Ed Rooney Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 When selling with eBay, PayPal, Amazon or Craig's list, I mean? YouTube is full of scare videos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I have had no problems either buying or selling on eBay and no probs with PayPal (other than the usual scams which arrive in my email inbox occasionally which I just forward to spoof@paypal.com). I have never sold anything on Craig's List but a few months back, someone on Craig's List had put my website to back up their claim that the person was indeed a photographer who was looking for an assistant (according to the ad). I received a couple of emails from wary assistants who were just checking the veracity of the ad. I reported it to Craig's List and they removed the phony ad immediately. To this day, I am not sure why the scammer placed the ad and what the intent was. Cheers Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Not once. Living in a somewhat remote part of Thailand I often need to resort to eBay for equipment, and particularly obsolete items. I've been sourcing goods via them for some 8 years now and not once has there been a problem. It's actually (for me at least) quicker and more cost effective than buying from Thai dealers. PayPal is fine also. Checking the feedback history is essential, as is the old adage "if it's too good to be true, it usually is" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kuta Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Ed, I sold all my 5D kit last year on Craig's List with no problems, to finance all my new Sony and Canon gear. A few email exchanges will tell you whether a responder is just a general bottom-feeder or someone actually wanting your photo equipment. My rules were: local only; cash only; meet in a public place. I did recruit one of my sons to be around for my first deal, but after that I got used to the idea of trading something in public for hundreds of dollars in cash. Met a lot of nice people who are into photography. I suppose you could always meet outside your bank. On Craig's List I got nearly twice what KEH/B&H/Adorama offered me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrioticAlien Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 If your buying or selling online, from a person or from a questionable website, safest way is to use Paypal. You will get seller and buyer protection if you use them. If your selling just make sure you, use a signed shipping delivery tracking service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I've bought stuff on eBay and Amazon (small items only) and have never been scammed. Actually, I've been quite impressed by how quickly things get to Vancouver, even from China, and by how well packed they usually are. I've sold lots of old camera equipment -- some of which I now wish I had held onto -- on Craigslist without any problems. Never had any issues with PayPal either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 So far this is sounding good. I wonder what tales the morning will bring? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I've done over 6000 Paypal transactions since they started.Ebay,copyright retroactive license fee payments,licensing payments,no problems. Very very important...A LOT of scam emails pretending they are from Paypal trying to get you to click on a link saying you have a problem with your account. DO NOT CLICK THOSE LINKS... Should you get a suspect email send to: spoof@paypal.com Use a difficult password and change frequently. You should do that for email and all financial sites anyway. Other than that,all is good. I recently opened a similar account with Flint in case a client hates Paypal or I should ever have a problem with Paypal. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Never accept any payment but CASH(no bills over $10s) in person from craigslist. HUGE amount of scams there. I've sold tons of things there. I'm in a highrise with a lot of security so I was meeting them in the hall or lobby. Our condo board has nixed any selling unless people come inside our units which I will not do unless I'm selling a desktop computer and I've checked out the buyer as best I could. People scam on craigs by wanting to send a check and making it over the amount. The check will not clear your bank and you will be out the money and your merchandise.Also,if someone paid you by Paypal for a craigs item,you have no proof they picked it up and they could do a charge back and debit your account. CASH ONLY,pick up only and meet in a busy public place. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 No problems here, but I've only sold surplus kit up to about £200, not big-ticket stuff because I've never owned any! ebay rules in the UK require you to accept Paypal, so you have to use tracked post, which is fairly efficient here, and the cost of insurance just goes onto the shipping fee, remembering to add on the commission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I've suffered from timewasters a couple of times on eBay. They bid for items, make sure they get the winning bid, and then disappear without paying. They usually have either no feedback or they've recently changed their username so I now try to spot such people bidding in the hope that I can refuse their bids before it's too late. It hasn't cost me any loss but it's extremely irritating because eBay won't cancel an unpaid transaction for a period of time (I think from memory it's 14 days but I could be wrong) even though it's perfecty obvious to me that it's a scam. By the time the transaction is voided it's usually too late to make a second-chance offer to other bidders as they will have bought elsewhere. However, the good news for me personally is that on both occasions the subsequent re-auction fetched a higher price than the original auction would have done. