How to not get ripped off when buying a luxury item on eBay.
I''m writing this guide as a how-to, for people looking to purchase a relatively expensive item on eBay. I feel if you follow some of these guidelines you will be successful in not getting ripped off when buying a Rolex, gold, diamonds, and other expensive items. My particular experience has been with luxury watches, and jewelry. With the vast majority of my purchases being Rolex watches, I feel that this will apply to most other luxury items as well. There are a couple general rules of thumb when buying such an item on eBay. The following rules cannot be used alone, they need to be combined in order to get an idea of who the seller is and whether or not you choose to make the purchase.
First off, if is way too good to be true, it still may be true but you don''t want to risk it. If you find a Rolex 18 carat solid gold presidential watch with a buy it now for $1700, it may in fact be exactly what it is but you want to gamble $1700 when 999 out of 1000 times it is a scam. The bottom line is the realistic.
Keywords. I found that many times sellers will leave hints letting you know you they feel bad about selling a piece of junk i.e. a knockoff or they''re saying that basically they know it''s not authentic and are telling you without coming right out. Some of the keywords or key phrases are;
· it looks real
· my wife gave this to me/any other mention of it being a gift
· the seller won the item
· was found on the beach
· this was my husbands watch and we are now divorced
· I cannot guarantee that its authentic
Pictures. Take a look the pictures that we have more than one hopefully. If he has worn the picture to the match they look like the same exact item. Were they taken in the same context for example on a desk or outside. Sometimes I''ll see a listing with a watch sitting on a wood surface and then another picture of it sitting on the granite countertop. Usually this indicates that the seller is clearly fraudulent and just pulled the images randomly from google.
By within your country. If the seller has little feedback and is from another country it is a risk that I personally don''t like taking. Unless of course he is a seller with high positive feedback and you have communicated with the seller and all of your other sings feel good.
This particular step I always do I feel that I''ve got a
really good deal. After you one auction, or buy it now go to
Go to this page in eBay. Then enter the seller''s user ID and the item number. EBay e-mail you the sellers registered contact information. Then check to make sure that his information matches what was in the eBay listing. Make sure that if in the listing it says that the item is located in Texas, the seller is registered as living in Texas. Also make sure that phone number is the same if you have already spoken to somebody. If you have not gotten the sellers phone number call the seller to make sure things are kosher. If the phone number is disconnected or a bogus line do not pay for the item. If you have paid for the item and it was a buy it now, immediately start a PayPal dispute so that paypal can lock down the sellers funds.
Here is the link to the paypal resolution center to open a dispute https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/User/customerservice/GXOLogin-outside&from=resolution_center&toResCtr=true&fileWhat=claim
eBay''s buyer protection only seems to apply if the money is still available in the sellers PayPal account. So if you sense any problem, immediately open up a dispute. The faster the seller gets the money out of the account the last possibility you have of getting your money back. That being said, with a PayPal debit card the maximum you can withdraw a day is $400, and bank transfers take 3-4 days to clear. In this time any dispute to the sellers account will cancel the transfer.
Request Next Day shipping. Pay that morning of the day you want the item shipped. If you do not have it the next day, open a dispute. That way it freezes up the money. If all is fine the sellers money gets released.
This brings me to my final point. I find that the biggest problem is not getting a fake Rolex watch, or one that is broken or not as described. I find that most scams are people who do not intend to send anything at all. They used stolen accounts to list items they do not have (this is why his work to check the pictures) , do not intend to send, and are not located where they say they are. All in all most transactions go smoothly. Hopefully after reading this when you see listings they should stick out like a sore thumb like they do to me, and you can just laugh and move on.