I’m ebay seller

>I’m ebay seller
>average order ~$40
>today customer orders ~$500 of one item, clearing the inventory and ending the listing
>his account open since 1998
>remote, meme-tier location, but within the US
>his account has >200 feedbacks as a buyer and seller (no negative in past 12 months
>he apparently sells archeological items somewhat regularly
First of all: how certain are you that this is a scam
Second: what do i do to protect myself? Should i contact the buyer? What do i say?
Item is “same day” handling time, so i am supposed to ship tomorrow.
Is this not a scam and just someone in a remote location who doesnt know how to find wholesalers?

Attached: 041F48E2-5ADD-404A-B670-06EC462D6A46.png (1280x640, 79K)

what is he buying from you?

Sounds legit to me desu
Not all buyers are rational/make sense

What part of it sounds legit? You dont think he was just trying to end my (highly successful) listing and plans to return the items? Also can you provide some kind of evidence youre an ebay seller to back up your opinion?

Doesnt really matter, does it?

yeah, it does

Could be a compromised account. If it's from 1998, it's probably some old timer that barely has any idea how computers work.

Just last week I bought a fake item from a vendor there since 2016 with 2k+ positive reviews (recent ones too) that unregistered themselves a day after my order of ~$40. My guess is that was it was a legit account that got phished by someone.

Consumer electronics
In pic on the account the guy does appear to be at least 50yo. So what do I do?

Very hard to judge if it's shady or not based on such vague info. Kinda depends on what it is. And does the thing cost like $1 so $500 is 500 of said item? In that case that's really weird, regardless of what the item is * ... If it costs $100 and then that's just 5 and that's not weird at all. If it's say a $10 item, then it's 50 and that's more of a gray zone and does seem weird, and 50 what it is comes in to play. 50 could be strange, or could make perfect sense, depending on what it is...

* (well maybe there can be some exception, like some dude wants some candy that costs $1 and he wants 500 of them, or maybe 500 $1 lighters and he's a prepper and wants to stock up on lighters in case of some doomsday scenario)

Maybe the amount he entered was accidental.

Red flag. Preferred target for scamming.

Scammers do prefer to scam sellers instead of buyers because buyers have more protection and can just reverse the charge. Surely you've had to deal with some yourselves up until this point? You might want to contact eBay in any case instead of asking random strangers on Jow Forums.

Write to him. Ask him wtf is up.

Pics, videos, etc. get serial numbers, show the items working in a video, time stamp, if you can. I sold knock off Chinese Juul chargers I got off dhgate for $2 for $10 everyday like 5 orders. I would always make a video plugging it in, putting my Juul on the charger, saying the date, and showing it working, as well as me putting it in the padded envelope with the shipping label. One time someone said it didn’t work, gave the video to PayPal. I win.

Just cover your ass

cant you limit orders to a maximum? also $500 is hardly scam worthy money

also this

write him a very standard but complicated english question, make sure when he replies he doesnt sound like a fucking shitskin

Arent you supposed to wait for payment to ship?

>to protect myself?
>eBay
Kek you’re fucked

If you understood how Ebay/paypal worked you wouldn't care if the buyer sent the payment. They can always claim you sent the wrong item and get a full refund and keep the item.

Irrelevant when selling via ebay and especially when using PayPal. Buyer can leave bad feedback which can be extremely annoying for you as a seller, and he can probably fuck your ebay account up in some other way too (cause it to get limited/frozen), and if it goes through PayPal then they just give the money back to the buyer if he files a complaint. If you already withdrew the money then they charge you anyway your account goes negative balance.

If you're having to get advise regarding it here, this sale should be the least of your concerns.

sooo, worst case scenario: you lose the items + you get no money + your ebay/paypal is fubar'd forever.

It costs $20 so the order is for 25 of them. It seems plausible to me that the guy runs a shop and plans to resell them in his remote location for who knows maybe up to $60.
Damn you really tested EVERY device before sending them out? I dont think i can manage that, besides i think i’d get complaints like “my item was opened”. You dont do it anymore? Why not
He ordered as many as were listed, so it could have been more if i had more listed
I actually did write to him basically just asking to confirm whether he meant to order that many. Intend to follow up with a few more questions if he writes back
This is what I’m afraid of. Ive had pretty good experiences with ebay siding with me as the seller when appropriate, but losing this potential case would suck and who knows what kind of scammer tricks this guy could pull to fuck me up

Honestly ebay is so fucked up, its so easy to scam/get scammed

>fucking sold 3 $500 drawing tablets to randos in the middle east who had me ship to international forwarders in New Jersey
>somehow not scammed
>feel like a goddamn legend
Call PayPal to check how you can protect yourself and get a shitton of proof of shipping, even videotaping sealing and shipping it at the UPS store. Require delivery signature, track it, and insure it for sure.

