Buyer Beware - How to Ensure Happy and Safe Shopping on eBay
Whether or not you have gone through eBay registration yet and shopped online eBay or not, you should be forewarned of some of the things that go on, and how to prevent being a victim.
Foremost, rest assured that when you join eBay you do not have to enter any sensitive information to register. This is not really where the danger is. Registering is very simple, easy, and fast to do. It is beyond registering and browsing where you have to follow a few simple rules to be safe, and enjoy your eBay experience.
Here it goes. Number One: Watch out for phishing scammers, both on eBay itself and in your regular email account tied with eBay. If you do not know what this is, this is when you get an email stating they are an authority such as eBay, or an eBay patron, claiming something that requires you to click on a link and fill out information. Most of the time, if it is important, you will see an actual notification when you login to your eBay account. Always read everything carefully, and make sure that you actually have a legitimate association with the person contacting you, and also that it is the actual entity contacting you, and not someone pretending to them. This happens very very often, all across the internet, not just on eBay. A big give away is if the .com name the email comes from is slightly off the proper .com (domain) name. I got an email the other day from a PayPal phisher, pretending to be PayPal. I knew it was a scam because the .com name was slightly different than PayPal’s actual email. When in doubt, check it out! Google and research as a first step. Second step, just call the actual authority or check your account online to see if there is actual information that is needed from you.
Check feedback from sellers! Always always check feedback and don’t purchase from sellers who have had many negative complaints over the past few months. Anything below 95% is a big no no. In fact, anything below 98-99% is suspect. In those cases, read a few comments and see what other people say about the seller to make sure. Nobody is perfect and there will be circumstances out of their control at times, but always double check.
Read the fine print too! Make sure you fully read descriptions so you know what you are buying. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to email the seller with them to clarify. Also, it never hurts to research the product first to make sure you know what a fair asking price is.
Finally, set your limits! eBay CAN be addicting. So make sure you know when to call it quits, stop bidding on an item, or just say no. You can go broke shopping online, and every though you can find a lot of great stuff at really cheap prices, eBay is no exception. Use control my friends!
This article was written by an internet marketing guru and former retail fraud investigator.
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