This is a guest post by   Samantha Milner who regularly provides content from her own personal experiences.

ebay scam

When we think of eBay scams we always think of the ones when the victim is the buyer but what about sellers?

As a former eBay Powerseller I know just too well, how easy it is for the seller to be scammed on eBay.

I have probably been scammed about three or four times myself and here is the biggest scam on eBay:

First of all with this scam in mind it is a case of can you afford to lose the money?

I have read several stories when scammers have targeted people selling electrical goods such as camcorders, cameras and mobile phones.

What they will do is open a bank account to pay just for your item, insist that you deliver the goods by standard delivery and then claim to PayPal that they never received the goods.

PayPal’s response will be that because you haven’t sent it signed for they don’t believe you even sent it. They will therefore refund the buyer and you will be severely out of pocket.

Many buyers are put off with recorded or special delivery because it means their postage costs can go through the roof and this is not something that they want!

They want cheap postage – my idea is to provide standard delivery with monies you can afford to lose for example the cost of a cheap DVD wont leave you hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

Raise the postage cost by 30 pence per product and use this to cover your costs for the small amount of compensation you have had to pay out to people that are claiming their item has been lost in the post.

I am convinced that the post office people are stealing some of my post for products that I buy on eBay. I cant prove it of course, but whenever I buy items from the channel islands which doesn’t go directly through England I never have any items going missing.

I purchase about 100 items a month from eBay and out of this 2-3 will vanish. However A 97-98% success rate on postage can’t be a bad total.

So if a buyer complains that an item hasn’t arrived give them a chance as they are not all scammers you just have to be careful with your sales.

To read more about me and to find out how I  make money online as an  internet marketing expert please visit my blog http://www.myeasyonlinepay.com.

Thanks for reading

Samantha
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I am afraid to say that I am a total eBay addict and have been since I bought my very first item in the beginning of 2005. My husband had been using eBay occasionally for about six months and kept telling me how great it was but I just didn’t get it!

Since that first sale though, I loved the idea of being able to get as many bargains as I liked and as someone that always wants to save money it was a dream come true.

The first few sales went really well and I was really milking the bargains that were on offer. However it didn’t take long for me to have a bad experience on eBay. This is no different to what anyone else has experienced when you pay for goods and they are not delivered.

This isn’t necessarily a scam as we all know what the postal service can be like for delivering goods to a customer on time. But without proof you will never know either way whether or not it is the seller not delivering goods or the post office have failed in their service of duty.

I will never give up on buying on eBay as I love it and just because there might be one or two dodgy sellers on their site today won’t put me off and it shouldn’t have you quitting eBay. But you can always way up the risks and make sure that you don’t lose money as a result.

Here are my five killer eBay tactics to safeguard your wallet:

#1 – Always pay by PayPal – Most of us hate PayPal just because of the low customer service that they provide you with and the fact they close accounts on a moments notice. However it is important that whenever you buy goods on eBay that you pay by PayPal. Then you have the added security that if something goes wrong PayPal have a duty to deal with it.

Also when you pay for goods via PayPal make sure that you pay for them via your debit or credit card NOT PayPal balance. This way if PayPal fail to deal with your case you can go to your bank instead for assistance.

#2 – Don’t buy expensive goods on eBay – It is very important that you don’t buy expensive goods on eBay as if something goes wrong you are seriously out of pocket. I never buy goods on eBay that have a higher value than $100 and you should stick with the same figure. At the end of the day we can all afford to lose $100 but can we afford to lose $500?

#3 – Don’t get scammed with excessive postage – It is amazing how many sellers will charge excessive postage costs on eBay items. The reason why they do this is that they are avoiding paying the eBay fees and would rather profit from the postage and packaging fees.

For example if they sold an item for $0.99 and charged $5 in postage they would only pay approximately $0.20 in fees. However if you sold an item for $4.00 and charged a respectable $1.99 in postage costs you would be charged around $1.50.

If I am given the postage costs after winning the bid and I know how much it would cost to deliver the goods I will question it.

