eBay dilemma - 0 feedback
MonsterCoinz
Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭✭✭
Yesterday, a buyer purchased a coin from me on eBay for $2k.
The buyer has 0 feedback and had only created their account that day. They did pay however.
Should I ship with signature confirmation + insurance or just cancel and hope I don't get a negative?
The buy does happen to live in Long Beach, which is coming up next week I think.
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What does your gut tell you?
If you're leery of new accounts, you can go to your settings (or preferences???) not sure which, and tweak it so that buyers with a feedback of less than a certain n umber will not be able to purchase from you.
You may want to give eBay a call and get their go-ahead if you don't want to lose a 2,000 deal.
I've never had a problem with big purchases made with buyers with no feedback. make sure to get a tracking number also
Go through with the sale. Signature confirmation on a $2k coin is beyond appropriate. Hell I would be pissed at the PO if they did not have me sign for anything over $500. This and insurance you are pretty well covered. I think that as long as you do everything right you are protected.
I would make sure that full payment has been received of course. If you decide to ship, I would do as you are asking and Track it, insure it and sig conf. it. Better safe than sorry.
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You only ship when eBay/PayPal tells you it is OK to do so. If you do that (and follow-all the other shipping related rules) you have very little to worry about.
Signed confirmation, or this might be a cause for registered insured. eBay zero feedback is not a problem but is a flag.
Play by the eBay and PayPal rules and you should be covered.
Thanks for the responses. I guess I'll roll the dice and ship it.
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Once upon a time I had zero feedback.
Buyer protection requires signature confirmation. I would ship registered US mail, insurance included in price, request electronic return receipt to satisfy sig confirmation requirement.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
I have a ebay account with 3000 feedback, I also have 2 that were just recently created with 0 feedback. Wasn't getting the bonus bucks on the main so created the others so I would get them.
Anyway point is just because 0 feedback doesn't mean a bad thing.
I sold many items to 0 feedback buyers and was always a bit worried but knock on wood, never had a single problem. As also mentioned you can tweak your selling preferences to not allow buyers with feedback less than 10 to purchase from you.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
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Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Signature service is reqired by PayPal on all trancations over $750.00 to have Seller protection.
There is also restricted delivery where only the addressee can sign for it
I don't understand.....If he has already paid.....how can you lose. As far as the feedback count...everybody has to start somewhere.
Everyone starts with zero feedback, right?
Dave
All the above.
That's what I thought.
I would ship.
The biggest sale I ever made on eBay was to someone with a feedback of 3. There were no problems. Just be cautious and follow the eBay and PayPal rules closely.
Be prepared for an unauthorized chargeback via Paypal a couple of weeks from now. Happened to me a couple months back with same circumstances (but lower amount) and though I finally prevailed, if it happened again, I'd refund and cancel the sale. Make sure you ship with insurance AND signature confirmation. Good luck.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Assuming that it was paid by Paypal they will back you up. I would go Priority or Express insured (costlier than registered but you will avoid a possible delay chargeback.)
I have never had a problem selling to a zero feedback bidder.
I never did, either, but one time was too many for me. Who's to say a scammer won't claim the box was empty and file a claim for SNAD through ebay, either? The vast majority of collectors are honest individuals, but unfortunately there are a few that aren't and many of these characters create new user IDs to run a new scam. Ebay seems to go out of their way to cater to buyers these days, too, at the expense of even established sellers with a history of unblemished feedback.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Right on ,,,, a $1 coin returned in place of the $2,000 coin .... Good Luck
I always open my returns in front of the postmaster so if need be I can photograph it and have the postmaster verify what was in package.
I opened a box once that was supposed to contain 3 - 1 oz gold maple leafs in front of the postmaster. Glad I did because the box was empty. Lucky for me the eBay seller requested signature confirmation and I wasn't home so had to travel to post office to open. Otherwise I would have opened empty box alone and would have probably been SOL. I will also say it damn near took an act of congress to get the postmaster to file a report to eBay so I could recover my funds.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
True, but a conscientious > @grote15 said:
Cannot argue with that, Grote. Nearly got stung for $3000 about three years ago. High feedback bidder in Jersey won a nice CC Morgan. It was during that two week January blizzard in the NY/NJ area. Shipped registered and it got delayed. Buyer files a not received notice with Ebay on day 7. He knew the weather was the problem.
Week two goes by with coin locked up near LaGuardia. Ebay tells me that they are a day away from refunding the buyers $3000. Fortunately it delivered on the last possible day.
Ebay is truly a turd company for the sellers.
+1
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This is a contract for you just as much as it is the buyer. I would suggest you ship with signature confirmation + insurance.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
It's funny. All these concerns about buyers have some roots in reality and past bad experiences. But, seller might be sweating a bit dropping 2K on eBay. (Buyer has a lot of protections, of course).
