How Not to Get Burned Selling on eBay

For online merchants, face-to-face transactions are rare. This has given rise to all sorts of new online payment-processing methods — and new scams to exploit them. Fortunately, there are ways to protect

A buyer's feedback is your first clue to their trustworthiness. Sellers and buyers submit feedback on their experiences with other users, either helping or hindering their user ratings. Beware of new users and buyers with excessive negative feedback.

Not all new members pose a risk; after all, you were a new user once, too. But new users are unfamiliar with the eBay process, which may lead to misunderstandings. Also, a "new" eBayer may not be new at all — scammers routinely open new accounts once their old usernames begin to amass negative feedback. Buyers and sellers on eBay assess negative feedback very reluctantly, so if negative feedback accounts for more than a small fraction of a user's total feedback score, proceed with caution.

Also be wary of overseas buyers. Certain countries, like Indonesia and Nigeria, are known havens for scammers. But don't paint all users (or countries) with the same brush. The vast majority of international eBayers are honest.