#4 – Stick with the 98% rule – The feedback system is in place so that you can have trust in a particular seller. To become a good standing seller or even a Powerseller you need to have a minimum feedback status of 98%. I don’t believe it is difficult to hit the 98% level. Therefore don’t buy from sellers with less than 98% feedback.

Also avoid sellers with a feedback score of less than 10 as these sellers can equally cause you problems.

#5 – Leave truthful feedback – When you leave feedback make sure that it is factual and doesn’t mention any third parties. This is especially important when you leave negative feedback as sellers can get feedback removed for a whole range of reasons nowadays.

Many sellers state that if you leave them negative feedback they will do the same to you which are untrue. Under recent eBay rules sellers can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers giving you fantastic peace of mind.

So there you have it my top five tactics to avoid being scammed on eBay. Next Friday I will show you my top five eBay tips from the sellers point of view.

To read more about me and to find out how I  make money online as an   internet marketing expert please visit my blog   http://www.myeasyonlinepay.com.

Thanks for reading

Samantha
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I went to Toys R Us with my friend and our two kids back in 2007 at one of their many stories in England that was part of a really big retail store in Northern England.

We went around the store and picked out lots of things to buy. I had taken my friend with me because I am registered partially sighted and wanted a little assistance and whilst we were in the store my husband kindly waited in the car ready to drive us all back home.

We had a wonderful time but as soon as we hit the till we had major problems with Toys R Us lack of customer service skills. It is so bad that the majority of the staff need to be taken out and completely re-trained.

As I went to pay I used my debit card as usual which is a chip and signature.

These are special cards that are created especially for people that have eye sight problems and mean that instead of putting the pin code in you will sign for it just like we all used to many years ago before they introduced the pin system.

The best part of the chip and signature though is that the shops are totally covered against fraud because the bank takes the losses if fraud is used on the chip and signature card.

This means that the shops don’t have any risks in handling these cards.

However when I went to pay for my goods they refused my card and said that they would only accept it for fraud prevention purposes if I provided a driving licence.

Well how on earth can someone that is partially sighted own a driving license as I am totally lost on this one!!!

However after what felt like a lifetime of discussions my husband came in from the car to pay and we left after some nasty remarks from the staff. This included commenting on the fact that partially people shouldn’t be allowed into shops which left me really shaken especially considering a large queue that was forming behind us.

I can appreciate that not every store is perfect and this is why I walked away without a fight because I was relying on their customer services head quarters to sort the sorry mess out.

But this is when my problems got ten times worse….

I was sent a letter telling me I had lied after complaining in writing with a simple £10 good will gesture voucher (like I would shop in their store again) and no apology. If they had apologised and given me a £50 good will cheque I would have left it there but they didn’t.
Therefore I took the matter to the small claims court and was constantly sent messages from their solicitors which I hated because they had a really nasty tone and treated me like I was the rubbish of the bottom of their shoe. As I am sure you are aware what solicitors of these big companies can be like!!!

In the end I accepted an out of court settlement a week before it was due to go to court and I never received an apology from them for the way they treated me and if they had they would have saved themselves thousands of pounds in legal costs that they also had to pay.

If you experience bad customer service don’t put up with it as then all these big companies will walk all over you. I may have had months of letters but I also got the satisfaction of knowing that they paid the price for how they treated me which is more important than anything.

Plus I have never stepped foot in a Toys R Us establishment since and I used to spend £5,000 a year in there and I am sure I am not the only one to ditch them!

To read more about me and to find out how I  make money online as an  internet marketing expert please visit my Blog:

http://www.myeasyonlinepay.com

Thanks for reading

Samantha
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So before you decide to make money online cash gifting, I really want you to pay close attention, because there are honest ways to make money online, and then there are completely bone headed ways to make money online.

Well I did mention that cash gifting is illegal, in a lot of ways I have seen.  In fact people that run these cash gifting scams don’t really file it on their taxes.  So let me make it perfectly clear that people are still going to do it regardless if they are doing it by the book or not.  Take the Profusion X scam for example.  It really surprises me that, that site is still up.  Seriously!

