If you are selling high value items such as:
Mobile phones, Laptops, Digital Cameras or any other high value items including:
expensive Jewellery or Watches,
then this information should help save you a lot of potential trouble and financial loss.
You will commonly find that the bidder/buyer has a Zero Rated Feedback,
is newly registered and usually registered outside of the UK,
most commonly registered in the Netherlands, India or Australia
although France seems to be becoming a popular choice.
They are now also using hijacked, genuine ebay accounts that have feedback
and may be registered in the UK or the USA,
these accounts will usually not have been used for some time,
this is evident by the lack of activity on the feedback or recent activity history.
You can check their recent activity and what else they are bidding on at the link below.
They will generally request that you ship the item to Africa or Asia,
(Nigeria, Singapore or Indonesia) with a bleeding heart story.
DO NOT SHIP THE ITEM!
These scammers are producing fake Paypal payment notifications,
so be sure to always check your account to see payment has actually been received.
If you install the ebay toolbar it has a built in function called "Account Guard"
this alerts you if you click on a link that claims to be Paypal or eBay but is not,
it also gives you the opportunity to report the site by simply clicking your mouse.
If you receive a Paypal payment notification it will Always begin with
"Dear... then the name you have registered with paypal",
it will never change and never be your ebay user ID or your e-mail address.
They are now also producing spoof Paypal emails that do address you by your name,
this they are provided with by ebay at the close of the auction, so caution is the key.
They are also using stolen or cloned credit cards,
and offering payment by other online services such as Western Union and Moneygram, DO NOT accept this payment method,
it is not covered by ebay's seller protection policy.
If you are accepting Paypal payment, at all times be sure that you meet
Paypal seller protection requirements:
Paypal Seller Protection
Verified Buyer
Confirmed address
Ship ONLY to verified address
Send by a trackable means
Transaction marked eligible
The word "eligible" is imperative when accepting payment by Paypal, as if they fund the payment with a cloned or stolen credit card, and the transaction wasn't marked as eligible, you risk being subject to a chargeback if the true owner of the card reports it lost, stolen or cloned, this basically means that the money paid to you will be taken back.
If the transaction is marked as eligible,
you are protected from chargebacks by Paypal's seller protection programme.
Never send any goods before you receive genuinely confirmed payment no matter what they tell you!
If you are ever in doubt visit the Answer Centre Boards or one of the Discussion Forums.
Whichever you choose you will find experienced members who will be willing to help you
If you feel that you may be the subject of such a scam,
here is what to do:
You can set a number of buyer requirements to make selling safer by using the above link
If you use fixed price format (buy it now) set it so that immediate payment is required via Paypal
If we all take the time to read about, and recognise the signs
we can go someway to reducing the amount of fraud currently taking place
and make the internet a safer place to trade.