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Ditto. You can cancel the transaction mutually but in my case I waited 7 days so the non-payer would get a black mark on their account. I got a higher price second time around, too. Of course if you're sure it's a scam you can just start a fresh listing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I've suffered from timewasters a couple of times on eBay. They bid for items, make sure they get the winning bid, and then disappear without paying. They usually have either no feedback or they've recently changed their username so I now try to spot such people bidding in the hope that I can refuse their bids before it's too late. It hasn't cost me any loss but it's extremely irritating because eBay won't cancel an unpaid transaction for a period of time (I think from memory it's 14 days but I could be wrong) even though it's perfecty obvious to me that it's a scam. By the time the transaction is voided it's usually too late to make a second-chance offer to other bidders as they will have bought elsewhere. However, the good news for me personally is that on both occasions the subsequent re-auction fetched a higher price than the original auction would have done. Alan I've sold tens of thousands of dollars of equipment and everything else on ebay and only years ago did I have vanishing bidders.Ebay has really tightened up so have not had that happen in at least 12 years. For my equipment I'm selling, I state in my preferences no recent bad feedback. In my description I insist on no recent negative feedback and must have score of 25 or more or I will cancel their bid. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Of course sellers can't leave a neg, so you wouldn't learn about a buyer's bad habits from feedback alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dyn Llun Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I have bought and sold on Ebay without any hassles except one. I have bought bits and pieces of photo equipment which have all been absolutely as advertised and fine. I also sold my late Mother's collection of bone china which she loved but I didn't want. It went in various lots to collectors all over the world and all the buyers were delighted and I got rave reviews! My one glitch was when I bought an Epson R2880 A3+ printer advertised as 'like new and unused'. It arrived very badly packed and wrecked. The seller refused all liability and accused me of lying etc. etc. I communicated with him for a while and he became abusive. I then went through Ebay's customer service centre and they were fantastic. They had obviously been monitoring the communications between me and the seller, plus my pictures of the bad packing etc. I had my money back almost instantly after I sent the printer back - with postage pre-paid by Ebay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panthera tigris Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I consider eBay my local camera store - have not been able to fault it so far fro both new and second hand purchases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Of course if you're sure it's a scam you can just start a fresh listing. True, and I did consider it. But what I really wanted to do was offer it immediately to the next highest bidder in order to get the stuff sold quickly. Of course, it turned out that that wouldn't have been such a lucrative move! Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarsierspectral Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Yes, I've been scammed on ebay/paypal. It was about 10 years ago. I sold CD collectors box to Italy for $800. The seller claimed he never received it even though I had his signature that he did. What I didn't have was a tracking number as the post office here in the US told me that they have no way of tracking packages outside of US (I don't believe that's true, I don't remember what the deal was back then). Even though I his the delivery signature, customs number etc. he claimed his money back from PayPal and PayPal gave it to him. They didn't care that I had his delivery confirmation signature, they wanted a tracking number and I didn't have it. I no longer use PayPal and never never never never ship without a tracking number. I also insured the item but I didn't recover any money because there was a signature that the item was delivered. PayPal didn't care about any of that info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Use ebay, paypal, amazon no probs. never crags list. You just have to be careful. