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EXTRA CREDIT ANSWERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions below are more s/h or miscellaneous-related that you may miss for extra credit without affecting your total score: A. This website is too anti-seller and is too biased.
YES. But, if you want to only see the good stuff about ebay and not the bad stuff about ebay and you want "unbiased, community feeling" hang out at the always happy ebay forums with the pro-ebay sellers. They have great advice and it's your basic starting place to learn about ebay/paypal policies and how to deal with sellers, but you'll only sometimes or rarely see the negative experiences and opinions of buyers regarding ebay summarized all in one place. Ebay does a "good job" of deleting posts that it considers too critical about it's reputation or security. I gave 2 examples of deleted negative feedback posts that were deleted by ebay since they considered the posts too critical about its security.(Yeah, the emperor has no clothes. We know the emperor doesn't want to scare away the "bidder cash cows.") An example too critical of its reputation where they just wanted to shut people up was Ebay Motors when the little joe sellers were locked out and corporations moved in to that category. If you want to protect your money and you wonder why ebay or paypal or a certain seller doesn't do this or that when you're in trouble, this is a website for you. I think ebay gives bidders a false sense of security BY NOT BEING UPFRONT WITH THEIR MEMBERS BY NOT PUTTING HUGE UPFRONT SIGNS ON EVERY AUCTION AD OF ALL THE SCAMMER TRICKS THAT ARE HAPPENING ON THEIR SITE and that just because most people are honest, you can't get scammed WHICH IS AS INCORRECT AS YOU CAN GET. True, i don't talk about the disabled sellers OR honestly sick sellers who have difficulty shipping from the boondocks OR the sellers who are just cranky or strict about selling but honest anyway OR the sellers who ship as slow as molasses but are honest OR the sellers who have good reasons for the suspicious things i post that you should look out for, but that's why it's good to start with the basics on the ebay forums. After you get an idea of all the weird things that can happen there by visiting the ebay forum boards, do a search for other websites like mine which opens ebay up to scrutiny and you'll have a fuller knowledge about bidding on ebay.
Remember, YOU'RE ALREADY STARTING AT A HIGH RISK OF FRAUD on ebay where just about everything initially is going the scammer's way starting from the scam seller's TOS to you placing your bid confirmed by ebay as a legal contract. As i stated, some fields have fraud as high as 75%, so just about every listing you're looking at is a fraud. My recommendations for bidding only on cheap items NOT in the hundreds or thousands of $$$ AND feedback/contact info verification AND payment methods are strict SO THAT YOU CAN LOWER YOUR RISK AND LOWER THE DAMAGE YOU MAY RECEIVE. Other ebayers do have stricter recommendations than I have with many ebayers only buying from sellers with over 500 feedbacks 100% positives, seller for over 5 years, who will accept Visa thru paypal for high priced items, etc. IF YOU WANT TO REDUCE YOUR RISK EVEN MORE, follow more strict advice than what I'm giving. This whole website is here because I don't like seeing people getting ripped off of their hard earned money. True, you will lose out on many deals if you follow stricter rules as has happened to me lots of times, but THOSE SAME EBAYERS WHO BID ON THOSE TYPE OF AUCTIONS WITH LESS STRICT RULES HAVE A HIGHER RISK AND HIGHER DAMAGE RATE even though it doesn't seem like it. (Ask any statistician or look up any basic statistics book and you'll see this.) These are the type of ebayers who will show up on the ebay Forum boards to complain of getting ripped off. Many times, there just isn't a deal on ebay!!
Lots of times, i'll see ebayers post, "Well, i've bought lots of things on ebay and I don't follow such strict advice since I pay by cashier's check or money order in the hundreds or thousands of $$$ and buy from less than 98% positive sellers who have less than 100 total feedbacks and I still haven't been ripped off."
