If you want to know how to win on eBay, you’ve got to learn these mind-blowing rules to keep from getting your bids canceled, your bidder ID blacklisted, or your eBay membership revoked. That and you’ll have to sell your Indian skulls elsewhere (read on).
Allowed on eBay? Only for medical use, and if not Native American
1. Sellers Can’t Leave Negative Feedback
Look, everyone’s heard about someone who’s been ripped off on eBay. Stories like that make good filler on the television news or newspaper on a slow day. (Does anyone actually watch the TV news or buy newspapers anymore?) Let’s stipulate that in marketplace with literally tens of millions of sellers, some of them are bad guys. A lot are just, let us say, a bit too generous in their item descriptions. Bad stuff happens on eBay from time to time. If you’re a buyer, you have a lot of power of legitimate sellers. You can leave negative feedback, and even a single negative feedback can ruin a seller’s week. But did you know that since 2009 sellers have not been able to leave negative feedback against buyers? So maybe chill out before you file that next negative feedback and give the seller a chance to respond.
2. Sellers Can Screen Out Buyers They Don’t Like
Remember those “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” signs that became popular in the hippie days? It was some stores’ way of excluding certain buyers from their establishments. eBay gives sellers the power of pure, naked discrimination-in a limited number of ways.
- Sellers can require the buyer has a PayPal account. Sound like nepotism, considering eBay owns PayPal? Hang on and see it from the point of view of the seller…
- Sellers can require that the buyer’s PayPal account be free of unpaid items. So it’s a way to keep deadbeats with empty accounts from suddenly ordering 8 plasma TVs at once and demanding they be shipped immediately when there’s only a plugged nickel and some old gum wrappers at the bottom of their PayPal account.
- Sellers can block whole countries from buying. Sorry, non-scammers in Nigeria, one of the lonliest clubs in the world.
- Sellers can block anyone with a feedback score of less than… whatever. Seller gets to choose.
- Sellers can prevent buyers who have bought up to 100 items (or less; you can decide) from their seller account in less than 30 days.
- Sellers can block your bidder ID just because they don’t like your face. Well, they can block any bidder ID. I think I made up the part about your face.
- Sellers can impose additional terms before the sale. Some things can’t possibly be covered in eBay’s rules. As long as they don’t contradict local, state, and federal statutes, sellers can disclose other requirements you must meet before you can purchase the item.
3. You Can Lose An Auction Where You Bid Higher Than The Winner
This is one of the most uncommon and unpleasant scenarios on eBay: You “e snipe” the auction the way any smart bidder would (“e snipe” means to place the bid the last few seconds of the auction, thus avoiding bidding wars and giving you time to change your mind about the bid; I cover the best sniping servces in my free ebook). The auction closes and you notice something weird. You placed a bid of $101.50, but the winning bid was $100. Rip-off sniping site! They didn’t place your bid, the lousy scum! Whoa, Nelly! Hold your horses. Let’s ignore the fact that the reputable ones don’t get paid unless you win and check eBay’s rules on bid increments. At the $100 level, each bid must go up by at least $5 higher than the last one. The next bid must be at least $105 or eBay will reject it. Since snipers go in at the last second, they don’t get the feedback from eBay explaining their noobie problem. Moral of the story: Understand how bid increments work or you’ll play the loser until you do.
4. You Can Sell Skulls, But Not Native American Skulls
eBay doesn’t let you sell body parts, which is a bummer because I didn’t want to let that appendix go to waste (I sold it on Craigslist (kidding)). See reference at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/remains.html in case you think I’m bumming your body part-selling high. You can list scalp hair, which apparently isn’t a body part. You can also sell skulls and skeletons intended for medical use. However… no Native American skulls. So if Geronimo’s skull actually was stolen by Prescott Bush, Yalie and progenitor of two U.S. Presidents, don’t expect it to come up for sale on eBay even if the Bushes need the money and even if you promise to use it for medical purposes only.
5. Sellers Can’t Charge Extra To Cover PayPal Fees
One of the most flagrantly violated rules on eBay is this one: “Sellers are not allowed to charge eBay buyers an additional fee for using ordinary forms of payment, including credit cards, electronic transfers, PayPal, ProPay, and Paymate.” (See http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-surcharges.html) Anytime you see a seller saying something like “PayPal charges so much that to stay in business we need to add $2 to every sale using PayPal” they are breaking the rules big time. And not just because eBay and PayPal are in bed together. This practice is also banned in some states, such as California, and apply to use of any sort of credit card payment. Wal-Mart can’t charge less for customers who pay cash, even though the credit card processor take a tidy chunk out of their bottom line. (The loophole? You can offer a cash discount. But you cannot add a surcharge for credit card purchases.)
6. You Can’t Sell McDonald’s Monopoly Game Pieces
eBay specifically forbids selling McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces. Or guns, largely for the same reasons. Both are subject to detailed, exacting regulations that differ from state to state. eBay sensibily washes its hands of them entirely. In addition, the McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces can run afoul of some state gambling statutes. I think maybe you’ll have to check Craiglist for Park Place. (Funning you. Craigslist has the same rules.)
7. Plan to Cancel A Bid? NOT! Except on Motors and Real Estate
eBay does not want auction prices driven up artificially by shills. They also don’t want to discourage bid probing. Sellers can set a reserve price, which is a minimum price where the value is not disclosed to the public; the item doesn’t sell until the reserve has been met. Bid probing is the someone science fictiony term for when someone attempts to bid an item up in order to find out the reserve, then pull out of the auction. For these reasons eBay states in their rules that a bid is a binding contract, and narrowly describes the conditions under which a bid can be canceled.
Now throw that all away for items sold on eBay Motors and Real Estate. Due once again to local legislatures, eBay throws its hands up in despair and just kind of mumbles that bids in these categories are, as Captain Barbossa says in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, aren’t rules, they’re guidelines. With Real Estate (http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/non-binding-bid.html) there are too many conflicting rules regarding home inspection and other state requirements. With Autos, it covers cases such as a car not passing emissions regulations in the purchaser’s state.
These 7 principles can guide you to more wins for less money, and can steer you away from unscrupulous sellers charging outrageous additional fees. (Except maybe for the part about Native American skulls, unless you’re an obsessed skull collector and have wondered until now how to get the best possible prices on collector (I mean, medical) skulls.) Read and reread: you as an eBay bidder need every advantage you can learn on how to win on eBay.