Advice on selling things via eBay

And they can catch you very easily and will ban you from ebay.

Ooh, scary! Then you'd have to set up another user account!

I don't advocate bidding on your own items under normal circumstances, party because it is indeed wrong and partly because it is, contrary to popular belief, unlikely to have much of an impact on the final sale price. However, since ebay.de does not offer a reserve price option, this is a simple way of ensuring your item sells for the minimum you are prepared to sell it for. The other option is to list the item at that level straight away. The disadvantages of this are that the listing fees are higher and that bidders are put off by high start prices, which is why the eBay sites in the UK and USA do offer a reserve price option.

For five years, I loved Ebay & happily bought things from the US & DE sites. After buying 75 items & having great feedback because I always paid quickly, I finally was duped by a seller that is on her way to breaking every Ebay rule there is. She sold me a designer blazer that absolutely reeks of chemicals from 10 feet away. When I complained, she became very abusive, calling me names. She claimed she was a private seller, although she (a) had no "private seller" clause, and ( sells around 20+ pieces of clothing per month. It also appears that she bids against herself. When I reported this situation to Ebay, I never got any feedback.

Now I am the sad owner of a stinking blazer, still in the box (I guess I'll trash it soon), and have my first (completely untrue) negative feedback in 5 years/75 feedbacks. I wish there were some way to erase this black mark. I was proud of my 100% good rating. This seller, by the way, has numerous negative feedbacks!

The Ebay software also has a (potentially serious) bug. It happens if you log on to the DE site, yet find something on a US or UK site. When entering a price, let's say 20 Euro as 20,00 you suddenly find yourself bidding $ 2,000 for the item. Instead of an error message telling you that the 20,00 price is invalid (because it's missing a zero to make it $ 2,000), the software conveniently considers the comma as a thousands separator, and adds a zero to your bid I once almost bought a small garden table for $ 7,500 that way! I reported this to Ebay, but only got a badly worded email asking if I had received an answer. When I answered "Yes" (after all, I had gotten a form-letter answer, even though it didn't mention the subject of my email), I never heard from them again.

So, I still buy from Ebay nowadays, but not as much - and I'm very cautious. I never buy from anyone who has a rating of less than 98%, and for any rating of less than 100%, I read the feedback. Luckily I grew up EN-DE bilingual, so I can read all that stuff!

Does anyone else out there have any other tips for safe buying? I'd be interested in hearing about them. Thanks!

Happy bidding!

OK so I have sold a few things now.. Up to 13 or so transactions and I have 100% positive feedback

But my lil star has gone yellow instead of green!! :-( Anyone know why this would be?

Oh and i'm actually enjoying ebay now

It just represents the number of transactions that you've made. Only eBay themselves seem to notice or care though; it's the amount of feedback that buyers are interested in.

That's odd as it used to be on green when I had less items.. Odd

I recently bought a few (seven) items while I was abroad, and have sold some on eBay.de in the last few days as a private seller. (The items are all the same make and model.) A German friend of mine warned me the other day that over here there are lawyers with nothing better to do than to look for people like me on eBay and accuse them of being professional sellers!

He reckons that eBay hand over your personal details without any fuss because they don't want to get in trouble. Surely there are some data protection laws in place that don't allow this? Anyway, I reckon my friend is just being paranoid. Has anyone else heard of this?

Are there any good alternatives to selling on ebay in Germany (besides TT , which is a perfect price!)?

It's not uncommon. From your description (buying abroad and selling in Germany) you are selling commercially, and should not only declare yourself as a commercial seller on EBay, but declare the profits in your tax submissions. That's the official line, anyway - for MINOR trading it's unlikely you'll be found or pursued. Many people are much more aggressive at selling without being registered, and are the ones they are looking for.

Thanks for the reply. Do you know if the fact that I've bought the items in another EU country (and paid VAT on them) would make any difference?