Sold my MBP on ebay, now concerned about getting scammed!

[Benjamins]

Yes, at this point i'd just recommend re-listing.
List it on eBay as a buy it now with immediate payment required.
I sell on ebay, and before I listed items like that, I always had scammers wanting to buy my items.
The next thing you know, he'll be saying "I'm on a business trip in Nigeria, can you ship it to me here?" Well, actually no, the grammar would be a bit worse.

LOL I get that a lot too.
several times it's a buyer who claims to be from New York, but on a business trip to Nigeria.
I think eventually I list my item with gigantic bold capitalized letters saying
"I DON'T DO INTERNATIONAL SHIPMENTS, SPECIALLY NIGERIA!"

 

[Richard1028]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. Here's how I think I'm going to proceed:

First off, I called ebay and asked them how I can cancel this guy's bid and quit the whole transaction. Like someone else mentioned, because of the buy-it-now, I'm pretty much forced to keep the ball rolling. However, it looks like at this point, nothing can continue until I send him the invoice. So, instead I will email the buyer and request that he provides me a real phone number so that I can actually speak to him, if he does, I will then ask a few questions that should get me a better idea of what this guy's motives are, and then finally tell him about the shipping thing and see what he says to that.

If he never replies to my request, I think I can just do nothing and the whole thing should blow over.

And they wonder why e-bay gets a bad rep. It's not always the buyer.

What the heck is the problem?

You sold an item... didn't specify who could not buy it then piss and moan when somebody does.

Send the freaking invoice. He either has 5 or 7 days to pay for it unless you specified otherwise in the sale.

If the money doesn't come or it's bogus, you don't ship.

Next time research how to do something before doing it.

lol honestly this doesn't sound good at all.
It's 2011, phones do not have little problems.... Even his landline has little problem, he should at least know someone with a cellphone.
Cancel the transaction and re-list the item.

OMG. You guys are hilarious.

The buyer wants to transfer money to the sellers paypal account. Yeah, there's a scam if I heard one.

Why not wait and <gasp> see if this happens?

 

[murdercitydevil]

Yeah I think I'm gonna relist...does anyone know what the total list price would have to be in order for me to make $2000 after ebay fees?

 

[aaps59]

I have had that issue before =/ Thats why Im scared to sell mine...

 

[murdercitydevil]

And they wonder why e-bay gets a bad rep. It's not always the buyer.

What the heck is the problem?

You sold an item... didn't specify who could not buy it then piss and moan when somebody does.

Send the freaking invoice. He either has 5 or 7 days to pay for it unless you specified otherwise in the sale.

If the money doesn't come or it's bogus, you don't ship.

Next time research how to do something before doing it.




OMG. You guys are hilarious.

The buyer wants to transfer money to the sellers paypal account. Yeah, there's a scam if I heard one.

Why not wait and <gasp> see if this happens?

you clearly didn't read the whole thread, mainly the parts about his email addresses, shady contact info, overbearing desire to send me money regardless of shipping costs, no paypal info tied to him, bad grammar/spelling, etc. Maybe he's not a scammer, who knows, but he pretty glaringly made all indicating factors point to that conclusion. Better safe than sorry dude.

 

[SwitchHitter]

Don't sell to the guy

My guess is there's a high chance of a scam. Probably over 80% or so. I'd definitely not sell it.

However, you're from California - so why don't you sell here? You could certainly post on CL for the closet major metro area - LA, Bay Area, etc. Surely you are somewhat close to that.

I also don't know if eBay still does regional auctions (i.e. for furniture). You could try to sell it just in California as an example.

 

[Richard1028]

you clearly didn't read the whole thread, mainly the parts about his email addresses, shady contact info, overbearing desire to send me money regardless of shipping costs, no paypal info tied to him, bad grammar/spelling, etc. Maybe he's not a scammer, who knows, but he pretty glaringly made all indicating factors point to that conclusion. Better safe than sorry dude.

You just described 90% of the posters on MR.

Maybe he's not a scammer, who knows,

Exactly. (Nice back-pedaling).

The money either comes to the sellers paypal account or it doesn't. (Wow, what a concept... money changes hands.)

There is "zero" risk to the seller and he didn't have the foresight to specify that only buyers in the domestic 48 states need to bid. And I assume he forgot to specify payment terms so the buyer most likely has 5-7 days to pay.

