Ebay buying tips

As I sit here late at night the problems of buying on Ebay come to mind.(actually a couple of other threads bring it up.) So with all the collective experience represented in this forum, join in and tell us what you look for in an Ebay seller,or what your pet peeve is with sellers, or.....

I've got a long list but let me just start with a couple:​

1.If a buyer says no paypal he's off my list, don't even look further; I feel if he can't afford a small percent for his and my protection--no-buy--good-bye!(it also is a good first step in a rip-off process)​

2. If the seller 's site has simple and straightforward instuctions and descriptions,this I take as a very good sign.​

Now these are my opinions about ideas that increase my comfort zone when buying on Ebay.---Share your opinions and ideas with us!​

 

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re: buying on ebay

First, I look at the feedback and I won't buy unless someone has a feedback of 100 or more which includes a recent history of maybe 5 or 10 transactions. I would much rather buy from someone with a feedback history of 100+ who doesn't take paypal as opposed to someone with a feedback of around 20 who does take paypal. I buy with checks all the time and I'm yet to have a problem. The trust factor is more important to me as opposed to what form of payment someone accepts because even if I were to get a fraudulent coin or a misrepresented coin from someone that I paid through paypal with it has to go through a dispute process which I was a victim of before. I paid $129 through paypal and the coin was clearly circulated and the seller advertised it as unc. He had a feedback of around 25 I believe with 1 neutral. I opened a dispute with paypal and they sided with him even though my feedback was higher than his, so in retrospect I bet if someone had a 300 feedback with 100% they would have wanted to maintain that 100% and keep me happy as a customer whereas this guy didn't have much on the line with only 25 feedback. Furthermore, I personally know someone who does in excess of $100,000 a year in sales between baseball cards and coins (he only accepts checks) and he only accepts paypal if someone mistakingly bidded on an auction and won't go through with it unless he takes paypal. He claims his sales are just as strong as anyone elses that accepts paypal on a regular basis and he saves about 4 to 5 thousand a year in paypal fees which he told me he can apply to old proof sets that he regularly buys whenever he has extra money as a long term investment. In a nutshell, the feedback record is by far the most important and again I stress a strong recent feedback record because if someone had a feedback record of 99.5% and 400 from twelve months ago, 2 from six months ago, and 0 from 1 month ago I might question whether this person is all of a sudden hard up for money and desperately needs money and is resorting to selling fraudulent coins, misrepresenting coins, or in a worst case scenario skips town without shipping. Most likely he wouldn't be, but I would much rather buy from someone who is active on ebay than from someone who is not because I know they are going to take pride in their feedback. FInally, I don't like to use paypal because about every two months I end up with a trick bogus paypal email in my bulk folder from some nigerian scam trying to get me to inadvertently log into my paypal account so they can likely get my username and password to drain my account. Fortunately, these always end up in my bulk mail folder, but I wonder what would happen if they came up with a more elaborate scam and it ended up in my regular folder which I log into and they drain my account?? Anyways, for someone like me who buys maybe once every two weeks on ebay checks work out fine with me, but for someone who is more active then paypal probably would be their preferred form of payment as long as they don't mind the risks of having their account drained by some nigerian scam artist. My two cents.....

 

Unfortunately, due to a lack of coin shops in my area, I have to use Ebay a lot to satisfy my need for coins. I'm lucky that I have been succesful in not getting ripped-off. My tips:

* Look at the feedback. Once a bad seller...always a bad seller.
* Pictures. If a seller is serious about selling a nice coin, they should have the pics to back their descriptions. Never buy a bad pic, or a pic of just one side of a coin.
* Stay clear of Chinese sellers selling coins. Sorry if theres any Chinese sellers here, but the majority on Ebay are selling cheap fakes marked as real.
* Ignore slabbed coin prices and grades. I'm not saying don't buy slabbed coins. I'm saying, don't buy into the hyped-up price. Grade it yourself first. Slabbers are wrong more than they're right about a grade.
* My last and most important stategy....bid only as high as you think the coin is worth, and what you're willing to pay for it anywhere else. I see too many people get caught up in bidding frenzies and end up paying way more than they could have bought the coin some place else. Use restraint!

