Sold iPhone 3G on eBay, not convinced about seller...

[DuckSoupe]

Hello everybody, I've been viewing the forums for awhile but have never posted until today, I was just looking for a little advice.

I listed my old 3G on eBay last night, and to my surprise this morning somebody had used the buy it now feature to end the auction instantly. When I opened up my eBay to send an invoice, I see that the person is from Nigeria (no problem there, I've shipped internationally a lot before), the problem is that they just registered for eBay TODAY.

I was just looking for some advice from people. Naturally, I'm in the process of contacting eBay and Safe Harbor to see if there's anyway I can be sure to protect myself and not get scammed. What does everybody here think? Would you go through with it? If you would, what steps would you take to be sure that you do not get scammed now, or after you ship the device?

Thanks to all for any help!

 

[malevolant]

Hello everybody, I've been viewing the forums for awhile but have never posted until today, I was just looking for a little advice.

I listed my old 3G on eBay last night, and to my surprise this morning somebody had used the buy it now feature to end the auction instantly. When I opened up my eBay to send an invoice, I see that the person is from Nigeria (no problem there, I've shipped internationally a lot before), the problem is that they just registered for eBay TODAY.

I was just looking for some advice from people. Naturally, I'm in the process of contacting eBay and Safe Harbor to see if there's anyway I can be sure to protect myself and not get scammed. What does everybody here think? Would you go through with it? If you would, what steps would you take to be sure that you do not get scammed now, or after you ship the device?

Thanks to all for any help!

Um...HELL NO. Do not send that iPhone. You are getting scammed.

 

[cujimmy]

Sold iPhone 3G on eBay, not convinced about seller...

Aren't you the seller?

 

[DuckSoupe]

Aren't you the seller?

Yes, my apologies, I did in fact mean the buyer

 

[AbSoluTc]

Hello everybody, I've been viewing the forums for awhile but have never posted until today, I was just looking for a little advice.

I listed my old 3G on eBay last night, and to my surprise this morning somebody had used the buy it now feature to end the auction instantly. When I opened up my eBay to send an invoice, I see that the person is from Nigeria (no problem there, I've shipped internationally a lot before), the problem is that they just registered for eBay TODAY.

I was just looking for some advice from people. Naturally, I'm in the process of contacting eBay and Safe Harbor to see if there's anyway I can be sure to protect myself and not get scammed. What does everybody here think? Would you go through with it? If you would, what steps would you take to be sure that you do not get scammed now, or after you ship the device?

Thanks to all for any help!

Please go away. Seriously. These threads are getting old.

1 - You don't put up a BUY IT NOW without marking the option for bidders to PAY BEFORE THEY COMPLETE THE AUCTION. You are aware of that right? NEVER put up a buy it now without that option.

2 - Nigeria. Need anyone say anymore?

3 - If you don't know how to use eBay, don't post here. Post on eBay forums instead. You need to have a basic understanding before you can sell and clearly, you don't understand what you're doing. Please seek assistance elsewhere and stop clogging up these forums.

 

[OMGitsShan]

sell only to people who have some reputation/feedback. Just because you have sold international, doesn't mean you have sold to Nigeria.

 

[bunnicula]

Sell it locally. Craigslist will be fine. Meet buyer in a public place. Accept only cash (if you're worried, you can always take along one of those pens that checks for counterfeit bills).

I've sold all my old iPhones that way. Smooth transactions. You'll still get people from Nigeria, but you can tell them you only deal locally.

 

[cujimmy]

Please go away. Seriously. These threads are getting old.

1 - You don't put up a BUY IT NOW without marking the option for bidders to PAY BEFORE THEY COMPLETE THE AUCTION. You are aware of that right? NEVER put up a buy it now without that option.

2 - Nigeria. Need anyone say anymore?

3 - If you don't know how to use eBay, don't post here. Post on eBay forums instead. You need to have a basic understanding before you can sell and clearly, you don't understand what you're doing. Please seek assistance elsewhere and stop clogging up these forums.

I see the self-appointed forum police are on the prowl again.

I agree though, just don't bother with Nigeria. Or do what I do and just don't bother with eBay - there are too many people on there trying to scam you and eBay and PayPal appear to be more than willing to help them and not protect you.

 

[cujimmy]

sell only to people who have some reputation/feedback. Just because you have sold international, doesn't mean you have sold to Nigeria.

