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Daily buyers fall for dubious Ebay offers. Yet you can usually recognise them very easily in the internet auction house. We give you some tips on what you should look out for when bidding.
Restricted means of payment – an indication of dubious auctions
The safest payment method on Ebay is currently PayPal. The online payment service is not only an indication of serious offers, but also offers you other advantages:
- If you end up with a dubious seller, you usually get your money refunded directly by PayPal. Ebay then collects the money from the seller itself. You don’t have to worry about anything else.
- This is why you will usually not be able to pay via PayPal for dubious offers. So if the seller only accepts bank transfers, you should be careful. These are mostly irrecoverable and offer fraudsters the greatest possible anonymity.
- So make sure that at least a “cash on collection” is accepted as a means of payment.
Scams on eBay: Watch out for negative seller ratings
Seller ratings are one of the most powerful tools on Ebay. And it’s one you should use:
- For every auction, go to the seller’s account and read the latest ratings. Ebay offers a clear statistic here of all the reviews submitted in the last year. If more and more complaints appear here, you should rather keep your hands off the seller.
- The number of sales already made is also a good point of reference. If the seller has sold a lot and has very good ratings on average, then it can usually be assumed that he is a serious seller.
- Commercial sellers who offer an above-average service receive the award “Seller with top rating”. Here you can be sure that a purchase will be made without any problems. Ebay re-evaluates this status every month using metrics collected internally, so customers can be confident in the rating.
- If you see the keywords “eBay Guarantee” or “eBay Buyer Protection” on the listing page, it means that your purchase is covered and eBay will support you as a customer if you have a problem.
For security: Additionally consider the valuation number
A perfect rating alone, however, does not make the seller reputable. Here you should always pay attention to the number of ratings at the same time:
- The more ratings the seller has already received, the more meaningful the percentage of positive opinions.
- At the latest from 100 reviews and predominantly positive feedback you can assume a serious offer.
- Yet you should also have a certain basic trust in small Ebay members with little feedback. Even serious sellers start small once in a while.
Too good to be true – Resist supposed bargains
The sales price can also be an indication of dubious offers. This is particularly noticeable with expensive brand-name products:
- You’d better be careful with Rolex watches or the latest smartphones for 100 euros. Nobody offers such bargains without ulterior motives.
- Mostly these goods are fake or even stolen. You will rarely see your money again in these cases and with stolen goods you may possibly get into trouble with the law. So it’s better to keep your hands off extreme bargains.
- Generally, it makes sense to check several offers. Look at other eBay offers for the same product and compare them with each other. If the supposed bargain is significantly below the average price, you should exercise caution here. It also helps to check platforms like Amazon or other sellers to get a better feel for the actual value of the goods.
- If there is no minimum price listed to guide you, you should look at the number of bids: If there are very few bids just before the listing closes, be sure to check the seller’s ratings.
Indispensable: Read item description carefully
Several hundred euros for an empty package? Many Ebay users have already fallen for this. That’s why you should read the item description very carefully.
- Pay particular attention to phrases such as “you are only bidding on” or “offered only”.
- A serious buyer will list exactly what you are bidding on and the condition of the item in the description. Generally, the more detailed the item is described, the better the basis for your argument if, for whatever reason, a dispute does arise.
- In addition, you should be careful if the seller never mentions the product without the addition of “OVP”, for example. In these cases, usually only the empty packaging is offered.
- Never rely on the item picture alone. Things are often placed here that are not for sale at all. After the purchase, you can only refer to the item description. You should also be careful if the pictures posted by the seller all come from the Internet. In this case, it is difficult to verify the authenticity of the item on offer.
- Use the eBay Question feature, which allows you to ask the seller questions about the item.
- A popular trick that scammers use is to suggest that the interested buyer complete a transaction outside of eBay. Under no circumstances should you take advantage of this. All steps of the purchase and correspondence with the seller must be handled via eBay so that you, as the buyer, can fall back on eBay Buyer Protection in the event of problems.