These tips work for me. But, every collector is different.
Guy~

 

The reputation of the seller and knowledge about the coin you're opting to purchase is everything...

Take Care
Ben

 

What coleguy said, with the following tips:

Look carefully at the shipping & insurance costs/obligations, factor those into your bidding ceiling. Beware of lousy combined shipping deals when you are looking to bid on multipule lots, you could end up paying more for shipping than for coins. If the seller does not specify combined shipping discounts, ask them.

Also, keep in mind the two terms 'estate sale' and 'unsearched' are pure fiction.

 

Well then you also have to kick out people like me---I don't take paypal and the reason is simple. I don't use credit-cards nor do I trust the banks that much to give Paypal my bank account numbers and such. Just because a person doesn't take Paypal does it mean that they are going to rip you off....I would say that a good bit of the older coin dealers that sell on ebay don't take paypal either. Now when I'm buying if I need to send money by PayPal I can get my Bro-in-law to send it for me as he uses it, but I stay clear.

Speedy

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is auctions where the bidder ID's are kept private. It's not 100%, but often causes questions for me about a seller.

 

Text and font selection can make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Some examples are-

- anything with "WOW!!!!!" or "LQQK!!!!" in the title

-3+ paragraph descriptions that use 3 or more different font sizes.

-huge boxed letters

-muti colored font descriptions

-any description with 50 exclamation points.

-expensive items by users that "...know nothing of {your item here}... I'm just selling it for my Auntie M"

 

Also, if someone ONLY takes Paypal they are off my list.
What is wrong with a money order?

 

First: ChrisBauman - Paragraphs are your friend. They won't hurt you...honest.

Second: When sitting in front of the computer late at night ...if thoughts of eBay enter your head.... turn off the computer immediately and go to bed.

 

Money orders slow down the process.

I only take paypal because it helps with record keeping.

Back when I started selling on the side, sure I took money orders, cashier checks, even personal checks to bring in the, business. Now that my business has grown so much in the past 2 years, it's impossible to take other forms of payments. It was a record keeping nightmare that is finally over and now it is much simpler with Paypal only auctions.

 

These types of listing remind me of the ads car dealers used to run on TV.

 

One thing I try to steer clear of, are sellers that have a five word description of the item, then go on for three screen-lenghts about their selling and return policies. I like to keep it simple.

I like to look at feedback to check negs and nuetrals. With negatives I usually check the reason. Sometimes a seller will get undeserved negatives and I don't hold that against them.

Clear pics are a huge help, Although I may low ball an auction just in case the coin is better than the pics. (seldom, but I like to gamble!!)

 

Great controversy over paypal! Like I said my opinion about using it. I think after the time and trouble to set up, and the protection it affords me, I'll go that way.

I ran across a seller the other day,piqued my curiosity; tommy truetone or some such... So I go look; yep, everything is marvelous toned choice bu coins.Next, check who's bidding on such beauties...all private! What is going on here? Last Wed. Teletrade has a couple of ef-au altered surface damaged ANACS graded coins!(common and they sold!) So much for the footnotes, but a good example of a seller having just too much of a good thing! ​

Think of ebay at midnight- go to bed-that is good advice..thanks!​

Oops, sorry I'm talking about Morgans.​

 

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback, Feedback!!!

Rule Number 1: look at a sellers feedback

Rule Number 2: look at rule number 1


From my experience, a feedback of over 1000 and 100% is enough for me to pay the seller by cash, well not really, but I have not hesistations when I see a seller with this kind of feedback which of course is very rare, but I've seen it before and I will pay a small premium over other sellers to purchase from someone with a superstar feedback record like that.

If someone has a feeback of 10 or 15 and the coin is not slabbed then forget it I will look elsewhere even if the record is 100%.

Feedback of 98% might seem strong, but everything is relative and I would say that 75% of all ebay sellers have a feedback rating of 99% or better, so if a seller's feedback is not 99% or more I'm looking elsewhere.

If a seller has a negative or a couple of negatives I will definitely scroll down and see what the comments were. If they have 1 negative for every 200 postives then I could careless, but if I see something like 2 negatives and only 30 positives then I'm looking elsewhere.

