possible comic seller scammer??

[jkdblee]

Hi, I need some advice.  I just won an auction for a Fantastic Four #5, CGC 4.5; I won it for super cheap price.  Now, this issue usually sells for like 10K, its CGC 4.5.  I won it for a tenth of that.  But this seller is new, just joined eBay, and has zero feedback.  

I need to pay within 4 days or get a buyers non-payer strike.  Here's my question:  Should I go ahead and pay, hope for the best? Or to protect myself, don't pay, and get a buyers non-payment strike on my record?

The purchase is protected by eBay's money back guarantee.  I need to pay within 3 more days and I don't want a non-payment strike on my record.  Any advice/feedback would be much appreciated.

[fjbet13]

You already made the decision to buy. I would pay and hope for the best. It might take a month or so to get your money back if the seller doesn’t ship, or item is not as described, but eBay is pretty good about honoring its money back guarantee.

[1786davycrockett]

@jkdblee 

As @fjbet13 had mentioned, you already have committed to make the purchase, so you should definitely carry through and make the payment.

If you are not satisfied with the product, you are protected by the eBay Buyers' Money Back Guarantee.

Who knows -- you might strike gold -- it has happened to many others (myself included) on eBay before -- maybe it's your turn!

[soh.maryl]

You knew it was a new seller before you made your purchase, right?

You went ahead and purchased any way and now you're second guessing yourself?

You committed to buying and you need to pay.  You know you are well protected by the MBG, right? 

[kathiec]

@jkdblee 

The time to have wondered whether this was a scam was before you bid.  Yes, it has all the hallmarks of a scam. And while the MBG works well in most instances, scammers are learning ways around it. The primary way seems to be the fake tracking scam, which eBay hasn't really gotten a handle on. So theoretically you're covered, but when the item is $1000 I personally wouldn't take a chance. (Of course I would never have bid in the first place.)

One nonpayment strike won't hurt you. If you get two in a 12-month period you'll find yourself blocked by a large percentage of sellers. So if you take the strike you'll need to be wiser about your bidding going forward.

[mudshark61369]

@jkdblee,

"I just won an auction for a Fantastic Four #5, CGC 4.5; I won it for super cheap price. Now, this issue usually sells for like 10K, its CGC 4.5. I won it for a tenth of that. But this seller is new, just joined eBay, and has zero feedback... Here's my question: Should I go ahead and pay, hope for the best? Or to protect myself, don't pay, and get a buyers non-payment strike on my record?"

You are covered by ebay's Money Back Guarantee so you shouldn't be concerned about condition or quality.  However, because you bought from a new seller a few things might happen that are partially ebay's fault.

1) The seller will cancel the transaction, because of the low winning price, because they took ebay's

     poor advice to; "Start auctions at a low starting bid, To encourage bidding" which often does not     work out well for new sellers. That may happen before your payment time frame ends.

2) Your seller probably does not know about the 21-30 day hold ebay places on all new seller's first

      few payments, or how to deal with it. That info is buried deep in the getting started information.

     On their account the payment status is marked as Pending, so the seller will probably not ship

     the item, and may take questions from you about shipping as an attempt to scam them some

     how. They may make up excuses or even lie about not shipping, because of that. Which often

     results in buyers ending up filing Item Not Received disputes and getting a refund some time

     later, and the seller getting a defect on their account.

If your seller is going to go through with the transaction, and prints a shipping label w/ tracking, because of the hold they may not get it to the shipper, because of the Pending status. So tracking will only say a label was created.

   If that happens and you want the item, message them and tell them if they haven't shipped because of the payment status to do a Google search for "Payments on hold - export.ebay"  If they do that, they will get the information about the hold and what to do to get the funds released sooner.