Ebay auctions hijacked, rival sellers

[Hallion]

Hi all,

I've been selling in earnest on eBay for a few months now, at first all went swimmingly, then I found lots of phantom accounts were bidding on my auctions, ramping the price up to silly levels and then not paying. I sorted this by keeping a close eye on my auctions, and removing any potential threats before auction end. This works 90% of the time in auctions.

My problem now lies with buy it now products. I'm having people pay with zero or very little feedback, receive the item and report it as 'item not as described' etc. I'm strongly considering pulling all buy-it-now sales for a while and sticking to auctions. However, I have had 4 people buy it now in the last 2 days & I really don't want to go through the pantomime of sending the product out, get a broken item sent back, and then the potential of bad feedback.

How can I safeguard my account with these sales? Should I refund the price and then contact the buyers to say there is an issue with the item? So far I have a feedback score of 209 at 100% and the account has been open since 2005. I'm on damage limitation mode here, help!

Thanks in advance

[golden_monkey]

i really dislike sellers that do this with a passion, they are the lowest of the low.

Your all auction idea might be the best bet to smooth things out and get this chaos under control.

do you have idea which of your comp might be doing this to you?

[stanislav]

I TOTALLY agree! You can't even call these kind of SCUMBAGS, sellers. I've noticed that these are usually young LOSERS who have absolutely nothing going on for them or some disparate lowlife who doesn't know anything about eBay business. Who has time to create phantom accounts just to **** someone over? These days ANYONE can claim your item is not as described. I have had people open PayPal cases as Significantly Not As Described because they broke something. A lot of experienced buyers are constantly misusing eBay in order to get something for free or replace something for free even when they know it was their fault. Basically eBay's policy is letting buyers know that they can get away with pretty much anything. They make buyers feel like everything is for free on Ebay.

[stanislav]

Just now someone idiot buyer from NY messaged me, asked me for a tracking number. He bought it just a few hours ago. I told him I don't know where you are @ but it's 1 AM here. He asked me where was I located, I said in Toronto and I also said but even in NY it is also 1 am.

Mow I know FOR A FACT that I am going to have problems with this buyer. I would rather have less sales but quality buyers. Stupid ebay policies make buyers feel like they can just bully us without any consequences because they know Ebay will side with them. We work so hard to run our business, we put so much time in it just so a few mother****ers could ruin it in a whim.

[cookiecutter101]

The safest option would be to close up shop, at least temporarily.
Even if you switch to auctions it won't guard you against whoever's trying to ruin you.

Ultimately, you will end up losing the account, you should know well it only takes 3 not as described, or any of the other DSR's and they begin to count against your account. Drop just a few 0.00% below the eBay standard and you're as good as gone. Once it falls into the "below standard" performance, your listings will be nearly invisible in searches. No sales = no way to get out of the hole. I.e. Account is as good as dead, at least until the DSR's drop off..

[golden_monkey]

^ this guy is prob right.......... and its a damn shame you gota close up shop for a while just due to some scum bags.

i wish you could call up ebay and say, hey look whats going on.... you think this is normal... i didn't think so. im sure with cookies and IP tracking they'd be able to figure out which seller / sellers were creating ⊗⊗⊗⊗ accounts and giving you hell........

if only they geared CS more toward the HONEST seller........

[acreech41311]

You might try changing your ebay ID then laying low for a while so these people might lose track of you and find something better to do.

[rsot]

One tip that helps with these phantom buyers is to select the option of "But-It-Now requiring payment right away" ...that way they cant buy you out without making payment.

One example of an attack method.

All the best