Well, you know what, if they buy enough times from quite a few different sellers in quite a few different fields, it's just a MATTER OF TIME (Again, ask any statistician or look up any basic statistics book and you'll see this.) before these same ebayers get ripped off and these are the same ebayers who:
B. I've done complete research on the seller. Shipping Insurance is optional on the auction. I should get insurance for my $25 item so that I will be protected in case there is damage during shipping.
No. It makes no sense to insure a low cost item, especially since you've already done your homework on the seller's shipping habits thru his feedback and there can still be loopholes to getting your money back from the shipping carriers.
C. So I bought 3 items from the same seller. The total bid price of the 3 auctions is $15 and the first auction's s/h is $7 and the 2nd auction's s/h is $13 and 3rd auction's s/h is $5, but the TOS says the seller combines s/h so i'll only be paying the bid price + shipping and handling cost for 1 small box since they'll all fit in 1 small box.
Nope. Seller says he'll combine but you don't know what that means. That could just mean they'll send it in one box but guess what, you'll still have to pay $15 + $7 + $13 + $5 = $40 or he might give you a slight discount which could still mean anything up to $40. Check his feedback for any s/h problems.
D. What's the best course of action if you keep on being ripped off on ebay? How does this affect ebay and its sellers?
The best course of action is to buy elsewhere more reputable and well-known at your local bricks & mortars stores or online at the reputable/well-known stores and pay with your buyer-favorable CC or debit card with low $ balance. Also, don't use Paypal since ebay makes its money off of Paypal. If good buyers leave, only scam buyers are left to feed off all of the sellers and ebay. This affects sellers' bottom lines and soon affects ebay's bottom lines.
If you still want to buy from great ebay sellers you've dealt with in the past, do it OUTSIDE (via email or at their other website or other auction site) of ebay(means cutting out ebay fees) and you can even pay by check or money order(cuts out paypal fees). hehehe This way, neither your favorite seller nor you suffer.
Other ways to stop from being ripped off but require more long-term tactics:
But definitely, the best course is to not buy from ebay. The more you buy from ebay and use paypal, the more you contribute to ebay's bottomline coffers so that they can just keep lying around introducing STUPID things like "better auction features" and never being proactive against fraud.
E. Let's say that you are looking for an expensive item to buy as a gift for someone's birthday in the next 3 months and you've found EXACTLY what you're looking for which is UNIQUE. It's on ebay with an EXCELLENT seller but the seller doesn't offer Paypal via CC or who has no merchant account with CC, BESIDES FRAUD OR ALTERNATIVES(buying from retail/manuf or nearby seller), why should you not purchase from this seller?
AS ANY EXPERIENCED EBAYER BUYER KNOWS,
MORE THAN LIKELY IF YOU WAIT A WHILE, ANOTHER SELLER WITH EXCELLENT RATINGS (AND MANY SELLERS ON EBAY HAVE GREAT RATINGS) WILL COME ALONG WITH THE "UNIQUE" ITEM YOU'RE LOOKING FOR AND THEY WILL HAVE PAYPAL VIA CC OR A MERCHANT ACCT WITH CC.
F.
1. They have more experience.
2. They are more wary dealing with strangers & money.
3. They've been burned before on ebay but won't admit it because they don't want buyers to flee away from ebay
4. They don't buy much on ebay
5. They only deal with certain ebay sellers because of
-less risk and/or
6. They:
-verify ebay seller's contact info and
7. LUCK!--The categories they buy in don't have many scam sellers and since there are more honest sellers on ebay than bad and/or scam sellers, they have YET to run into the bad sellers & scam sellers.
8. Some of them are scam sellers and/or bad sellers themselves
9. They're ebay corporation stooges who get paid or coopted to lie.
10. They're ebay employees whose work duties include whitewashing ebay's DIRTY underbelly to the public especially if they're ebay sellers themselves.
11. Any combination or all of the above
12. You've left something out.(if this is your answer, slashdot me!)
Give yourself 5 big points if you answer #11 or #12!
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