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EBay trolls

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3K views 36 replies 19 participants last post by  Pontiacivan 
#1 ·
Has anyone had experience with people just being jerks while trying to sell on EBay, or is it just me?

My situation: I'm selling a few figures on there. I've done my research and have tried to offer fair prices for various Soldier Story, Dam, etc. figures.

I have had some really bizarre behavior with the "best offer" feature where it just seems like people are purposely trying to annoy you. I'm making up numbers here to protect the innocent, but I just the following situation:

I am selling a figure for say $200, or best offer. Someone puts in an offer at $120. I counter at $160. They then counter at $125.

I think to myself, nah, I will just outright decline the offer with a note saying sorry I can only go as low as $160.


Next thing I know the same person submits an offer for $50. That's right, they lowered their offer by $75. Okay ...

I really wanted to say "Seriously dude, don't be an a$$." but instead I just declined the offer with a "No thank you, have a nice day" note.

What's the point of that kind of behavior on the part of the buyer? Why be a jerk for no reason at all? It's not like I was trying to sell a figure a thousand other people are offering at much lower prices or with outrageous shipping costs. This person was just being difficult.

I don't get it. I guess this is more of a rant than a question, but still I'm curious if anyone else has had to deal with this kind of nonsense.
 
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#3 ·
Yes.

eBay at one point had a major problem with scumbag sellers. The whole paradigm shifted to now the problem is with scumbag buyers. Sure. There are still scumbag sellers as well, but there are processes in place to rectify the majority of problems compared to a long time ago. Scumbag buyers are very problematic and costs money and time.

My recommendation is to ignore AND BLOCK them. They screw around with you? Don't bother to message them, etc.

Make a list of the @$$hole scumbag eBay user IDs, block them, and post/share them so we too can block them.

I too sell on eBay, but there are way too may scumbag @$$hole buyers willing to screw over sellers through the current process/system on eBay and eBay doesn't do a damn thing about it.
 
#6 ·
:agree :thumb
EXACTLY right! Decline the joke offer and block those insultingly cheap bidders. You can also set the minimum offer you'll accept when you use the best offer option. It AUTOMATICALLY rejects low-ball offers.

I've had offers that were 10% of my price. Do they really think I'd take that? I block some of them. It's a sign of potential problems if they end up buying something.

And yes, please share the names and help other sellers avoid headaches. It's almost the only recourse sellers have.
Again, DFC, great idea.
 
#4 ·
I don't get it. I guess this is more of a rant than a question, but still I'm curious if anyone else has had to deal with this kind of nonsense.
Unfortunately there are some obnoxious buyers in our hobby and on ebay it can seem like there are more. The best offer feature tends to bring them out in droves, some of that due to the fact that there are guys that have multiple accounts there. There is a buyer block feature that you can use, although I'm not sure if it prevents more offers. They recently raised the number of best offers a buyer can send so not sure how the blocks work with respect to that now. As for why they behave like that, anonymity tends to bring that out.
 
#9 ·
I have yet to sell anything on eBay, mostly because of all the horror stories. But as a buyer I can tell you my personal preferences that may or may not help you as a seller.

I personally despise open bidding and refuse to do it. I get it, it's great for the seller, because you have the possibility to make a lot of money from an idiot stupid enough to continue bidding. But I've seen some where it's pretty obvious it's the seller bidding on their own product to jack up the price -- f$&k those people (I hope they die in a car fire).

I also avoid most Best Offer listings because it's pretty obvious most selllers do not want to sell it for any less than $3-4 less than list price. Then don't bother putting Or Best Offer.

I get a lot of stuff off eBay, and 99.999% of the time it's for a Buy Now item. If I really want/need the item I'll get if the price doesn't feel to over-inflated. If the price is absurd (like the guy who keeps listing Phicen HS for $89-100 or more; that's just ridiculous), I walk away and hope the item resurfaces or something better comes along.

So, I guess what I'm saying is. Put a price on an item, list as Buy Now, and wait. You avoid at least some of the BS from buyers.
 
#10 ·
I think a lot of people on ebay uses the best offer feature unrealistically, hoping to get a low ball deal on a product. Depending on the price of the item, I would go for a fair amount. For instance, if someone $100, I would go 93 or 95. That said, I tend to win the items.

However, I have noticed some sellers would put the lowest agreed price of a best offer for 50 dollar item, for example, by 49.90 for instance. As someone else had already said, what is the point for a seller of using a best offer if they only accept a few cents off? Not sure if this was the tni forums or the is a forums, but a poster years ago wrote the reason why some sellers use the best offer function is in hopes someone offers more than the asking price; he said that he knew someone who was so frustrated of people offering lower prices for an item rather than offering higher prices.
 