I'd even be slightly aware of this approach - I once had someone win an auction using a hijacked account (so it appeared they had feedback etc.). It was only because I had been scammed before that I didn't fall for it.

 

[h1r0ll3r]

Hello everybody, I've been viewing the forums for awhile but have never posted until today, I was just looking for a little advice.

I listed my old 3G on eBay last night, and to my surprise this morning somebody had used the buy it now feature to end the auction instantly. When I opened up my eBay to send an invoice, I see that the person is from Nigeria (no problem there, I've shipped internationally a lot before), the problem is that they just registered for eBay TODAY.

I was just looking for some advice from people. Naturally, I'm in the process of contacting eBay and Safe Harbor to see if there's anyway I can be sure to protect myself and not get scammed. What does everybody here think? Would you go through with it? If you would, what steps would you take to be sure that you do not get scammed now, or after you ship the device?

Thanks to all for any help!

I sold my 3G on eBay recently as well and had similar issues. I've been on eBay for awhile so I expect this crap to come up every once in awhile. Best thing to do is relist your item again and put in the item description that you WILL NOT accept international bids. I got a lot in "inquiries" from folks in Mexico, Nigeria, Puerto Rico etc when selling mine. Sold mine for $200 so hopefully you can get the same for yours too

 

[DuckSoupe]

Please go away. Seriously. These threads are getting old.

1 - You don't put up a BUY IT NOW without marking the option for bidders to PAY BEFORE THEY COMPLETE THE AUCTION. You are aware of that right? NEVER put up a buy it now without that option.

2 - Nigeria. Need anyone say anymore?

3 - If you don't know how to use eBay, don't post here. Post on eBay forums instead. You need to have a basic understanding before you can sell and clearly, you don't understand what you're doing. Please seek assistance elsewhere and stop clogging up these forums.

Thanks, incredibly helpful. Who in their right mind would ship ANY item without receiving payment first? Of course I put that option in, and I haven't even sent an invoice yet, still getting in touch with Safe Harbor about getting the listing fees refunded once I explain my case. I came on here and posted because I saw similar threads of people thinking they were getting in trouble, so I decided to post and see if I could get some shared experiences. I'm not even going to get into "eBay credentials" with you, as clearly you assume that their is never anybody as experienced or as knowledgable as yourself.

Now, I do thank those who posted helpful replies, it is much appreciated. I was skeptical as soon as I saw the buyer's profile, and have been on hold with Safe Harbor ever since.

 

[DuckSoupe]

I sold my 3G on eBay recently as well and had similar issues. I've been on eBay for awhile so I expect this crap to come up every once in awhile. Best thing to do is relist your item again and put in the item description that you WILL NOT accept international bids. I got a lot in "inquiries" from folks in Mexico, Nigeria, Puerto Rico etc when selling mine. Sold mine for $200 so hopefully you can get the same for yours too

Thanks for the advice. I've sold a lot of action figures on eBay, and some of my best customers have come from overseas, mostly because the items aren't available to them through other means, so I'm hesitant to cut off such a large portion of bidders, but perhaps with something as valuable and highly scammed as the iPhone this will have to be the case.

 

[DuckSoupe]

sell only to people who have some reputation/feedback. Just because you have sold international, doesn't mean you have sold to Nigeria.

A very good point, and I agree with you. Safe Harbor is on my side, and as much as I dislike cutting off international bids, it would seem that for an item such as this, domestic is the only way to protect yourself.

Thanks

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

Buy it now makes little sense for the iPhone. Better to do a 3 day auction with a reserve price.

 

[LordOBoogie]

You might want to use multi-quote to answer multiple posts. You aren't supposed to post two or three responses in a row.

Also, never sell to Nigeria.

 

[DuckSoupe]

You might want to use multi-quote to answer multiple posts. You aren't supposed to post two or three responses in a row.

Also, never sell to Nigeria.

Thanks, did not know this, will do from now on.

Appreciate all the responses everybody

 

[h1r0ll3r]

Thanks for the advice. I've sold a lot of action figures on eBay, and some of my best customers have come from overseas, mostly because the items aren't available to them through other means, so I'm hesitant to cut off such a large portion of bidders, but perhaps with something as valuable and highly scammed as the iPhone this will have to be the case.

