| 1. Your bid is a contract. Bidding is not a game. If you do not intend to buy, don't bid.....You want to buy a widget and you bid on three different widget auctions hoping to be the winning high bidder in one auction. You wind up as the winning high bidder in all three widget auctions. Guess what? You have a contract to purchase all three widgets. It's not a game, it is a User Agreement Violation to bid if you do not intend to purchase if you win. |
| 2. If you have a question about the item, the seller, feedback, shipping, terms or anything else, ask BEFORE you bid. If the seller doesn't answer you, DON'T BID. |
| 3. Do not bid on the first item you see. Do a little research. Someone else might have it listed for less or with a lower BIN. However, if you DO bid on the first item you see, keep in mind that retracting a bid because you found it cheaper elsewhere is against Ebay's rules. |
| 4. Do not trust the picture. Read the description carefully. Make sure it does not say "design may vary." Check for size and color. Make sure if it's new or used. Look to see if the description says the item will be drop shipped, which means the seller does not have the merchandise in stock. Look for descriptions of flaws, imperfections and/or damage. |
| 5. Be sure to read the description carefully, and to the fullest, some sellers like to add "excess" information, then hide the "fine print" amongst, knowing that the average bidder does not fully read a long description. |
| 6. If not sure, ask questions, be aware of "maybes", "pretty sure", and "I believes", if the seller is not sure, THEN DO NOT BID. |
| 7. Avoid any auction where the seller states "the item is not tested, will not guarantee to work" Unless you need parts. It only means the product doesn't work, and the seller is trying to pull something for a sale. If the item is worth something, as a seller I would most certainly test to see if it works to get MAX bids. |
| 8. Read the terms. Do not assume you can combine shipping or dictate your own shipping preferences. Find out which forms of payment are accepted and that you qualify for them. Many sellers do not take checks from buyers with a low feedback rating. Make sure you are eligible to bid on this auction. Some sellers will not take bids from someone with no feedback or minus rating. Some sellers will not ship Internationally. Find out how much the seller charges for shipping and if the item will be shipped immediately. Many sellers hold shipment until a payment by personal check clears their bank. This may be from 7 to 10 days or longer after they receive the payment in the mail. Can you wait that long? If not, either pay by another means the seller offers or DON'T BID. |
| 9. Check the seller's feedback. Do not buy big ticket items from sellers with excessive negatives or who have no feedback. Check the feedback for an overall pattern. Do a lot of the complaints say the same thing? For instance, if a seller has a lot of complaints about the quality of his packaging, you might want to purchase insurance. Remember, a lot of sellers get retaliation feedback from deadbeats, so be sure to keep that in mind and look for patterns. |
| 10. Don't go bananas because a seller requests your contact info from eBay. It's one of the tools a seller has to verify the legitimacy of a bidder. Make sure the phone number you have registered is a number where you can be reached. Some sellers may cancel your bids otherwise; especially on high-value items that are nearing the end. |
| 11. Contact the seller within three days. Most sellers will contact you, but if they don't, send an e-mail to them by clicking on their eBay ID and sending a message through eBay's mail servers. |
| 12. Don't leave negative feedback just because a seller hasn't replied to your email in 3 days. Internet Service Providers go down, computers fail, people get sick, family emergencies occur, and many other things can get in the way of a speedy reply. You have 90 days to post feedback, so don't rush into doing something you can't later retract. If you suspect something is amiss, request the seller's contact info from eBay and call the seller over the phone. |
| 13. Read the seller's confirmation e-mail. Even experienced buyers are guilty of not doing this one. Do not assume that every confirmation e-mail is alike. Sellers usually include information that is necessary for you to complete the transaction. A lot of times they also ask for some information from you. Don't just send your payment with PayPal and ignore the confirmation e-mail. That's how a lot of problems get started. |
| 14. Buy insurance. Too many buyers spend $160 on an item, but won't cough up the extra $3 to insure it. Believe me, you will kick yourself if something happens. If you're not sure if you want insurance, ask yourself this question. "Will I be upset if this item arrives damaged or doesn't get here at all?" If your answer is yes, BUY insurance. If the seller does not offer it, ask for it. |
| 15. Be patient. The mail system has slowed down in many areas since the terrible events of 9/11. It may take longer than you expect for your payment to reach your seller. If you are paying by check, that means it will take longer for your check to be deposited before the standard ten day clearance wait can begin. Bear in mind any Federal Holidays that fall within the time frame your check or item is being mailed. It's going to take your check or merchandise longer to get where it's going. And just because you paid what you assumed to be Priority Shipping - well, unless the seller specified shipping via Priority Mail, your item may not necessarily be shipped by that method. If you are unclear about the shipping method being used..ask BEFORE you bid. |
