Ebay Scams - Two Common Frauds

I have been selling on eBay for about 6 years now, and I have seen everything. I would always be cautious when buying and selling good on eBay, because not everyone is honest, and there are a lot of people out there that just want to rip people off. Whether you are novice seller or a 'hardcore' powerseller there are number of things you need to be aware of on eBay.

eBay Shielding Bids

These are a very common scams, and I have seen them from time to time. This scam basically involves two different account that are the same person, or the con artist acting together to rip off the seller. Here is a situation, you are selling an item for $200 dollars with no reserve. You put it up on eBay and someone (the scammer) bids $10 on it. Well, prior to that you get another bid for $400 dollars (also the scammer), at the last second the scammer retracts the bigger bid of $400 dollars leaving the winning bid at $10 dollars. Obviously no one is going to bid on something when the price too high, so the con-artist overshoots it big time to keep people away, and then just retracts at the last second, and bam they win your item for almost nothing.

Since you didn't have a reserve you have to sell the item for a really low price. That is why it is always important to have a reserve on your item, even if you do have to spend a couple extra dollars. However, if you suspect that someone is trying to con you out of your item I would contact eBays team right away.

Fine Print Scam

This next scam, I call the 'fine print' scam is pretty common. People create an auction and then have some fine print. This can have many different forms of misleading people. For one you might be bidding very cheap on a Apple computer, but in reality the auction is not for a Apple computer, it is for a list where you can 'hopefully' get an Apple computer for a reduced price.

Another form of this hoax is the seller will state you can buy an item for a really cheap price. However, the fine print will read that you are bidding on a picture of the product and not the physical product. This is a very common hoax that sellers are using to rip people off and then they take down their account, and cash out quickly in order to make a couple thousands dollars very quickly.