“C’mon Phil, all misspelled items on eBay are fakes aren’t they ?” That’s how the email from Tom in Kentucky started. This guy clearly didn’t believe that eBay sellers genuinely misspelled words, sometimes CRUCIAL words in their listings. Instead he (wrongly) believed that they were selling fake items with the names deliberately but subtly misspelled to fool innocent buyers.
But is he right ?
Hell NO !
Let’s look at the kinds of words that people misspell on eBay. If you’ve signed up to receive my free lists of commonly misspelled words on eBay you’ll know that people not only misspell brand names like Abercrombie:
Abercrombie <— click to go to Missing-Auctions.com, then click ‘Search’
but they also misspell more generic words too, such as bluetooth headset:
Bluetooth headset <— again, click the link and then click ‘Search’ again.
Whilst ‘Abercrombie’ is a brand name, ‘bluetooth headset’ isn’t so there’s no benefit for the seller in misspelling ‘bluetooth headset’.
But that’s not to say that there aren’t unscrupulous people on eBay selling fake items which ARE misspelled versions of famous brand names. The trick is to know how to spot them.
So what can you do to protect yourself from these people ?
Here’s what I do:
- Check that the seller has used a real picture
- If the picture is real, look closely at the item and check for labels
- Check the sellers feedback
- Use Auction-Follow.com to check out the seller and details of the auction
If the seller has used a generic picture of the item, perhaps from the manufacturers website, walk away. You’ve no way of knowing if the item is real or not.
If the brand name is printed on the item, check it very carefully to ensure that it is spelled correctly. If it’s not walk away. If there’s no brand name, walk away. On some eBay listings you can zoom in on the item. If you can’t right-click the image and choose ‘Save As’ to save it to your computer. Then use a graphics program to zoom in and look at it more closely.
Take a look at the sellers feedback for items that they’ve sold by clicking on their eBay username, then clicking ‘See all feedback’ and finally the ‘Feedback as seller’ tab. If people are complaining about items, walk away.
Paste the item number (you can find it in the ‘Other item info’ box) in to another of my webites called Auction-Follow.com and it will check the sellers feedback, their location, the shipping charges, methods of payment accept (only Paypal offers you an real protection) and will check them against a list of know scam websites. It also allows you to follow items by email, something that eBay itself doesn’t do (properly).
With a little bit of care and some common sense it’s perfectly possible to avoid getting scammed on eBay.
Have you been caught out on eBay ? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below and help others avoid the same scams.
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I have never been scammed on eBay, but I do want to comment on this article, and Tom’s statements.
This is a very interesting article. I have sold on eBay. I use it to determine the “bottom line” of an item I am selling, plus shipping costs, to determine what kind of profit I might expect.
This is the reason I am interested in your system, and believe that Tom is wrong. I would also use the sellers “feedback” to determine if I want to do business with them.
I am beginning to look into the process of misspelled words as a possible profit motive. I have yet to use it, but I am researching it.
hello phil…….
as we all say for the very first time, is this real or not? first of all i think that if there are very basic rules to basic auctions follow them with ease of comfort! but i asked myself well, where do we find better prices to buy cheap and save lots of money and to make great profits when selling these products? i looked up ways to beat the system such as sniping programs and so on. i find that these program work for a very short time and then the rules chage and then the program does not work! so most people would be out for buying these programs or they would have to wait for an update or go to another program! boy this is a real pain! so why not go after the items that people set up in their advertisement such as missed spelled items or they hit too many keys because they are in a hurry to make money or simply they cannot spell right at all! so look on ebay for something under a correct spelled word, then use the same word and type it wrong and you will be amazed at how many are there as it is spelled wrong and those items will not be in the correct place as of course……its spelled wrong! i tried it for the firs time and i could not believe the savings i got on this!! phil has come up with the best system that i can find and i want to thank him very much for this! all i can say is try it and you will be amazed at this system! great profit motivations!! thanks and good luck!!
I think there should be an addition right after #3: How long has seller been on eBay? If I find a seller that just registered on eBay 2 weeks ago and is selling 10 iPhones, something’s wrong. Usually these people have found a high-risk supplier so they create a new seller account as to not ruin their “good” eBay seller account.
It all really comes down to common sense though.
Hi phil thank you for your website, it is a great site. I have found some
very good items for resale.
Thanks!
I do believe I have been scamed on ebay but I can’t prove it. I bought a pair of True Religion jeans (miss spelled of course) to re-sell. When I got them, they had all the right tags, all the right “bright printed red budda”. I resold them and they were returned because they didn’t fit the buyer. She stated she had several pair of the TR jeans in that size and there was no way that these where the size stated on the tag. Running small is one of the tell tail signs of a FAKE. Have I been scamed by the buyer of my jeans or the person I bought the jeans from??? Is there a sure way to tell the real from the fakes outside of buying them from a dealer of TR?? Also a burberry scar? Bought as “authentic”, resold and buyer says its not soft enough to be cashmere????
Thanks for any info.
Wow, that’s a tough one! Once the buyer gets the item all they have to say is, “it’s a fake” and threaten to neg you if you don’t refund their money. I think if I’m dealing with name brand, high-dollar items I would use an escrow service. Another scam, depending on the item, would be to buy a cheap fake then buy the real deal from an eBay seller. Then tell the eBay seller they sent you a fake and you want your money back. Send them the cheap fake you bought and you keep the real item the seller sent you. I’m NOT condoning this but there are scammers out there.
Perhaps I can add to this that the best way to guard against being ripped off by online sales or auctions is to use a bona fide online escrow company. Although it does add some cost, that will take uncertainty out of the transaction.
For my money, the best bona fide online escrow (and there seems to be ten fraudulent escrow sites for every bona fide one) is probably Escrow.com (http://escrow.com). In fact, it’s the only one that eBay recommends.
Take care,
Ulf Wolf
You hit the nail on the head in that post, I’ll definitely be back for the next update.
Interesting topic… I haven’t been scammed on ebay but I also never thought of these common signs of scammers…. Thanks a lot for this info! ^_^
I hope you would not have reservations if I posted a part of this site on my univeristy blog?
@Chiriqui, that’ll be fine. I’d appreciate it a link back to the original post too if possible.
https://escrow.com/solutions/escrow/process.asp
works the same as Paypal, so why to use it?