Bought something on classifieds and never received. - Page 2

Unit 5302 · 04-25-2006, 05:30 PM

Online tips:

1. Funds from credit card. Have a special "online" transaction card with a low limit that you pay off every month or balance transfer. Two reasons. Reason 1, if somebody rips you off, you'll get your money back (huge). Reason 2, if your credit card information is stolen, you'll catch the problem right away, and the thief won't be able to rack up a debt you'll be paying on for years.

2. Feedback. Not only ebay has feedback, there are sites that allow sellers to track feedback like www.heatware.com when selling through classified sites. If the seller has no feedback, little feedback, lots of negative feedbacks or an overall negative feedback rating, be very wary.

3. Online store vs Ebay vs Classifieds. I would rank them in that order, generally, in terms of safety.

A) Please be aware there are a "LOT" of scammer online stores. Do some searching on google/yahoo/lycos, etc regarding the site you plan to purchase from. Do some searching on forums that specialize in the product you're buying from the online store. It really doesn't take much time. 15-30min can often yield a TON of information. Key words you should include in your search "bad" "problems" "scammer" stuff like that added to the company name. If an online store is selling something significantly cheaper than other well respected online stores, it should send up red flags.

B) Ebay is very often a what you see is what you get. If you see a seller with a 10,000 feedback rating with a 97%+ positive rating, chances are really really good you're not going to get screwed. Take the time to see if you can read the negative feedbacks the seller has in the past few months (it's worth the 5-10min of paging through feedback). You'll likely spot trends if they are a scammer. If the feedback is under 20, I would be a lot more concerned about a couple negatives. There will ALWAYS be a buyer that isn't satisfied so don't let 1 or 2 negatives on a 95% positive rating really put you off UNLESS they are on the last couple of auctions or their rating is under 20 etc.

C) Classifieds are extremely dangerous because you often know nothing about the person you're buying from, and how many scams have we all seen? Too many. Absolutely make sure you have some sort of buyer protection on your payment. CODs and escrow are also highly recommended. Ask the seller if they use heatware or another online seller rating site. Review their feedback if they have any.

4. Use common sense. If the seller is slow to respond to your questions or gives you a bad vibe, don't buy from them.

04-25-2006, 05:30 PM	#21
Unit 5302 Registered Member Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 5,246	Re: Bought something on classifieds and never received. Online tips: 1. Funds from credit card. Have a special "online" transaction card with a low limit that you pay off every month or balance transfer. Two reasons. Reason 1, if somebody rips you off, you'll get your money back (huge). Reason 2, if your credit card information is stolen, you'll catch the problem right away, and the thief won't be able to rack up a debt you'll be paying on for years. 2. Feedback. Not only ebay has feedback, there are sites that allow sellers to track feedback like www.heatware.com when selling through classified sites. If the seller has no feedback, little feedback, lots of negative feedbacks or an overall negative feedback rating, be very wary. 3. Online store vs Ebay vs Classifieds. I would rank them in that order, generally, in terms of safety. A) Please be aware there are a "LOT" of scammer online stores. Do some searching on google/yahoo/lycos, etc regarding the site you plan to purchase from. Do some searching on forums that specialize in the product you're buying from the online store. It really doesn't take much time. 15-30min can often yield a TON of information. Key words you should include in your search "bad" "problems" "scammer" stuff like that added to the company name. If an online store is selling something significantly cheaper than other well respected online stores, it should send up red flags. B) Ebay is very often a what you see is what you get. If you see a seller with a 10,000 feedback rating with a 97%+ positive rating, chances are really really good you're not going to get screwed. Take the time to see if you can read the negative feedbacks the seller has in the past few months (it's worth the 5-10min of paging through feedback). You'll likely spot trends if they are a scammer. If the feedback is under 20, I would be a lot more concerned about a couple negatives. There will ALWAYS be a buyer that isn't satisfied so don't let 1 or 2 negatives on a 95% positive rating really put you off UNLESS they are on the last couple of auctions or their rating is under 20 etc. C) Classifieds are extremely dangerous because you often know nothing about the person you're buying from, and how many scams have we all seen? Too many. Absolutely make sure you have some sort of buyer protection on your payment. CODs and escrow are also highly recommended. Ask the seller if they use heatware or another online seller rating site. Review their feedback if they have any. 4. Use common sense. If the seller is slow to respond to your questions or gives you a bad vibe, don't buy from them.