Tuesday, April 27, 2004
PREVENTING DIASTER - HOW TO SPOT A FRAUDULENT SELLER
First and foremost, inspect his feedback. Read the complaints and see how he Seller handled them. To easily find complaints within pages of feedback, do the following:
At the bottom of the first feedback page is a pulldown menu to display as many feedbacks as you want, set it to the maximum, 200.
Once you have your first page of 200, do CTRL F (for find) and type in "Complaint" - it will find the first one, then the next, etc., etc.
To view the next page of 200, hit the NEXT PAGE icon, not the page #2 (or 3,4, etc.) icon. If you don't do this, the number of feedbacks per page goes back to the default number which is 25.
How Sellers handle their negative feedback is cruical. Are they rude? Do they blame the customer? Are they critical of the customer? All of these things, and things like this, make the negative feedback worse in my opinion.
HOW MANY NEGATIVES SHOULD YOU ALLOW
It depends on the ration. If a guy has 10 feedbacks and 1 is negative, but it was obviously no big deal or seems retalitory in nature, that is fine even though his negatives are 10% of his total.
If he has thousands and has 25 negatives - even that may be understandable as when you are dealing with thousands of customers, mistakes do happen.
Normally though, just on a cursory glance, if anyone has below 99%, I take a serious look. But in general, I always check feedback and I READ the negatives and the neutrals.
NEUTRAL FEEDBACK
Are also very indicative of how a Seller operates. Some people are too shy to leave Negatives so leave Nuetrals. Be sure to read them if the Seller has a quite a few of them.
CHECK PAYPAL
Before you click the 'Send Money' tab, is he a verified seller? How many sales are in noted on his account. If only a few, do you want to be a guinea pig and take a chance with him?
There are no absolutes but there are indicators of potential trouble. be on the look out for them.
First and foremost, inspect his feedback. Read the complaints and see how he Seller handled them. To easily find complaints within pages of feedback, do the following:
At the bottom of the first feedback page is a pulldown menu to display as many feedbacks as you want, set it to the maximum, 200.
Once you have your first page of 200, do CTRL F (for find) and type in "Complaint" - it will find the first one, then the next, etc., etc.
To view the next page of 200, hit the NEXT PAGE icon, not the page #2 (or 3,4, etc.) icon. If you don't do this, the number of feedbacks per page goes back to the default number which is 25.
How Sellers handle their negative feedback is cruical. Are they rude? Do they blame the customer? Are they critical of the customer? All of these things, and things like this, make the negative feedback worse in my opinion.
HOW MANY NEGATIVES SHOULD YOU ALLOW
It depends on the ration. If a guy has 10 feedbacks and 1 is negative, but it was obviously no big deal or seems retalitory in nature, that is fine even though his negatives are 10% of his total.
If he has thousands and has 25 negatives - even that may be understandable as when you are dealing with thousands of customers, mistakes do happen.
Normally though, just on a cursory glance, if anyone has below 99%, I take a serious look. But in general, I always check feedback and I READ the negatives and the neutrals.
NEUTRAL FEEDBACK
Are also very indicative of how a Seller operates. Some people are too shy to leave Negatives so leave Nuetrals. Be sure to read them if the Seller has a quite a few of them.
CHECK PAYPAL
Before you click the 'Send Money' tab, is he a verified seller? How many sales are in noted on his account. If only a few, do you want to be a guinea pig and take a chance with him?
There are no absolutes but there are indicators of potential trouble. be on the look out for them.
Monday, April 19, 2004
If you buy from someone that, for some reason, doesn't ship your goods or give you a refund promptly, here is a copy of the email I send outlining the tactics that I will use to inspire them to act quickly in processing my refund:
1) I file a fraud report with eBay
2) File a fraud complaint with Paypal (or dispute the charge on your credit card). (NEVER PAY WITH A CHECK THROUGH THE MAIL!!!)
3) I will email each and every one of your bidders DAILY about what a fraudulent seller you are and advise them to retract their bids.
4) Leave negative feedback.
5) File a fraud report with the police department in your city.
#3 is the ringer. Basically, they can kiss their ebay business Goodbye unless I get my refund quickly.
Works like a charm.
1) I file a fraud report with eBay
2) File a fraud complaint with Paypal (or dispute the charge on your credit card). (NEVER PAY WITH A CHECK THROUGH THE MAIL!!!)
3) I will email each and every one of your bidders DAILY about what a fraudulent seller you are and advise them to retract their bids.
4) Leave negative feedback.
5) File a fraud report with the police department in your city.
#3 is the ringer. Basically, they can kiss their ebay business Goodbye unless I get my refund quickly.
Works like a charm.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Paypal's shipping label and postage facility is great. It almost eliminates the need to subscribe to internet postage and it would entirely if Paypal allowed you to print labels for shipping and mailing even though no transaction took place. The way it is now is you can only use this facility if someone buys something from you. Hopefully that will change in the future.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Unless you are in a niche, like a collectible of some sort, the only real way to make money on ebay over a long period of time is to be the manufacturer of an item.