#11 ·
I've stopped using "Best Offer"; it causes more trouble than it is worth. If you don't get any takers at your original price then consider dropping it a little when you relist it. If you aren't in a hurry to sell then you can afford to simply let it stay up at its original price until you find someone willing to buy it. It might take months but eventually someone will be willing to pay what you want for it.
 
#12 ·
I never use best offers.

It's either an auction or a buy it now price.

That doesn't stop some @$$holes from sending you a message "demanding" you accept your offer or a payment arrangement.

Yes.

I received such messages. I replied "No." and blocked them.

I even had some @$$holes attempt to buy items from using buy it now, but they didn't meet my minimum criteria. I ended cancelling the transaction and refunding their payment and blocking them after I made sure I had their contact information, etc.
 
#14 ·
Wow a lot of feedback! Very cool.

Look at the end of the day I don't mind haggling with someone, my point is simply just don't be a jerk about it. I guess it is the lack of face to face that emboldens people to make outrageous offers. I'm guess the same person who makes a $50 offer on a $200 item wouldn't have the stones to do that to your face or walk into a Porsche dealer say and offer to pay $35 grand for a $120k car. Keyboard courage I guess.
 
#15 ·
Wow a lot of feedback! Very cool.

Look at the end of the day I don't mind haggling with someone, my point is simply just don't be a jerk about it. I guess it is the lack of face to face that emboldens people to make outrageous offers. I'm guess the same person who makes a $50 offer on a $200 item wouldn't have the stones to do that to your face or walk into a Porsche dealer say and offer to pay $35 grand for a $120k car. Keyboard courage I guess.
--

The fact and reality is that there are those who'll be @$$holes about it regardless.

I'm we've all done the same thing and just too ashamed/embarrassed to ever admit it publicly here.
 
#16 ·
Oh I have had that a few times. Very annoying.

If you have a Best Offer option on your listing, you have to expect the strange ones to come knocking. Some people do have the stones to not only ask for crazy low prices, they will actually badger you until you cave in in person. Easiest way to stop them on Ebay is to block them. Or use up the declines so they can no longer make crazy offers on your stuff. They get 3 tries, after that, they can just Buy It Now. If you get offended, block them and the problem goes away.

Maybe these folks have had luck making offers like that. Who knows. I had a guy do it on Kijiji too. I was selling a tool box for $200, marked way down from original price and in very good shape. He showed up and says I'll pay $60 for it and starts peeling off $20's. I asked when he would make up the difference, and he says "$60 is good enough, you'll take that". Will I now?.. Nope, sorry, the add is for $200. Nice talking with you, and get out of my yard. He tried haggling for almost 5 more minutes. That's actually a long time in person. He left without a tool box, and just about with a fat lip. I digress. People will do it in person too, so if it's just on Ebay, ignore them or block them, and they will go away soon enough.
 
#17 ·
Personally, I buy using Best Offer, BIN and Auction format. It's really simple if you go into it with a little common sense and always remember to look for the same items that may be available from other sellers for the same price or less. Additionally, a seller's feedback should always to be taken into account as well. I simply won't buy anything from a high volume seller with less than 99% positive feedback and will only consider dealing with a low volume seller with less than that if I can deduce from their feedback comments, that they dealt with a jerk that screwed their feedback up. On Best Offer listings, you can't realistically expect a seller to drop their price by more than 25-30%, so I bid accordingly. If a seller is offering an item for $60, then I'll usually offer $45 and nine times out of ten they will counter with $50. If they counter with anything less than 10% off, then I figure that they aren't serious about the Best Offer option and I move along. However, I've often skipped on making an offer and made the purchase using BIN when the price was very good to begin with. I figure, why jinx a great deal by getting greedy? As for auctions, it's best to never bid early, but if you do, only bid the maximum that you're willing to pay and skip the incremental bids that lead to a bidding war. And NEVER, EVER engage in bidding wars. Even if you win a bidding war, then you still lose because the only thing that you've proven, is the old adage, "a fool and his money are soon parted". As for jerk buyers, the advice already given has been sound. Block them and otherwise ignore them.
 
#20 ·
...As for auctions, it's best to never bid early, but if you do, only bid the maximum that you're willing to pay and skip the incremental bids that lead to a bidding war. And NEVER, EVER engage in bidding wars. Even if you win a bidding war, then you still lose because the only thing that you've proven, is the old adage, "a fool and his money are soon parted"...
On auctions, I only use auto bidders set to the last few seconds. Early bidding also promotes scam seller shilling. I find even asking a question to the seller toward the end an auction is enough to cause suspect shill bids to appear. I don't even mark what I want to bid on as 'watch'. I save it as a link instead. Fly under the radar as much as possible.
 