So yes, you can give money away that is perfectly fine.  There is a catch though, you can not get anything in return from it.  That is really where a lot of these cash gifting scams cross the line.  They will promise you cash in hand, but in order to do that you have to do something in return to get that money.

So eventually these cash gifting scams will fall as soon as they are identified as a ponzi scam.  You can not promise people money and then just take everyones money that is highly illegal and it not cash gifting at all.  It is all to support the member at the very top of the pyramid.  What have you guys seen that is related to a cash gifting scams or ponzi scam?

Typically a hot scam that seems to be going around is a Myspace tracking scam.  This will typically tell you, ” Do you want to see who is viewing your Myspace page.”  Naturally, people do want to know who is reading their profile, but this MySpace scam has bad intentions.

Typically you will see this Myspace message on your “wall” or in the form of a message sent to you from one of your friends.  Well, I should say that it will look like it came from one of your friends.  In reality it is just a worm that is meant to look like it is from your friend.  This is a Myspace scam so do not click on it.

This scam will say a number of things but it will ALWAYS have a link that you are supposed to click on so that you can get access to your “tracking.”  However, I would advise you never to click on the link because what it will do is prompt you to a login screen for Myspace, or shall I say what looks like a Myspace login page.

Might seem like a worthless scam, but really it is a phishing scam that is meant to steal your password.  The reason these fraudster do this, is to steal your account and do various crimes with your account.  I would highly encourage that you use your judgement when using Myspace because there are a ton of Myspace scams floating around on their social network.   What other scams have you seen floating around on any of these social networking sites?

I have decided to put together a follow up to my Just Search review for all the SEO readers that don’t want to lose their money. (If you missed the first just search review you can read it here.)

I love reading reviews on the internet along with stories about current affairs, but what annoys me is the fact that there is never a decent follow up to the story in question. You read these amazing headlines and then think to yourself “now what?” so here is the aftermath on the story and the information that others have now passed on to us.

First of all the Just Search team sent an email message to the report online scams that was of a rather bullying nature:

——————–

Dear Garen

I would like to draw your attention to the following article on your website; Just Search Scam.

The article has been written by Samantha Milner and it makes some very serious accusations regarding Just Search which have simply been made up.

Just Search is a successful and reputable company with over 800 clients in the UK and many more globally. To suggest that Just Search was involved in such activity including defrauding a client for £25,000 is completely unacceptable.

The comments that have been published on your website amount to slander against Just Search and for that reason we would request that the post is removed from your website, Facebook and http://tagally.com/main/blog/report-online-scamscom . I would also request that you please keep a record of who posted the article and from which IP address to either prove or disprove the article was in fact written and published by Samantha Milner.

Just Search will be briefing their solicitors in due course and will be pursuing this case further.

Kind regards,

Gary Douglas
SEO Project Manager
Email: g.douglas@justsearch.co.uk

Standard Disclaimer
This message is confidential. You should not copy it or disclose its contents to anyone. You may use and apply the information only for the intended purpose. Internet communications are not secure and therefore Just Search LTD does not accept legal responsibility for the content of this message. Any views or opinions presented are only those of the author and not those of Just Search LTD. If the e-mail has come to you in error please delete it and any attachments. Please note that Just Search LTD may intercept incoming and outgoing e-mail communications.

What made me laugh the most though, was that the company doesn’t even know the difference between libel and slander which was rather strange. We have left it a few weeks and haven’t heard anything further from them. We are very happy to stand up against companies like this as this is what the site is about. We all have the right to freedom of speech and to speak out and that is exactly what we are doing.

————-

What I did find rather interesting though was how many others feel the same way as I do and this is a few reviews that I found from a quick bit of cyber research:

Review 1 – Posted 11^th March 2010

This is an absolutely terrible company, do not even consider them
Half the reviews here are written by them anyway. their a fake
We paid good money and got nothing, now we have to do our own SEO and are hampered by the rubbish links they put us on all over the internet. Including hacked sites, and mostly rubbish links on sites which got nothing to do with our industry because it’s cheaper for them to randomly insert links on sites in their database.

