Selling Items On eBay For 3rd-Party... Is This A Scam?

Oh sorry, I missed that. Yea, run the other way!

Tell him you need to have access to the product so you can ship it. Your fee is 48% commission of the sale amount (that's what they charge here).

Selling for other people on ebay is pretty common. But there are also scams associated with it. I recall in one case a person paid for the goods, the person acting as the ebay seller sent the money for the goods to the seller and then the actual seller never sent the goods. The person acting as ebay seller was held responsible.

So you want to be absolutely sure that goods are sent before sending money to the actual seller. Not only sent, but received and in good condition.

I think it would also be a good idea to call Paypal and ask about other potential scam deals. They probably have a long list they could share with you to watch out for.

I have sold many items on consignment including nearly $20,000 in silver US Coins and always required the seller to sign a consignment agreement and hand the items over before the auctions were listed.

I would explain that listing an item to sell on eBay is an agreement to sell and that I needed to have possession of the item to insure that they did not try to back out of the deal and not provide the item once the auction ended. None of my customers had a problem with this and were reassured that they had a contract that spelled out exactly what each party's responsibilities were in the transaction.

I would make sure that the items you are selling have enough sales volume and interest to drive the price to market value. This works best with antiques and collectibles where there is high demand with a very limited supply.

If the person you are talking to is legitimate they will most likely understand why you need to have possession. If they do not I would be very hesitant to do the deal, the potential pitfalls would outweigh any positive outcome.

Something that no one has mentioned, but is a very real possibility, is you would be used as the "legitimate" front for money laundering.

If so, and things go toes-up, getting some bad feedback could be the least of your worries...

Let me warn you. THIS IS BIG SCAM.

How it works?

1. You will list few laptops with decent prices. The items will sell.
2. You will send money
3. He will disappear
4. Buyer will raise case with Paypal
5. You cann't provide proof of posting
6. Paypal will refund and ban your account.
7. eBay will ban your account
8. You will pay paypal & eBay fees.

Any legit dropshipper won't advertise on gumtree, craiglist etc. He is big time scam. I know someone who lost around £2k in UK

STAY AWAY

I tell you, it's a gamble at this point. Why don't you do a background check?

I am someone who brings people on to do sales for my items.

One reason is competition control. As people might not know, you can only sell 1 specific item as a Buy it Now. There is a good advantage to having 2 or 3 people/accounts selling your item, as you can now make several sales for one specific item across several accounts.

This deters further competition. If someone see's that there is only 1 person to compete with, they may become a competitor quicker than if they see 3 people selling the same item.

Another is for testing. Some items sell better as $199.99 + Free Shipping or $179.99 + $19.99, and testing this through several different accounts allows me to determine how to sell an item as opposed to sticking to one method for 60 days, and then switching to another method.

"Do not put all of your eggs in one basket" - The competitive market sucks right now, and people are resorting to some cut-throat measures to gain control over product markets. eBay is a place where decisions of punishment are made until it is investigated - If it is investigated. What I mean is, say you have $20,000 invested in refurbished 19", 22", and 24" Acer LCD Computer Monitors. You bought these for $92 a piece. They are selling on average of $139.00 - You control the market by having the lowest price (and on eBay, if you aren't the lowest, you aren't selling. Period.) but someone on eBay pops up selling NEW 19" and 22" Acer Monitors for $89.00 + Free Shipping. You don't know how they are even making money, but they must have got them a lot cheaper than you did. They now control the market. Why is someone going to buy your refurbished monitors when they could buy New for cheaper? Well, people on eBay are getting a bit cut-throat, so they do things like go to their local library, register 20 eBay accounts, and start reporting this new sellers listings as Fraudulent, or Bootleg, or whatever. eBay will automatically take the listings down until further investigation. Having 3 or 4 accounts selling your computer monitors helps prevent this by becoming less of a main target.

Reasons of geographical location. As someone who sells a lot of things from China, a US eBay seller has more local advantages to selling items to U.S. buyers, and a Australian Seller has local advantages to selling items to Aussie buyers - even if they change their item location to "Located in Shanghai, China"

Being a dropshipper is much less difficult than being someone who sells on several platforms like eBay, iOffer, uBid, Bonanza, Amazon, Craigslist, etc. You accept orders, and send them to the location on the payment. Being a dropshipper also allows you to operate as a middleman, selling items you have access to, but do not have in your possession. For example, right next to my office in Nanjing is a factory that manufacturers bedding. Hundreds of different styles, and they do it for cheap too! There is no sense in me purchasing say 3 of each style and then selling it on eBay. Instead, I can find people who want to sell these items, I go over the pricing and we figure their profit. They choose between the couple hundred of designs and patterns and determine which ones they want to sell. They sell it, I send my order to this factory, they produce the bedding set, and they run it over to my office and we have EMS come and mail it out to the original customers address. (This is how a large portion of Alibaba operates) - sometimes, to cut in someone 20% of my business after fee's is more worth it to me than hiring on 2 employees to process orders and invoices at $1600/mo.

Dropshipper affiliates request new things and keep me updated on what people want and what they are looking to buy - even though I am a seller myself.

However, a dropshipper affiliate (I consider the person sending the item to be a dropshipper, and an affiliate is the middleman) assumes a lot of risk. If you sell an item I ran out of stock on, you have to relay this to your customer - and eBay customers HATE buying an item and then being told it is not in stock. They hate it. If I don't send an item out due to an error, it's the affiliate that can get screw and might not know a person didn't get their item until they have already filed a dispute with PayPal.

Uhh yeah .. i was gunna say ... don't you people watch Dateline?

Another thing here,
3) you collect money
4) You send him his cut
5) IF it is a scam
6) Paypay takes ALL of the money back from you.
7) RUN

It definitely sounds like he is making a drop shipping proposition for you.

If you are able to verify he is a legitimate business, then find out some more info ( past references, etc)

I have done selling (via dropshipping on ebay) and made a modest profit from it, but was luckly enough to be dealing with a company that had been in business for a number of years and had built a reputation for good service.

Below is a VERY GENERAL OVERVIEW of a dropshipping deal --- goes like this:

1. Supplier gives you a wholsale price (Minimum they will need to sell the item)
For example $1000
2. You Advertise their product on ebay.com using your own account (Advertise for above wholse price ... or whatever will still be regarded as competitive for the customer) => You will need to do your research on products here).
3. You advertise the item and hopefully it sells for $1200 (+ shipping??)
4. Successful buyer send you payment for $1200 (+ shipping)
5. You place an order for the item and pay the supplier $1000 (wholesale price)
6. You advise the supplier where to ship the item to your buyer
7. Item is shipped
8. Buyer receives goods
9. You get to keep $200 (Sale Price less wholsale price)

The higher you sell the product above the wholsale price, the greater profit you make ....