#19 ·
Interesting discussion. I buy and sell on eBay at a ratio of 90/10, so I take more of a buyer's perspective on things. I find the 'Make Offer' feature to be subjective and even regionally variable in what seller's expect to be 'normal offer behaviour'. The big volume sellers in China usually end up only moving 1-2% in the end whilst small scale sellers will usually move to 5-10% and sometimes up to 20% if it's been on the market for ages or is intentionally inflated to begin with in hopes of an impulse sale. Probably the max I've offered is a third off, and that's only due to a very long listing time and some damage. The seller took it. I'd never think to lowball for no legitimate reason.

For instance, I've been watching a HT item with a Japanese seller for about 8 months with about 10 other watchers. I bought it a couple days ago. I offered 15% less. He countered to 12% less, and I accepted. No drama and all very professional.

As someone else said, you can set the low offer threshold and give the buyer and automatic offer declination. You can filter low offers out.
 
#21 ·
Well, I've made some decent deals with the "make offer" option. But it's normally pretty cut and dry. Seller wants, for example, $100 for an item. I'm interested in the item and quite frankly would pay the money BUT I figure if I can get it cheaper then why not? So I may offer $75 and the seller comes back with $90, which I would accept. An easy transaction as far as I'm concerned. No muss no fuss...I recently made an offer on an item that was $199, I offered $140 because that is all it was worth to me. The seller countered with $181, because of his law of averages or something, which I declined. I'm not hounding him at all, I let it go simply because its not worth it to me...Will he get what he wants for it? No doubt, just not from me....BUT thats no reason for me to act like a jackass to the seller just because he didn't like my offer...
 
#22 ·
well it's better to be trolled than scam right?

ebay currently is 1:9 in terms of Seller:Buyer's rights.

imagine the time & money it takes for you to pack & ship the item to the buyer just to get an email complaining about a scratch that probably did not exist and asking for a full refund, sends something else back to you and you have to pay for his postage. for international, that would really cost you alot of money.

if ebay set return postage bound by buyer, then it would lower the chance for the return perks being exploited.
 
#23 ·
Huh --- interesting that people will do that. I had not heard of such scams ... good to know. Another reason why I won't sell to international buyers.

And while I think low ball bids are annoying, I can see someone saying "what the heck you never know" on an item. What got my goat here was a jackass cutting his (maybe her, I guess I should be gender neutral on this) bet offer IN HALF. In other words me saying no to $100, and then coming back with $50. That's just being lame.
 
#24 ·
Huh --- interesting that people will do that. I had not heard of such scams ... good to know. Another reason why I won't sell to international buyers.

And while I think low ball bids are annoying, I can see someone saying "what the heck you never know" on an item. What got my goat here was a jackass cutting his (maybe her, I guess I should be gender neutral on this) bet offer IN HALF. In other words me saying no to $100, and then coming back with $50. That's just being lame.
there are many people who do that, selling locally doesn't mean it's any safer, only means it's easier for the seller to go knocking on someone's door and for local authorities to act on it if they want, but knocking on someone's else's door might just net you a buck shot.

for the scammers the success rate is high as paypal reverse is totally buyer oriented, even if you have solid proof, still hard to prove buyer's wrong. best way is to cash out, you risk losing your accounts but you have to figure out which method is the best. this is part of the cost of selling . you'd imagine by paying 10% + 4% you get better service? no, not really.

btw, i think most folks here didn't realize it but you can set a limit to auto decline any offers below your minimum amount.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Here's another "troll" question ... how do people feel about selling to brand new buyers with zero feedback? I am skeptical of them. Of course I know everyone has to start from somewhere (yes, I sound like someone complaining about how they need experience to get a job, but cannot get a job without experience), but given all the issues with buyers people have been talking about I'm a little worried about selling to someone with zero ratings.

Thoughts?
 
#27 ·
Here's another "troll" question ... how do people feel about selling to brand new buyers with zero feedback? I am skeptical of them. Of course I know everyone has to start from somewhere (yes, I sound like someone complaining about how they need experience to get a job, but cannot get a job without experience), but given all the issues with buyers people have been talking about I'm a little worried about buying from someone with zero ratings.

Thoughts?
Are you asking about selling to people with zero feedback or buying from people with zero feedback?
 
#29 ·
This weekend I had a buyer message me stating interest in buying an item, but insisted upon a trade deal? He claimed to have many 1:6 figures from HT, etc. and wanted to trade instead of buying.

I reported the dumb @$$ to eBay and blocked him.
 
#33 ·
I've been selling on EBay on and off for 9 years and can assure you trolls aren't going away, you just have to be vigilant.

Also always, always communicate with them through EBay channels.

Remember you can set a minimum in the 'Best Offer' feature. Buyers still can contact you directly to make an offer but you can ignore them as you're not obligated to accept them. Just block their sorry a$$ if they turn into pestering trolls.:wink
 
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