I am selling a bunch of Nokia 8890 Cell phones on Ebay. these are top-of-the-line phones that retail for $600. Anyway, I have about 20-30 auctions up for these phones. My problem is that I get a ton of bidders from Indonesia who bid on the phone but pay with stolen credit cards. they actually offer me whatever I want and are willing to pay double for a phone. I have written on my auction that I don't accept bidders from Indonesia but they always get in. they ruin about 70% of my auctions. Most of them have zero ratings. I try to cancel their bids but i can't be on my computer all day. Also they manage to creep in at the end and outbid legit people with high ratings. Also, they really raise the auctions to crazy amounts which I liked at first until Billpoint called me and told me not to ship the products.
Anyway, is there anything i can do? Is there any filtering of 0 rating bidders?
posted on July 4, 2001 01:20:59 PM
No, there is no way to "filter" out any buyers except by using the bidder block feature which blocks on an individual name basis.
Have you considered taking your auctions private or setting them up on a preferred buyer basis? You could state in your auction that buyers should contact you to be placed on your preferred buyer list & that way, you can filter out in advance.
Other than using some method like that, there's no way I know of to "filter" your buyers.
posted on July 4, 2001 01:26:52 PM
I posted a while back about auctions for handmade paper that were listed from Indonesia. The auction said "credit cards only" but offered no cc service. You had to e-mail you cc#. I did NOT do it but they had plenty of other bidders. The items they were selling were VERY VERY CHEAP in comparison to similar items including CHEAP shipping which is why they caught my eye.
They may or may not be connected TO YOUR BUYERS but if they are then they are stealing the cc's from other ebay buyers.
posted on July 4, 2001 01:34:10 PM
when you list an item on ebay,you can specify country shipped,can you use that to block indonesian bidders,or would you be blocking more than one country.
if you can block them thru shipping,what good would it do for them to bid on your item??
on yahoo shopping,shopowners can specify they dont want any order from certain countries.
yahoo also keeps an eye on customer who place many orders with different shops in a relatively short period of time,especially electronic goods,especially from countries like INDONESIA,RUSSIA ETC
posted on July 4, 2001 02:35:18 PM
Perhaps you should try what eventer suggested. There is a seller of high-end merchandise who states that if you wish to place a bid you must first email to let them know or your bid will be cancelled. You would think that would kill their auctions, but it doesn't. They have a very high sell through at none too shabby prices either!
Perhaps you could put international bidders must email prior to bidding or the bids will be cancelled. I understand you not wanting to be at your computer 24-7, but if it IS a real problem for you, and you want to continue selling the cellphones that may be your only alternative....
posted on July 6, 2001 09:14:19 PM
since nokia 8890 are not one of a kind antique,why cant you have a buy it now so the indos can buy to their heart;s content and leave the other buyers alone.
