3x10^8 said:
Ok, I'm totally unfamiliar with the world of ebay, but how in the world are you guys figuring out which accounts are legit and which ones aren't?
first off ebay is not the place to buy for inexperienced buyers,before buying ANYTHING on ebay you need to spend a few weeks if not months studing the areas of ebay in which you might be interested in buying from,pay attention to auctions that you are interested in & bookmark them,after a few auctions for the same type things you'll get an idea of selling prices & trends so when a deal looks to good to be true you will start to look deeper into the seller & easily see whats standing out as a pointer to a scam.
also,by investing some time researching ebay & how auctions go you become familuar with what has been sold allready so when you see the same pictures again but in a different auction with a different seller name you know on the spot that something creepy is going on.
another good thing to look at is feedback & seller information,take the scammer that were talking about as an example,he has sooooooo many red flags pointing to him as a con man its very easy to spot,he is listing all his fake auctions with the gear as being in london england but the ebay seller information shows that he is registered in the united states.
also look at what the scammer is selling & ask yourself this*how come nobody else is bidding on this item* newbiees are what scammers like this creep are counting on,the biggest things to remember on ebay that will keep you safe are not to be in a rush & to NEVER believe that you are just getting lucky & nobody else see's the auction or realizes what it's worth,better to be safe than sorry because there will be another whatever comming out on auction & if your patient you can wait for whatever you want to come up near you so you can buy it from the seller in person.
things to look at about a seller.
feedback,look to see what a seller has been selling & see if what he is now selling looks out of place compared to his previous sales,example,if a seller has a feedback rating of 100 positive feedbacks with all of them being fot t shirts now all of a sudden he is selling a bunch of high end hifi gear its a red flag.
look at payment options too,down at the bottom of the page there will be payment instructions & 9 times out of 10 when you see payment instructions that are marked as OTHER its a red flag,escro is a scam,western union is a scam,money orders are very dangerous depending on the seller & paypal is dangerous unless you use a credit card that allows 100% buyer protection & cash back.
anytime a seller includes his personal email address & requests that all buyers use that address instead of the ASK SELLER A QUESTION feature in the listing its 100% gauranteed to be a scam,do not ever use these addresses given by sellers to contact the seller because if it is a scam now they have your email address & that helps them to scam you further by allowing them to send you fake & official looking emails that are made to look like they came from ebay or paypal then to ask for you to update either your ebay account or paypal account or other sensitive info.
most high end gear is never sold FACTORY DIRECT nor is anybody allowed to buy in volume & allowed to give deep discounts,high end hifi is also not cheaper overseas,most other countries charge obsurd luxury taxes & import duties on stuff like hifi & there is no way on earth that ANY seller can offer hifi overseas cheaper than its fair market value in the united states.
the biggest part of buying safely on ebay is to put in the man hours needed to know what the warning sighns are.