The seller brought this all on himself. Good e-bay lesson.

 

[murdercitydevil]

My guess is there's a high chance of a scam. Probably over 80% or so. I'd definitely not sell it.

However, you're from California - so why don't you sell here? You could certainly post on CL for the closet major metro area - LA, Bay Area, etc. Surely you are somewhat close to that.

I also don't know if eBay still does regional auctions (i.e. for furniture). You could try to sell it just in California as an example.

The reason I tried ebay in the first place was of bad Craigslist luck. Very few offers and most of them were extreme lowballers. I could try again though...it's kind of tough. eBay is filled with scammers, craigslist is filled with scammers and deadbeats.

 

[jimitha]

OMG. You guys are hilarious.

The buyer wants to transfer money to the sellers paypal account. Yeah, there's a scam if I heard one.

Meanwhile, eight thousand miles away, another scammer begins to salivate.

 

[murdercitydevil]

You just described 90% of the posters on MR.

Uhhh...What? WTF does that have to do with anything relating to this discussion?

The money either comes to the sellers paypal account or it doesn't. (Wow, what a concept... money changes hands.)

Again, what? Please read my posts, I'm not arguing whether or not money will change hands. Obviously it either will or won't, and I decided that it won't, because I and nearly every person in this thread agrees this guy is likely a scammer.

There is "zero" risk to the seller and he didn't have the foresight to specify that only buyers in the domestic 48 states need to bid. And I assume he forgot to specify payment terms so the buyer most likely has 5-7 days to pay.

Oh merciful christ forgive me for making a mistake my first time selling something on ebay and having the gall to assume that ebay is advanced enough to limit who can bid on an auction depending on where the seller dictates they will ship to.

The seller brought this all on himself. Good e-bay lesson.

Yeah, you really showed me. The e-bay lesson I learned is that e-bay sucks and to use some other forum for selling goods.

 

[foulmouthedleon]

My experience on ebay has taught me that if something’s too good to be true – it probably is. Make sure you define your auction very clearly. If you don’t want to sell/ship out of the US, write that in the auction then you can always refer to it later.

If you think you’re getting scammed, simply cancel the auction and start again. Just make sure you have any and all information in writing on the actual auction itself. Put plenty of pictures there as well as shipping fees, payment information and so forth. That’s one reason I prefer buying and selling on ebay over CL – if you have your stuff documented, the chances of you getting screwed by someone go down immensely.

 

[i hate phones]

You just described 90% of the posters on MR.



Exactly. (Nice back-pedaling).

The money either comes to the sellers paypal account or it doesn't. (Wow, what a concept... money changes hands.)

There is "zero" risk to the seller and he didn't have the foresight to specify that only buyers in the domestic 48 states need to bid. And I assume he forgot to specify payment terms so the buyer most likely has 5-7 days to pay.

The seller brought this all on himself. Good e-bay lesson.

There is plenty of risk. Paypal and Ebay tend to side with Buyers in disputes... someone in this forum said they even provided proof the package arrived and paypal still sided against them (not sure how that can happen, legally? but apparently it does)... in my situation the guy is saying that the item doesn't work. It worked when I sent it, he said there was no damage to the box so insurance won't cover it, so I was at risk to have to refund him the money lose out on my ebay and paypal fees AND get back a broken item. Who knows, maybe this guy has a broken computer that he wants to swap with a working one? be prepared to be able to provide proof that you received a different computer back if this does happen... There is plenty of "risk".

 

[Consultant]

Does the person have a confirmed paypal address?'

Did you say shipping to confirmed paypal address only?

One of my friends sold a 17" MBP on Craigs List. It worked out fine for him but I am very skeptical about selling a computer on eBay or Craigs List.

Craigslist = meet up in public, exchange of cash for goods. Why is that difficult?

The reason I tried ebay in the first place was of bad Craigslist luck. Very few offers and most of them were extreme lowballers. I could try again though...it's kind of tough. eBay is filled with scammers, craigslist is filled with scammers and deadbeats.

NO. CL is much easier than ebay.

Sounds like you don't know how to list a product on CL. Judging from your ebay listing, you didn't include enough details or done enough research.

 

[Consultant]

1. im sad with your generalization about us Canadians, trust me, we aren't all scammers =(

Well, if it make you any better, when you post something on craigslist in Europe, you will get scammers saying they are from the US.