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I've been selling on Ebay for quite a while now, over 10 years, mostly Mac stuff and other electronics. I have seen a HUGE increase in fraudulent purchases in the last 3 months. Everything from paid, and then decided they didn't want it, even though there was nothing wrong with it to bank drafts failed or chargebacks for no reason after the goods were shipped. Also have seen people complain about the most ridiculous things, and ask for huge refunds of over half of the purchase price. Is it the bad economy turning everyone into crooks? Or do all the buyers know that they have complete control to mess with sellers now that Paypal is siding almost 100% with buyer complaints and punishing the sellers immediately? I'd like to do something else, but there really are zero alternatives to Ebay and Paypal. Amazon seems like it is even worse towards sellers.
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Here in the UK I have been buying and selling model railway and old toys for years with transactions now well into four figures. The only problem I ever had was with a buyer who turned out to be a kid who was buying stuff on his mother's credit card only he 'won' my item at the same time as his mother found out. Once I was told what had happened I was willing to forget it and re auction the item but the mother insisted on paying and said her son would be reimbursing her if it took years of extra chores.
I wonder whether the type of goods makes a difference. More problems with buyers of computer goods and electronics compared to old toys and model railway. I wondered if the loading towards the buyer would make a difference but that hasn't happened to me.
Yet!
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sign of the time? Lousy economic time that is.
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Interesting. My background is much like yours C(-)ris, except everything I deal with is brand new and comes with the manufacturer warranty. Haven't noticed anything as of yet.
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I'm still selling high end macs at a premium on ebay - although my usually INSANE high closing prices are much more reasonable these days. I used to be able to get more than anyone else for my auctions. I'm now down to even with the other top sellers.
BUT, I'm not seeing any change in fraud instances
I don't sell across the border
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In the past month, I've purchased 2 separate Mac mini's that were never sent to me. The sellers both refused to answer e-mails. Fortunately, PayPal was able to recover my funds after I files claims. So yes, I guess I would say that in my experience fraud is on the increase.
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I've seen an increase in fraud on ebay since about 2004. That's when I stopped selling things there.
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I've pretty much had with eBay. We have feedback of well over 3000 and
only 2 bogus negatives. I can't deal with their new rules or their higher
fees. I recently sold my iPod Nano for $98 and the eBay fees alone was
over $12.
Grateful11
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Yeah...fleabay has been sucking up more and more in fees, for no return in service to sellers. There are many items I don't sell on there anymore due to profits being so marginal it's not worth it.
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I don't bother to sell anything worth less than $50 anymore. I have a ton of cables, fans, logic boards, screws, cases, etc. from G4 and G5 towers sitting around because it isn't worth listing them and nobody local has a need. I sent 4 PowerMac G4 MDD cases to recycling this week and a couple iMac G5 cases as well.
