Originally Posted by Nigel Barker (Post 1487296)

I agree that this sounds very fishy but don't just back out of the transaction as I am guessing that no payment by PayPal will ever be made. Buyers have seven days in which to pay you & if they don't then you lodge a claim for non-payment with Ebay. You need to do this otherwise you will be charged the Ebay fees.

I know all this stuff as I just recently attempted to sell an item on Ebay for the very first time even though I have been a buyer for many years.

I have just upgraded my iPhone 3G with a new iPhone 3GS at a bargain price from my phone operator so was looking forward to selling my old iPhone at a profit. The auction ran for seven days & there were several bidders eventually the winner was someone with zero feedback. I made it very clear in my listing that I would only accept PayPal as a means of payment but after the auction finished the buyer claimed that he had only just started on Ebay & had to wait a few days for the PayPal account to be verified & would I accept a cheque instead. Immediately alarm bells rang for me & I insisted that it was PayPal or nothing. There was an exchange of email with promises of payment with the final email claiming that he had been taken into hospital for an operation on his back & that his father would settle the payment. Needless to say no money ever arrived. I had already entered a claim for non-payment & as this was an auction Ebay has the so-called Second Chance option where you can offer one or more of the losing bidders the opportunity to purchase at their highest bid. Sadly the two highest losing bidders had by then bought a similar iPhone from another seller.

In my failed sale I don't know whether it was an attempted scam & that when I refused to accept a cheque he just strung me along so as to make it appear that it wasn't a scam. Maybe he was just some kid who wanted an iPhone but didn't have any money. Alternatively he just got some kind of thrill from mucking me about & screwing up the sale for genuine buyer. Who knows? Anyway it has left me rather jaded with the whole business of selling on Ebay especially as they are still charging me for the cost of the listing (less than the equivalent of $2 & not the final sale fee which was refunded).

I do see listings on Ebay that say that bids from buyers with zero feedback or less than ten will be refused. I don't know whether this is within the Ebay rules but I shall certainly add that caveat when I re-list my iPhone.