Warning about buyers with zero feedback: POSSIBLE scam.

[smilingrobot]

I recently received a few sales from buyers with zero feedback. I am usually wary of buyers with zero feedback, but so approach cautiously. One occasions, I believe was trying to scam me. Here is what they did:

1. They bought an item from us under UserID-A (0)
2. After a few days, I am contacted by another UserID-B (0) asking me about the item bought by UserID-A. This person requests a change in the order and wants to change the item to something else.
3. I asked UserID-B what they wanted their order changed, and they then confirmed what they wanted. BUT...
4. Before I changed the order, I told UserID-B to contact me on UserID-A account, otherwise I cannot do anything.
5. They then stopped contacting me.

Note: The buyer made it sound like they are the same person. Likely they are. What I believe can happen is that once you send the item to Buyer B, Buyer A will lodge an Item not received, and then get a full refund. Because the item is shipped to another buyer, you have no protection or proof you actually sent it to Buyer A.

Be careful.

[davewil1964]

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@haolove13 wrote:

When buyers turn up with minus five as their rating it will save a lot of time waiting for them to pay.

and if Ebay are genuine about a safe level playing field they will keep banning these people and eventually they will run out of adresses.

I have had 10% of my sales in the last two months with non paying bidders which is wasting a lot of my time. And it is slowing down my cashflow. And wasting my free listings.

If these people were to start having scores more than minus two you can also stop them from bidding by changing your settings.

Ebay really has changed and for sellers it really has got a lot worse.

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How are they going to run out of (email) addresses? They can create them in seconds. In Bulk. And a new buyer account in not much more time.

As crikey said, they won't get to -5 (or -2), they'll just open a new account before they get to that point. And if they BIN or snipe, you have no chance of blocking them before they buy. If you then refuse to sell to them, YOU are the one who is going to have issues with eBay, not them.

I always work on working with how things are. It's all well and good to advocate change, but you should be aware of the consequences if you get your way.

Plus you're talking to other members here, not eBay.

[more-champagne]

I refuse to deal with them, I am sick of educating the big fat zero's.  The final straw came when I sold a bag to a USA zero feedback buyer, waited for payment, nothing, dropped the buyer a few messages, nothing, fed up I requested the transaction be cancelled, then out of the blue, I get a message saying, how do I pay, what do I do, will you take a check, (cheque?)  I wrote back telling her the item is no longer for sale and I am  cancelling the transaction.  Enough I thought, not worth the trouble, the item was sitting in idle for days and days and I had other watchers on it.  What a waste of time.  I have no patience any longer.  

[smilingrobot]

I only sell items on pay immediately. If a zero feedback bidder comes along, I always contacts them first.

eBay does not help sellers. They need these buyers to be around as they bring business for them.