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lastrega Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I have a business account on ebay and sell thousands of pounds worth of goods each month. My average price item is around £100, but I have sold many items for around £1000 each and I sell a lot to USA, Canada, Japan, Australia etc., as well as in the UK. I have virtually given up on auctions - 99 % plus of my items are sold as fixed price. This is primarily to ensure that I get the price I want and also to eradicate the utter hassle of dealing with auctions and non payers etc., Here are my tips / rules: Research the prices that other people have sold items for. Discount the odd really high or very low prices - they are often flukes - in the case of very low prices, the seller has often little feedback or they have ended their auction at a really daft time e.g. 4 am on a Saturday. Work out what you think you can get and be sure to take account of the ebay fees and the paypal fees. I allow roughly 15& to cover fees - paypal is between 3 and 5 percent, at the higher end if you sell to someone abroad which results in paypal having to do a currency conversion. I don't know about USA and Canada, but I believe there is now a cap on the ebay fee for photographic equipment - I think that if it sells for more than £200 you only pay a max of £10, but you would have to check that. Be aware that ebay and paypal fees are calculated on the TOTAL cost the buyer pays - yes, ebay take a fee on the amount of postage you charge, even though they do nothing to earn that. This means that if you sell something to someone in Japan and the postage costs £30, ebay will take £3 from you in fees, so your postage is, in effect, costing £33, but you cannot charge the buyer. It is strictly against ebay rules to charge the buyer anything on top to cover your fees, you must do all those calculations before listing. I find it is worth putting the prices to various countries into the listing in the postage and payments section. That way people can buy and pay immediately without having the faff of messaging you. In the preferences, I have it set up to reject any customers who have 2 or more non payment strikes against them. I also do not sell to China, India, Africa, South America and Russia and the middle East. This is not a reflection on buyers from those countries, it is because the postal services in those countries are slow or unreliable or the customs & excise process is very slow. It is my experience that packages 'disappear' for weeks and by the time they do arrive, ebay has already insisted on refunding the buyers. They now have your item and their money back and you are unlikely to trek to Iran to knock on the door and demand your money. Ebay only allow about 45 days for an item to arrive before refunding, it can take 60 days for an Indian shipment to arrive..... Also set up in the preferences whether the buyer pays for postage for returning an item. Again, I don't know about American ruiles, but for European sellers, there is a legal requirement to refund the postage that a buyer has paid if the item is returned. The postage to actually return the item must also be paid by the seller, UNLESS they have specified that the buyer pays it. You should also state cleary how long the buyer has to return it. The legal minimum is seven days from the day after they received the item, but ebay insists on 14 days. If you do not specify a time, then the buyer is entitled to return the item any time in the following 3 MONTHS! So, worth taking the time to specify a limit. When listing, I always tick the 'immediate payment required' box. This is one of my main reasons for doing 'buy it now' listings. Part of 'buying' is 'paying', I don't see any reason for someone buying an item and then having me wait two weeks while they scrape the cash together. Bricks and mortar auction houses don't allow that, so why should ebay? If you do an auction, then you can file for non payment in about two days, but I just don't need the hassle. Ticking that box means that the buyer will pay immediately and you are able to get the item sent off. I also onloy accept paypal as payment. I don't want to hang around for 8 days to post the item, I certainly don't want to have to drive to the bank to deposit a cheque and I don't want to have to pay the bank the percentage that they take for cashing the cheque in my business account. Again, a paypal payment means they can pay immediately. List your item as a fixed price item 'Buy it Now' or do a 'buy it now or best offer' listing. You can set the minimum that you will automatically accept and ebay will reject all offers below that. ONLY use tracked / signed for shipping. The seller is responsible for the item arriving safely. Having a proof of postage is not enough, the proof of actually delivery will be required by ebay / paypal, otherwise they will pretty much just refund the buyer. You won't have a leg to stand on. You will get buyers who will try to contact you outside of ebay and negotiate a sale. It's up to you if you want to do this - it's against ebay rules and it leaves you vulnerable to scams, so I don't do it. Much as I hate the ebay greed on fees, they are providing a service and are entitled to their fee, just like photographers are entitled to the licence fee for their work. The 'buy it now' listings can take a while longer to sell, but I find that I can get about 30% more than the average auction price for a 'buy it now' item. It costs about 30 pence to re-list, so it's cheaper to re-list than take a stupidly low offer. If you are not in too much of a hurry to sell, it makes sense to hang onto the item and re-list a couple of times - spend 90 pence on listings, rather than dropping £100 ! You can list for 3, 7, 10 or 30 days. I find that a lot of buyers watch my items and only buy when I re-list it at the same price as before - they must be waiting to see if it sells and if I will re-list at a lower price. when I don't drop the price, they just go ahead and buy. On that thinking, I'd say maybe list for either 7 or ten days. Sunday evenings are the optimum time for finishing listings, if you are doing auctions, but by