there are many "dime-a-stamp" to acquire, so beginner collectors will seek those "start at 99 cents" deals.
b. greed works both ways, like sellers that neglect to mention that some/most of their stamps are filler/floor grade, or show you a partial scan with mostly comm. and send you mostly deff.
Both sides, dealers and buyers, have good people and... less good people.

eBay feedback is nearly useless, this has been covered many times before. Many vindictive people will leave 'revenge' feedbacks. Other times, people will pump up their own feedbacks by selling low value items to themselves. There are also many online sites which sell existing eBay accounts with large existing feedbacks. And of course eBay often removes feedbacks at the request of large sellers. It only takes a few minutes to find very good seller with negative feedbacks and crappy seller with perfect scores.

So I do not understand why folks put much weight in any thing that has to do with eBay feedbacks. People will blindly buy based only taking 15 seconds to look at a nearly useless and biased (like eBay does not have a vested interest, the feedback is a marketing tool for them to build buyer confidence so they make more money) in metric like eBays feedbacks but will not take an extra 60 seconds to at least try doing an online search on the seller name (or search this forum).
Don

So in general eBay is better suited for kiloware and "dime a stamp", while delCampe and the like are better for more serious sellers and buyers?
That sounds like a solution.