eBay Buyer or Interest Free Bank?

Author: Ed Neville
Date: 10/11/2005

Let me start by saying that I have been dealing on eBay for 6 years now. I have four trade names listed with them and show a feedback score of 100% with all sales and purchases showing positive remarks. Through the years it has been an enjoyable way to sell and purchase products, which are large enough to ship for a low cost.

In the past 6 months or so, I have both noticed and experienced a pattern of some sellers on eBay. This trend should be noted by anyone who buys on eBay. The game appears to going like this. A seller needs some cash fast, maybe to pay some bills or buy some products to sell on eBay, or to buy the product that you just paid for. You make a purchase and pay for it whether via credit card or through Paypal. At this point, the seller has your cash money and can do with it whatever he or she wants. The seller then waits for a few days to notify you of shipping but a week or 10 days goes by and haven't received anything. You notify the seller who replies to you stating that he/she will check to see what happened to it. A few more days go by and the seller contacts you (which is keeping with eBay's by laws of "good communications") and tells you that the item must have been lost in the mail and gives you a choice of another item to be shipped or a total re-imbursement. Either way, you have now financed the seller with your money from an indefinite period of time and this loan that you made to the seller is interest free.

Another method, which I have been noticed to be a growing one, is to send the wrong product (usually a very small and cheap one) to you and then have you return it to them with their apologies, before he/she makes restitution. Your money could be used to finance the seller's purchase of your item before it is shipped. Beware of photos stating that the picture is a general photo of a similar item. Make sure that the photo is of the item that is for sale.

Example: The worst-case method is this. You buy a laptop for $400.00 and a shipping cost of $30.00, which also carries a mandatory insurance charge of, say $5.00. You pay for the item and the seller doesn't send it via UPS but through USPS. The correct choice of shipping is still via UPS since their tracking numbers work from start to finish, whereas USPS only gives you the date and location of mailing. He can then send the item (or something else in the box) to an acquaintance, which takes, quite a bit of time. This way he has a tracking number to show you with the mailing date and the location attached. When you complain and go the through the long procedure of realizing that the item was lost, he tells you that the insurance will pay for the item and he gives you a total re-imbursement less the insurance cost and applies it to your Paypal account. This makes the seller look great for fronting the money for the return but actually it is your money in the first place and he has used it to do other things for anywhere from a week to 3 weeks, interest free. In the sellers feedbacks on eBay, even if you were to place a neutral or negative feedback, the seller will, at the end, place a note stating that he made "full compensation" for the ill-fated transaction.

Always check the seller's feedback before you bid. If you see an unusual number of neutrals or negatives, remember this article and read through them all.

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