the same token, they are a good time to start your listing as loads of people are on ebay looking at that time and will see your offerings. Once the items sells, I send an ebay message to thank the buyer for the purchase and tell them when I will be posting. This is partly courtesy, but partly so that they know that i know the item needs to be posted. I get scarily annoyed at sites where I buy something and then hear nothing until it either arrives or doesn't. Check that paypal is telling you it is safe to post and only send to the confirmed address on paypal. Post immediately, or as soon as possible - delays just make people jittery. When you post, add the tracking number to the listing and this will automatically mark it as despatched. If the buyer contacts you about non arrival, then re-assure them that you will sort it out and do so. It is your responsibility to get the item to them and they will be a lot easier to deal with it you take ownership of the problem. People who say they don't have a paypal account can still pay by paypal - it works the same as any other payment system - they can just pay with their bank card or credit card through the paypal portal, just as if they were swiping their card in a shop. I find that a lot of buyers buy one thing, see what your service is like and whether you are honest and then they buy more, so it is worth taking the trouble to resolve problems amicably. Sorry, this is not directed at anyone personally and I don't mean to patronize. Do not give feedback to the buyer until they leave it for you. It is up to them to say if they are satisfied with your service and item. I find most buyers are pleasant and honest. I find a lot of them are surprised to be getting a good service, which tells me that that is not the norm. As a buyer, I have bought loads from ebay, but I only buy from people with good feedback and I never go outwith ebay to do deals to save the seller the fees because it negates my buyer protection. Sorry to have gone on and on..... I just thought that some of this (and the reasons behind it) might be useful to anyone starting off selling on ebay. Not quite the potted guide I had intended, but I hope there are some tips that are of use...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I have bought a lot on both eBay and Amazon and have only had one scam. My wife bought a Chanel watch which turned out to be a fake. I finally recovered 50% after involving the police etc. I also had an incident with a seller wanting to be paid through Western Union. I declined and passed the details to the police who confirmed that this was a scam. That said have only had very good experiences otherwise. With regard to the PayPal emails they drive me mad. I delete them all. dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Gaffen Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Yes, but it related/resulted from a previous hack, Someone purchased "electronic vouchers" from EBay, using my PayPal account, via my Visa Card. After a lot of email correspondence and phone calls, I eventually managed to get my money back from the bank/Card Company, with the EBay sellers becoming the losers. I also had a potential scammer on Amazon who wanted to be paid for an item, by bank transfer (outside the normal Amazon payment procedure). But I reported them to Amazon and I did not complete the purchase. So the scam did not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Not much experience here with eBay, but I have sold locally here on Craigslist. You do get some looneys answering ads, but I can weed them out pretty quickly. I've sold some expensive lenses. I will not mail anything, all sales have to be direct with cash in my hand. Met one guy in the WalMart lobby while my husband lurked 15 feet away. We've sold a smoker, expensive tools like band saws and similar, bedding, furniture and jewelry making tools and beads. And a computer. All have been good, with honest people understanding the cash only requirement. Anything where someone has to come to our home, like the computer and smoker, band saw and such, I always make sure my husband is home. Not to say a crew of baddies couldn't overwhelm two people, but so far so good. As far as cameras, I've always had Nikon, so I list them on the Nikonians website and sell, mail, collect through Paypal. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 A lot of great information, people. It's wonderful to see things working so well in far-off Thailand. I guess if I'd only heard from Lastrega and Linda I'd have enough solid info . . . but again, thanks to all. I have bought items on eBay myself, but I've never sold anything, and the details of selling are very different. On principle, I try not to see anecdotes as rules to follow. (We all have been guilty of using anecdotes to find a path for selecting subject matter when shooting stock.) Linda seems to have bought and sold more gear than Bloomingdales sell clothing. And meeting someone in shot-'m-up modern Chicago takes guts. (I sold my handgun to the police last year.) I won't be selling to anyone outside the USA and perhaps Canada. If I still lived in Europe, I would probably have to sell beyond the border, but sending costly items across the seas seems impractical on so many levels. Thank you again, everyone. (Please read my blog.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 How are the prices on Nikonians, Betty? I used to belong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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