How safe are transactions with using E-Bay services?
2007-05-07 22:10:07 · 6 answers · asked by chuck m 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Internet
It's relatively safe. You're dealing directly with a person, and eBay will only go so far to protect your rights as a consumer if someone does not give you what they promised after your payment or does not pay you after you deliver the goods. They do strictly enforce their policies in regards to the goods that they sell, however. They also will pursue any means to finding out if someone is not a trustworthy salesperson through the feedback system.
I've never had any problems with sales through eBay, but I only buy from people who have a lot of positive feedback. You can typically trust that the internet is cynical enough on the whole to keep any jerks from becoming a fraud without someone noticing at some point.
2007-05-07 22:19:19 · answer #1 · answered by Nate The Saint 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No it's not safe from fraud/scams. The problem is there are way too many listings for ebay to look at and monitor. If you suspect an auction is fraud, contact ebay immediately and they will look at it.
1. Look at the seller's feedback record. Make sure it's overwhelmingly positive and that they have no recent negatives.
But the most important rule......
2. IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT IS.
Recently, while looking for basketball tickets, I saw an auction for courtside seats to a Suns game. Opening bid was $99. I looked at their feedback, it was 100% positive but they hadn't sold or bought anything for months. And the seller had about 300 auctions selling 4 tickets to just about every NBA team, all courtside, and tickets to all of the hottest concerts, events etc, - all front row seats. Every single auction started at just $99, every auction was for 4 front row or courtside seats, and every auction had the same text in the body of it, something like: "Auction subject to end early, email me for any offers at my yahoo email, do not email me through ebay, it takes way too long to get a response." It was obviously a scam. And I think the scammer hacked that person's account. Anyway, I reported this to ebay and within a couple of hours, all of his auctions were yanked by ebay. They got right on it. So report anything you think is suspicious. That guy had bids on a lot of his auctions in the $300-400 range. Lots of people would've been out of money had I not done that.
2007-05-08 05:37:22 · answer #2 · answered by SW1 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Take a very close look at your seller's Feedback and reputation! If the seller is a PowerSeller or has a high number of feedback that is at least 98% positive, you should be ok. Watch for PayPal Buyer Protection on the listings.. if you see that you have excellent protection against fraudulent sellers.
If you are diligent in researching your sellers and always pay via PayPal, you should be very very safe! Don't pay using risky payment methods.
eBay has lots of safety tips on site... if you're unsure how to protect yourself, check out the following site:
2007-05-08 05:22:14 · answer #3 · answered by endorable 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, eBay is not free of scams. Example: fake iPods are widespread.
eBay SERVICES, however, like PayPal, are completely safe, as long as you don't do something stupid, like send the product back to the seller.
2007-05-08 05:20:13 · answer #4 · answered by ? 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Same as your local mall, you get 90% good people, and 10% pickpokets, crooks etc.
If its a community, you always going to have them
2007-05-08 05:14:33 · answer #5 · answered by Cupcake 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Not sure i tried, rediff.com in india
it works perfectly fine
2007-05-08 05:15:02 · answer #6 · answered by vishal j 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