I guess it also depends on what you are buying because if it is something like a 1999 or 2000 proof set that trades like a commodity because there are so many then you have more of a luxury of who you buy from and if it is something that there is only one of on ebay or just a few then you have to be willing to take whatever the seller throws you in terms of their feedback, etc...

As for paypal, I have found a few sellers who only take checks to have cheaper buy it now prices which is probably possible because they don't incur the paypal fees, but once again I don't mind paying by a check as long as the feedback is there. I always keep under $500 in my paypal account in case it was hacked into and the checking account it is linked to is also a checking account just for my online stuff so if my password or username is ever compromised I wouldn't lose that much. I would probably be adimant of only using paypal only if my purchase was above $1000, but I never spent that much anyways so it hasn't been an issue so far anyways.

 

But with the new rules and such Ebay has now alot of auctions are private even if the seller doesn't want it to be that way. I think once an item hits $200 the user ID is kept private.

Speedy

 

My rule of thumb is the feedback has to be 99.8% or better. However, and there are forum members who have spoken about this, that there are ways of pumping up positive feedback to the point where I'm not sure 99.8% is even relevant. So, as suggested before, read the negatives/neutrals. If there is even one comment about a coin not being real, I won't bid. If the comment reads 'the coin isn't XF, its only VF!' I ignore it, that's the buyer's fault.

 

Communicate with the seller

I rarely sell on ebay these days but as I seller I don't take Paypal either. Sorry, I don't trust it on my end and that extra little percentage on top of what ebay already gets starts to add up.


My feedback is 99.8% positive so I guess I don't qualify in your book. Ever wonder how some of the "high 99s" got that mark? In my case it was an idiot that did not understand a dutch auction so he waited until the last possible day to tag me with a negative. Believe me, he was "walking funny" when I got done "thanking" him for his remarks.
Sometimes you have to dig a bit deeper into feedback. You will often find that the person who left the negative has terrible feedback. You know, doesn't play well with others.

My biggest thing though actually is communicating with the seller. If I email a seller with a legit question and get no response it only indicates they don't want to sell to me.
I confirm return policies, ask questions about coin for sale, would you accept a check etc.

Everyone is in such a hurry about getting the coin NOW. I generally pay by check. If a seller has to hold it I'm good with that - have never been burned either. I look at it this way, if I lived 45 years without that coin what's a few more weeks to make the seller comfortable.
I sell the same way and people that actually understand it from a seller's point of view often turn into loyal customers.

Bottom line(s)
COMMUNICATE if there is none then pass.
DIG INTO FEEDBACK - it's more than a percentage.
IF NO PAYPAL EXCLUDES SELLERS - you're looking at a lot of the wrong sellers and truly missing out on some legit deals.

Proof of this? The last coin I bought on ebay was an 1871 2 Cent Piece that the seller had graded as VF30. Newer seller, good feedback and I asked a LOT of questions. Picture wasn't that great either. He ansewered ANYTHING I asked and then held my check.
Came out to $25 after shipping for a no problem, properly graded coin. Book value of the coin? Over $80.

Was worth my money.

 

Personally I dont care for Paypal. I have never had success with their buyer protection policy and the fees do add up. I will accept it for items under $50 as the fees are built into shipping and otherwise I require a check/money order. All items come with a 7 day return policy and my rating is 770 with 100% feedback.

Another example is greattoning. Always has great stuff and I have bought multiple items and returned a few. Doesn't accept paypal and wouldn't hesitate to send him a check.

There are honest sellers who do not accept Paypal.

 

Almost same here---I bought a book when I first started Ebay and after a few months (this was before there was a deadline to leaving feedback) I left him a bad feedback...he came right back and said I never paid---he then sent me an email saying that the reason he never sent me his address so I could mail payment to him was because he had a leak and the book got wet, and if I wanted he would send me my pick of 3 other books for the same price. I said ok, and picked out my 3 books....guess what? He never sent me his address again!!! Last I checked the guy got kicked off ebay for doing this alot.

Speedy