| 16. Don't assume you can pick an item up in person just because you live in the same city. |
| 17. If you asked for surface mail delivery, don't email the seller a week after it was shipped, and every 3 days thereafter, complaining that the item hasn't arrived. If you chose to pay lower rates for a slower shipping option, you will need to be more patient for your package. |
| 18. Don't email the seller at 7:00 p.m. to say that the UPS tracking number --for an item shipped that SAME day-- is invalid. IT HASN'T HAD A SCAN YET! |
| 19. Ask, do not threaten. If you want to check on the status of your order, send a polite e-mail to your seller asking for the information you need. Do not send ten e-mails over a weekend and then get angry when you get no reply. Many people do not work on weekends, so your mail will not be read until Monday. Do not threaten your seller with negative feedback if they do not respond as quickly as you would like them to. |
| 20. If there is a problem, stay calm and friendly. Most sellers are not brick and mortar stores, but individual people working from home. They have not been trained to deal with angry customers and will likely become angry themselves and unwilling to work with you. Again, do not threaten negative feedback if things are not worked out to your satisfaction. No one likes to be threatened. Give your seller a chance to make you happy. You have 90 days after the end of the auction to leave justified negative feedback if you feel it is necessary. |
| 21. Leave appropriate feedback. Do not blame the seller for something that was outside of his control. It's unfair to give him a negative, because he would not combine shipping when his listing says he won't combine shipping. Don't leave feedback asking them to contact you...once feedback is left, it takes all but an act of Congress to get feedback removed..and then only for very limited and specific reasons. Use your feedback to evaluate the transaction when every thing has concluded, not as a bulletin board to leave messages. |
| 22. Avoid misleading feedback. A positive that states something took a long time to get to you (when the postmark clearly proves the item was shipped immediately) is misleading, and therefore not really a positive. It's not the seller's fault it took a long time to get to you. |
| 23. If you have a problem with your seller or buyer and you think you want to leave neutral or negative feedback, make sure you have corresponded with the other party about your concern and exhausted all efforts to resolve it before you get to feedback. |
| 24. Do not use feedback to warn customers about mistakes that were your fault. For instance, do not leave a neutral telling people to get insurance even on low cost or supposedly unbreakable items. Yes, people should buy insurance, but if they don't, that's not the seller's fault and his feedback should not reflect your personal regrets at your own short sightedness. |
| 25. Do not harass a seller for feedback. Many sellers are busy and leave feedback in batches. Don't ask for feedback as soon as you make payment - the transaction is far from finished. |
| 26. Do not be afraid of retaliation feedback. Experienced eBayers investigate feedback. They know when someone has left you a negative out of revenge, and they will not hold it against you. Feedback is the primary means of protecting buyers from fraudulent (or just bad) sellers. If you withhold a neg out of fear, you've allowed that seller to get away with it, not just to you, but to the next guy that wasn't warned off by your feedback. |
| 27. Remember - the win isn't yours until the auction is officially over! You can always be beaten by last second bidders (aka snipers). So bet your max, add a few cents for a pain cushion and if a sniper beats you in those last seconds, don't have any regrets. He was just willing to pay more for that item than you were. If he wasn't, his bid would not have outbid yours. |
| 28. If you receive an unsolicitated email from someone offering to sell you an item "off-eBay" (outside the bounds of a normal auction), hit your delete key. No matter how tempting, you will not have any of the protections that eBay offers their official auction winners in the case that the deal goes bad. If you are really interested, offer the seller the option of setting up an auction using Buy It Now, with the BIN price being your agreed upon sale price. Have him email you with the auction number as soon as he posts the auction and win the auction under Buy It Now. This way you both have eBay's protections in place for you. |
| 29. Remember, eBay will NEVER ask for you credit card info in an email! There have been numerous recent hoax emails leading buyers to believe that an item is being billed to them in error and to go to an a linked page to dispute this. At that linked page (which looks very official), you are asked to type in your credit card number. SCAM!!! This is NOT from eBay. If you have any doubts regarding any email appearing to originate from eBay, Contact Customer Support. Don't just blindly give that kind of information out on the Internet! |
| 30. Have Fun and Trade Safely! Enjoy your finds with fewer regrets by doing your homework first! |
Bonus tip! Read and be aware of all of eBay's current policies and stay abreast of any new changes or additions by checking the Announcement Board daily. The System Status Board is where to look for any updates on system problems with eBay (ie, downtime, iPix is down, can't access "My eBay", etc)
***Click Here For My Dealing With eBay Seller Fraud Page!***
Thanks to sralos (from the T&S Board), for allowing me to include some of his thoughts along with my own in the creation of this page. This page was last updated 02/08/02.