AGAIN….DO NOT USE THEM….THEY ARE RUBBISH AND WILL HARM YOUR WEBSITE

Review 2 – Posted 29^th September 2009

The Just Searching salesman confidently predicted one of the top 3 positions on the front page of google – verbally, although their contract has the usual ‘no guarantees’ clause. Don’t be fooled by the sales talk. While in the contract they put the onus on us to do hours of work on our site with new web pages and continual blogging. The promises of consistent front page ranking for our favourite search term were never achieved. We wish we had saved our time and money and looked further afield.

In particular I loved reading the Just Search Review that was posted in September 2009 as there are a few previous near perfect reviews and there is a deep suggestion that they are fake. When I looked into the method further I actually discovered that all the excellent reviews came from the exact same IP address which is starts a lot of interesting questions!

But my big question is do Just Search actually know what they are doing or how to build SEO on Google. I came across this very interesting Blog post that I wanted to share with you that you can read in full by clicking here.

This shows that Just Search do not have an credibility in the SEO world because their own staff are now currently posting on forums asking how to do search engine optimization. This is exactly, what they are charging thousands of pounds, to do for other people.

You have been warned!!

But seriously how can you brand yourself as an expert in what is thought of as a highly complicated skilled trade and then ask for advice from unskilled individuals. I have been working in internet marketing for years and the questions that were been asked were very basic and it makes you wonder where they get their staff from.

I am sure though that the staff member that posted on the forums got a royal telling off from the top for such a silly error. I appreciate that we don’t all know everything but if we must post on a forum for advice it is better coming from a fake name!

I am sure it has reduced their sales revenue though because who would buy from a site that doesn’t know there subject?

I have also found from reading the Just Search reviews that the quality of the service is a question to be thought about before spending your money with them. For example if you went out to a posh restaurant there is no way you would be happy if the restaurant got your drink from the local cost cutter

Well in a way this is exactly what Just Searching does as they place third quality SEO on your websites and often leave you with a big bill fixing it all later. There are also reports on the internet about Google blacklisting sites that have been given the Just Search treatment.

Remember SEO can be very expensive so find a quality company that will put YOU first!

You can find out more about Samantha Milner and her internet marketing products at http://www.dsm-publishing.co.uk and thanks for reading her guest post.

Here is a typical example of scam circulating trough the Facebook emails (please read Facebook Scams) which will lead on to steal your password, identity and deliver you a hips of tracking cookies and viruses which can and will destroy your computer system restore files and damage your preserved data: > Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:10:45 -0800 > From: service@facebook.com >

To: snau1_39@hotmail.com > Subject: Facebook Password Reset Confirmation NR.1072 > > Hey snau , > > Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. > You can find your new password in attached document. > > Thanks, >

The Facebook Team. The same email is comming with dangerous attachment in ZIP form and if you open it it will get you a virus – worm which will be extremly hard to remove. See more about computer software protection, maintenance and tune ups by logging to my website http://www.freewebs.com/snauc If I can be of any further help, please contact me! Joseph Snauc MD&Proprietor Technology For Sick Computers Cowra, NSW, Australia

I have also seen this facebook scam circulating to various emails:

Facebook Scams: Email

It is titled “Facebook Manager”.

Dear user of facebook,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
Your Facebook.

Here is a good story I found recently on the Facebook Scams.

Here is what to look for:

Of course they use Western Union only.  Why because their PayPal account has been shut down.  Get this they also will accept Paypal sometimes, just because there are loopholes in every system.  (also see “Paypal Scams.”)  Rip a bunch of people off, and close your account; I’ve seen it time and time again.  How are you going to get a refund from a non-existing account?

Bad Site Design

Big flashy text.  Not all sites that have big flashy text are scams, but a poor design can really tell a lot about a site.  True you can have a really flashy design and still be a scammer, but a lot of the times these scam sites look outdated.  Check out these two outdated scam landing pages (RebateProcessorJobs Scam and Underground Cash Secret scam.)  Affiliate marketing or Internet marketing scams will also make outrageous claims like “make 100,000 in first month.”  Come on the only way to do that is by using PPC and you have to be a stud to do that.

What Were About – Nothing?

