I've bought and sold on Ebay in small amounts (feedback 157) over the last 15 years. In trying to shift a couple of old laptops recently, I've been hit by a scam that's maybe as much of an annoyance as an attempt to gain anything...

The pattern seems to be:
- "buyer" registers on eBay within the last 48 hours
- bids high on your auction, late in the timescale, so wins
- subsequently cancels their eBay account so eBay then deletes the entire listing, meaning you can't do a 2nd chance offer or anything (as it's all gone)

AAAARGH!!! I'm presuming it's an automated thing (ie they have scripts creating bogus accounts and making bids just to piss people off), but eBay offers no way to protect against it. I would like a policy that says "sorry, if you're eBay account is less than a month old and you have zero feedback, then you can't bid on this thing".

The 1st laptop had this happen twice now, and the 2nd laptop (already relisted due to this happening before) has just had some fucker win the auction, with zero feedback and an address that is:

#
#
#
#
<postcode>

so I fully expect eBay to send me a message during the night saying "too bad, you need to relist".

Seller, beware!

 

Irritating !

Write your listing in ‘Auctiva’, and then link it across to eBay

You will always be able to archive the original listing template, & reproduce it again easily

 

You can block certain buyers from bidding on your items.
For example buyers with low feedback, buyers without paypal account, buyers with 2 or more unpaid items. If you set these requirements these f*****s will not be able to bid.

 

eBay dev team is known to slow acting. I see autonomous bots run for months until something is done. This is just how it goes

 

Yes, you can block genuine PITA buyers but you can't block a bidder with zero feedback (only buyers with - ve) and you can't block bidders who only registered today...

Ebay makes it fairly easy to relist but you waste the time of the new auction, maybe you won't attract the same level of bids from real bidders who lost out to the scammer, and of course, there's nothing to stop it happening again (as it just has to me, twice, on 2 auctions).

 

first, this isn't a scam since no-one attempted to scam you. My guess is Ebay cancelled the account...it makes no sense for a buyer to bid and then go to the trouble of cancelling their account. A PITA yes! I hate non-paying bidders.

This is simply not possible...as it would mean that a new Ebay user would NEVER be able to bid on anything.

 

Do not underestimate what eBay can do for its own benefit. I have seen some strange things that can only be done on administration end.

 

I don't know if ebay cancelled the account... They cancelled the listing because the buyer no longer exists...

As to the the point about change of policy being impossible... Not really - I can choose to restrict all kinds of other things, and all a new bidder would need to do is buy something cheap, get some positive feedback, wait a week and they'd be OK.

... Which basically means a true scammer could do just that, but the tar pit effect would mean automated bots would be frustrated...

 

Guess is not really an scam but more of a nuisance. Either way its not cool.

 

Simple they see a new scam and run the check at auction end not at user registration.

If I was in their place I’d do it the same way.

As long as your not out of pocket for fees no harm no foul.

 

eBay has annoyingly become so, so buyer-centric and against the seller that it's just a nuisance now. It's ridiculous. It's like on par with Craigslist. Some gems, but not always worth the effort... at least to me.

 

I don't understand what a bogus user has to gain by doing this. Scams are supposed to be about scamming sellers out of merchandise.

The only thing I can think of is that it's some kind of test run for a larger scam.

 

I don't know about other ppl, but when I see an item relisted multiple times after each auction ended in a winning bid, it's a red flag for me and I usually won't bid on the item. I always thought it was some sort of scam on the sellers part, but now that I read this I guess it could be the other way around

 

like @Foo2rama said - somehow the account was flagged fraudulent and was deleted while OPs auction was going on. Just be glad that you didn't have to ship to a scammer

 

If there was a better alternative, i would switch to it. But alas, even with the annoyances what else is better?

 

In fact, if @Foo2rama is correct, it's eBay protecting the seller.

 

It's like auction trolling.
The reward is the irritation caused, not financial gain.

 

Or it is being run by a large electronic/laptop seller who is looking to disrupt the competition.

Or it could be the Russians...

 

I always say in my listings that zero feedback buyers should contact me for approval otherwise I will cancel their bid and block them (you can block named bidders). Genuine first time buyers will contact you, and I’ve not had a problem with that.

My nonpayers have usually been “respectable” looking bidders, who then want to back out m. To all the people suspicious of won items being relisted, just bear in mind there are an awful lot of non payers - for watches/related items, mine ran at around 20% of won bids.

 

Thats not correct. The odds are far greater that the account was cancelled, this happens all the time. Ebay has algorithms to search out fraudulent bidders and they then delete their accounts. This has happened to me on numerous occasions.

I didnt say it was impossible to implement this option, it would be very easy....but, I can assure you this will never occur. You will never have an option to exclude bidders with zero feedback. Not gonna happen.

It would be like Starbucks saying...ok, effective today only existing customers are allowed in Starbucks. If you have never purchased from us before, you are not allowed.