I see. My selling on eBay is purely recreational so I could care less who buys it. Of all the items I have sold on eBay, all my cellphones seem to attract this kind of "attention" and specifically so for the iPhone 3G. You know the ropes so it's kind of a Catch 22 (sort of). You could sell only to US customers and sell it fairly quickly without issue OR accept international bids and run the risk of these scammers coming up. When I sold my old T-Mobile Dash, I had to go through 4 different auctions since scammers kept buying my phone. Best of luck.

 

[gforce216]

Nigerian check fraud. You'll get a paypal email saying you got a ton of money from them. It's all fake. I only ship in the states. Safest way to do business.

Rule of thumb - if it's not in your paypal account then it's not real. I called paypal before I shipped every one of my iPhones so that I could get verbal confirmation I had the money waiting in my account.

 

[james92se]

Anybody from ANYWHERE in Africa, Malaysia, etc. is an automatic red-flag in terms of selling on eBay.

 

[james92se]

When I sold my old T-Mobile Dash, I had to go through 4 different auctions since scammers kept buying my phone. Best of luck.

The same thing happened to me a few years ago trying to sell my SE w810i.

The most annoying part about it is that a couple of the times eBay kept wiping out my ENTIRE AUCTION, and wouldn't even allow me to sell it to one of the legitimate bidders, and I lost my auction listing and everything. It was just as if it never existed. eBay sucks in this regard

 

[billinaz]

Use craigslist.

The buyer comes to you... with cash.

No listing fees

No shipping fees

No waiting.

I list items early in the AM and use my phone number for texts......

Sold many 3G's this way...no problems.

You do get the occasional offer to buy it and have you ship it to some other country.... thats what the delete button is for. I gotta admit, some of them are pretty clever.

Ive been playing with the $500 ipad 64GB 3G sales that are on there. They offer to use a 'escrow' service and they are nice enough to give you a link to the webpages.

The service looks perfect.... except its all bovine excrement. They try to get you to send the money western union..... if you are dumb enough to do that... its gone.

 

[AbSoluTc]

Thanks, incredibly helpful. Who in their right mind would ship ANY item without receiving payment first? Of course I put that option in, and I haven't even sent an invoice yet, still getting in touch with Safe Harbor about getting the listing fees refunded once I explain my case. I came on here and posted because I saw similar threads of people thinking they were getting in trouble, so I decided to post and see if I could get some shared experiences. I'm not even going to get into "eBay credentials" with you, as clearly you assume that their is never anybody as experienced or as knowledgable as yourself.

Now, I do thank those who posted helpful replies, it is much appreciated. I was skeptical as soon as I saw the buyer's profile, and have been on hold with Safe Harbor ever since.

Like I said, if you used the Buy It Now feature that only lets buyers use that when they PAY RIGHT THEN (it's a feature on ebay, you can't buy anything with that button unless you pay when you do so) you would have avoided the issue at hand.

I am not the forum police nor am I holier than thou. I am just saying, use common sense. Research before you sell. Read before you sell. Etc etc. Why you are posting this HERE and not on eBay is beyond me.

 

[DuckSoupe]

I see. My selling on eBay is purely recreational so I could care less who buys it. Of all the items I have sold on eBay, all my cellphones seem to attract this kind of "attention" and specifically so for the iPhone 3G. You know the ropes so it's kind of a Catch 22 (sort of). You could sell only to US customers and sell it fairly quickly without issue OR accept international bids and run the risk of these scammers coming up. When I sold my old T-Mobile Dash, I had to go through 4 different auctions since scammers kept buying my phone. Best of luck.

How did you go through the different auctions? Were your listing fees refunded? Safe Harbor and eBay support is just telling me to re-list the item and file an unpaid item claim in 4 days. Even the support person I was chatting with said that it was good I took notice now before acting. Looks like I'll just re-list it, refuse international bids, and require some positive feedback from bidders, sigh.

 

[cujimmy]

You might want to use multi-quote to answer multiple posts. You aren't supposed to post two or three responses in a row.

There's those forum police again!

 

[h1r0ll3r]

The same thing happened to me a few years ago trying to sell my SE w810i.

The most annoying part about it is that a couple of the times eBay kept wiping out my ENTIRE AUCTION, and wouldn't even allow me to sell it to one of the legitimate bidders, and I lost my auction listing and everything. It was just as if it never existed. eBay sucks in this regard

Ahh...tis true. Fortunately I've had decent results with my dealings with eBay. But there have been times where they've been extremely fickle about these kinds of things. Seems like they're trying to make things difficult for sellers and easier for scammers sometimes.