No “about me” page.  Every site should have an about me page regardless of what kind of business they are.  An affiliate marketing or Internet marketing scam will not have an “about us” page.  Recently, I came across a scam site that had a 2 sentence about me page…LOL.  Holy shit, are you kidding me, you want me to invest money with you and you can’t even write a full paragraph on yourself.  I have seen this a lot, also a does it sound professional or did someone write something there, quickly.

Look Were Great

Testimonials bug me a lot, seriously.  Whenever I see them on a site I tend to think they have something to prove.  These really really piss me off.  It is almost like, “look we are good, Wally from Kansas says we are.”  I see this ALL THE TIME.  A Internet marketing scam with a story about how John went from rags to riches and it was so simple he didn’t have to do anything at all.  Heard it before?

What Have You Seen

I forget what site I was looking at the other day, but they had all these flashy cars,boats, RVs, and a mansion.  The sad part is people actually feed into it.  If you really offer a great affiliate marketing service then you will not have to build yourself and put yourself up on a pedestal.  What are some affiliate marketing or Internet marketing scams you have seen lately?

Google is banned in China

Honestly, I am actually stoked about Google doing something like this.  It has been a long time coming.   Don’t get me wrong I am not stating that every site in China is fraud, but over 90% of the stories I get are hosting in China.  There is obviously a huge problem.  You know how many have been ripped off by phony sites.  A hell of a lot of them; I can tell you that much.

Big Problem In China

So a big problem that has been found in the search engines in China.  A lot of sites (over 4,000) of them have been shut down down because of pornographic material.  Actually, I was reading lately that the Chinese government has been thinking about installing software (filters) to limit what people in China look at.  This is for various political reasons.  The Government in China has been highly criticized for this and a number of people are outraged by the restrictions that might occur.  Also, I should note that over 500,000 have been blocked in China.

China Bans Google, Good Move

I mean lets face it, everyone loves Google (well most.)  It is how we find the information we are looking for on the Internet.  I think it was a good move however a lot of people would disagree with me (mostly people in China.)  However, if I am not mistaken users in China also have access to a handful of other good search engines like Yahoo, MSN, and Bing.  So was this the right move or do you think it was a rather harsh move?  Please any ideas or incite would be appreciated.

This article was posted on http://www.report-online-scams.com

So out of frustration I really did start this site, and me being a designer I could really help a lot of people from having to go through the types of stuff I went through.  I displayed my SEO skills and have helped thousands of people save their money and not fall victim to online scams.

Well, I did want to talk about the mentality of scammers today.  A scam by definition is a fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.  It makes great since that scammers will go to great lengths to rip honest people off.  They really don’t care one bit about you, but will take you for all you are worth.  I have received hundred of stories from people that have been ripped off and something honestly needs to be done in order to clean up the Internet.  Believe it or not I do read all your emails.  Might takes some time but I do read them all.

Scammers Want Your Money Period

Ever feel like you are being rushed to do something?  If something is truly legit it will be around for a long time.  Legitimate offers do not come and go.  Con-artist come and go.  Do your homework before buying online.

Take Advantage of You

Believe it or not if they are not rushing you into something they actually get a trill out of delaying you for a long time and then burning you.  One case I heard of recently is a guy from China (or so he claimed to be from) put someone off for 6 months before burning him on a scam where he ripped him off through Paypal.  I didn’t report this scam due to the request I got, which I respect.

Got Something To Prove

If you are a lier or cheater than I can understand that you have to prove yourself.  You can build yourself up and put yourself on a pedestal.  Testimonials and everything are always a joke to me at least.  Imagine a scammer saying this to you, “see here is my Paypal account (please see Paypal Scams) and it has been shut down.”  I make so much money they shut me down.  Yeah, right big baller!  Here is my business license, ect.  The lies could go on and on, but a really good con-artist knows when he/she has you right were where he wants you.

Believe me if something looks to good it is.  Scammers are getting very sophisticated and it really unfortunate that there are so many people out there that can’t make an honest living.  I honestly, suspect that eBay scams on the rise in 2010.  What tactics have you seen that scammers are using?