A lot of good advice already offered. Here's another "technique" which I use to make decisions such as the OP has presented.
Just google the shipping address...virtually every home in the USA now has a listing and pic of it. Look at the home and analyze it. If the buyer is living in say a $500,000 home , then I'd have no problem whatsoever shipping a 2k coin there, using the shipping methods already mentioned by others here such as signature confirmation, etc.
However if the home is say not worth much in a "bad part of town" so to speak, or is a low rent apartment, why would someone living there be buying a 2K coin? I have cancelled a few transactions under these parameters, and have never had a problem, never had a negative feedback.
If you have very little profit in the coin, it's an easy call not to ship to a suspect address. If it's a coin with lots of profit, and of course you've been paid and that money is in your PayPal account, it's tempting to take a risk and ship it to a suspect address. Tempting, yes. Would I do it, no...because in my viewpoint shipping a 2k coin to a suspect address isn't a smart way to do business.
We all have to start somewhere
Latin American Collection
You already have been paid... follow the rules, ship with signature confirmation and insurance...Looks like a safe deal to me. Cheers, RickO
I've never done this, but you could also purchase online a credit report on the buyer.
If the buyer has bad credit or there is little credit info available about the buyer, I'd worry about shipping an item such as that.
The final call is yours. Good luck!
proof of shipping and proof of delivery to the addressee is required. Not proof of delivery to the address.
for proof of shipping here is my way for high end coins : make a short video of the packaging showing the coin. use security tape and end your video showing acceptance at the Post office with the receipt and package in the video.any cell phonw ill do that for you.
You are more likely to get scammed from a hijacked account with a ton of feedback.
But isn't that scenario usually from a seller, not a buyer?
you guys video taping your packing or unpacking of your shipments are wasting your time. And postal employees do not like to get involved with witnessing the unpacking of a shipment and getting involved in a legal dispute; USPS supervisors discourage it. Their job is to get you the mail. My mailman is my neighbor and a friend. He says his branch prohibits being a witness. He says if you're that concerned take it down to the police station and open it in front of a detective. . . if you can find one willing to participate.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
My mailman is also my friend and he would let me do this any time I want. I have done it a few times in the past.
You are also not wasting your time video taping if you are so inclined. PCGS does it with every package they receive. If I were on a jury and saw video evidence, I would vote for the person based on video. In this day and age, video evidence is better than an eye witness.
A video in court shows a coin being packaged or unpackaged. It does not show that same package going into or coming from the hands of the USPS. Any decent lawyer can instill a lot of reasonable doubt with your video. You're wasting your time. PCGS internal filming is most likely for internal security.
And is he going to show up in court as your friend who witnessed you open the package, or is his employer going to allow him to, on the clock, testify as a USPS employee? Not hard to get anyone to witness the opening of a package. A bit more difficult selling their story.
And, how many of these coin deals go bad are going to be worth the cost of lawyers and a court case? Better to be proactive with your diligence of who you buy from or who you ship to and comply with the protections available to you (i.e. buyer/seller protection, use of a credit card and choices of shipping method).
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
At my house it certainly does. You see the guy drive in, see him at the door, and you can open it right there if you want, with the ring doorbell and outside cameras capturing everything.
Without a decent home system, opening a package while you video it is certainly better than nothing. If it is worthless, why do the grading services do this with all packages?
PS, why are there any cameras at all, anywhere, if your logic, or lack of, is true!
...
As a psychological deterrent and an aid in identifying unknown criminals. Good luck with your homemade video trying to press mail fraud charges.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
Another security measure is to mark your shipments "Return Services Requested." This is the new wording USPS requires for the old "Do Not Forward" and it prevents a buyer from using a different, final delivery address with the post office to aid in mail fraud. If you have a seller that wants you to ship to a different address than his PP address, tell him to first change his registered PP address.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
This EXACT same thing happened to me a few months back but I sold an iPad.
I had a bad feeling about it, so i took photos of the merchandise going into the packaging with postage on it, and included a signature confirmation.
2 months later, the "buyer" claimed it was a fraudulent transaction and PayPal deducted the amount from my account while they "reviewed" it. They (paypal) asked for documentation (which I had) and within 3-4 weeks I was "off the hook." Granted, I had to call PayPal to have them release the funds since I didn't want to wait up to 75 days to see my account balance righted.
The experience I referred to above was almost identical to yours. I prevailed under Paypal seller protection but was glad the buyer didn't try to claim an empty box or something equally dishonest.
derryb as usual offers very sound advice here.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Come break into my house. Some of my other friends will be more than happy to review the video.
I doubt if transaction #1 was $2k.
I hope it goes OK, but, I have had an inordinate percentage of my problems from 0 or low feedback buyers.