Sounds legit. I’m an eBay powerseller and I wouldn’t worry about it

I have a few accounts around the country registered with family I use to take out small competition, be careful

I was dropshipping expensive grow lights and my first order was to some bumfuck island in the coral sea off Australia that turned out to not be a scam lol

Just message them first. eBay has somewhat flexible rules so if your a day late it’s fine. I’ve sold stuff to much sketchier people and it been fine. I’d consider them low risk

Please expand on your methods
>call paypal
Good advice actually gonna do this one
Proov binch

Wow it's like racist stereotypes aren't real

This is 100% your competition trying to trip you up. If you were a real seller, you'd have buyer limitations set, idiot.

Honestly leaning towards this

Middle East is a region not a race you fucking retarded nigger.

I've been selling on eBay for 16 years. I've seen it all and no normal person does this. I've had it happen to me and it was a competitor. They bought out a listing, claimed it was a replica, got their money back and kept my product. Don't get screwed. Cancel the transaction.

This doesn't look like a safe space to me

borders, regions, categories...racist. ship your plastics around the globe and wack off with your money

good work

just shoot him a direct message to confirm that this is what he wants.

how new are you. you sound like a fucking newb who wants to brag or LARP on Jow Forums. what a stupid question.

t. ebay seller since 1999

I don't see anything sketchy about this at all

Cancel the order, it's a scam you dipshit.

>If it's from 1998, it's probably some old timer that barely has any idea how computers work.

actually the opposite is likely true

Limit the max orders per person you fucking retard you almost deserve to get scammed

The guy will claim he never received the order and you will end up fucked. Cancel and say you are waiting on re-stock but you over calculated when you put up the listing.

Send him a brick, create a headache for the cunt.

Did he pay? Do you have the money in PayPal yet?

just fucking call the guy jesus christ what kind of a virgin faggot are you

Something about exceptions proving something

eat a dick faggot now i hope you get scammed.

ass fag cum guzzling whore nigger.

Sounds legit to me as well.
t. over 1000 eBay feedback

Anons explain to a brainlet the difference between Craigslist and Ebay. Why would you pick one over the other, which is less scammy, etc.

When was his last transaction?
Could be a hijacked account.

500$ either way.
Who gives a shit really.

This. In 98 gramps was years away from even hearing about ebay

You don't ship stuff on CL

Sells items. Someone buys them. "Are you trying to trick me?" Comes to ask free advice. People reply "Can you prove you are not trying to trick me?" Are you some sort of baby? Make decisions, set rules and live by them. Stop second guessing the world.

I've sold a lot of fairly expensive shit on ebay and never got scammed on them. $500+ items I always got sketched out about but luckily never had a problem. Wish postal money orders were more mainstream. Over a decade I only got scammed on two things, stamps (no tracking), and a used $25 car audio part. But ya in this case I'd be pretty tempted to cancel the transaction and just eat the negative feedback.

>highly successful
>$500 puts me out of business
Lol. Also, tell us what it is or gtfo

>what do i do to protect myself?

absolutely nothing. As the seller you have zero power, unless the buyer has implicated themselves in a scamming attempt in PMs there's very little ebay will do on your behalf. Their policy is to side with the buyer 99.99% of the time

as others have said, ask a few questions and then ship the order ASAP, if you're a pro "ebay seller" you should know the game already, you have to account for some % of shit buyers even when you do your best to vet them. I make a fulltime living on ebay and accept that I'll have 1-1.5% fraudulent buyers

>gave the video to PayPal. I win.

fucking liar, paypal/ebay NEVER accept video evidence under any circumstance, believe me I've tried, it's their policy

Would you mind sharing who your grow light dropshipper was? I’m looking to set up a local webstore for growing supplies, but couldn’t find a dropshipper so far that doesn’t look like a total scam.

Nothing fishy about it at all and since it's only $500, move on from it. It's probably a reseller putting it up for sale elsewhere.

If buyers outright scam by sending back a rock or empty box. You file a Police report and postal fraud report. You get those case numbers first. Then you talk to eBay and they will back the seller.

>racism finally defeated after 3 consecutive eBay orders to sandnigger land turned out to be legitimate

yay reddit we did it!!