Unfortunately, there is not. The best they allow is blocking -2 or below, IIRC. I would love to block bidders with zero feedback, but eBay won’t let me.
I just checked, and it does allow you to block (-1) bidders. I think they changed it. Still can’t block (0) bidders, though. The one that really gripes me is that it only allows you to block bidder with 2 or more unpaid item strikes. Why 2? If they got ANY unpaid item strikes EVER, I don’t want them bidding on my stuff.
I could never live in Nigeria. I shop on eBay way too much.
An update - I just got another email from this guy. I never replied to the first one.
This was accompanied by a laughably faked Paypal “receipt” saying that my account would be credited once I emailed them the tracking number of the package.
Just above this paragraph was a line item for “Shipping the Handling” costs.
I think (could be wrong) that the scam is in asking for the seller’s paypal account number at all. I’m an ebayddict. 
I only choose items which I can pay for with paypal, the transaction is done entirely by the paypal site. You don’t NEED the seller’s paypal information, or even their name.
You click on “pay now” or whatever, then for “type of payment” you select Paypal, go through the normal procedure and then you’re done.
This would almost be worth shipping a box of dog crap to Nigeria, just to be able to give him a valid tracking number.
Because most of them are not in Nigeria. If you read some of the websites that spoof the scammers (I can think of the URL’s but “scamorama” might be one) most of them seem to be Nigerians living in Western Europe or the UK.
That’d be “can’t think of the URL’s”, of course.
Aas a perfectly honest person who has bought maybe four things from e-Bay in my life, it would piss me right off to find that you wouldn’t take my money because I haven’t bought enough stuff. I can certainly see why the sellers would want to have that option to avoid these scammers but that isn’t IMO reason enough to block innocent people who are new to the site. e-Bay has an obvious incentive to disallow that procedure – they want new people to use the site, they don’t want it becoming a site where the same people buy stuff from each other – and I’m not sure it would be legal anyway.
K, thanks for the explanations. My head finally exploded about halfway through the Wiki scam page, but hey, it was a learning experience.
If “caveat emptor” is Latin for “let the buyer beware”, what would the Latin for “let the seller beware” be?
Is it mainly small electronics and other hot-ticket consumer items that seem to be subject to this sort of thing? I can’t imagine a scammer bothering with “Ladies blouse size 6 never worn”.
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
If “caveat emptor” is Latin for “let the buyer beware”, what would the Latin for “let the seller beware” be?QUOTE]
Caveat vendor, I think.
probably posted before but here are two great “scam baiter” stories used to reverse-con these Nigerian scammers:
He wanted a Powerbook, he got a P-P-P-P-Powerbook
I still laugh when I read these…
What pisses me is that, because of the Nigerians, people then go and block “international”. When I wanted to upgrade the RAM in my old laptop, I found about a dozen sellers for those chips in the USA; not a single one would ship to Costa Rica, where I was at the time. I finally was able to get it from a German seller, but dang it sure was a lot of work!
caveat venditor
That’s actually pretty funny.
You might consider emailing the sellers directly and explaining the situation. They still might not want to deal with people outside the country for the reasons I went over here a while back. In short – the Nigerian scams plus similar fraud makes it dangerous to go after anyone outside of the US. At least here you can send the FBI or perhaps the FTC.
It really does suck, though. I wonder just how bad this is going to be for Nigeria’s economy in the long run – their country’s name is pretty much a byword for fraud. 
Color me a bit confused, too. I’m aware of the overpayment scam, but it would seem like the protection would be to only accept Paypal payments thru the normal eBay channels. Once the Paypal money transfer is made, it’s a done deal, right? If it can’t be retracted by the buyer under normal circumstances, and you ship him the goods, what’s the problem?
Becuase the scammers hope your not that smart… as in the above post, they sent a faked Paypal reciept with a “your account will be credited when …” - scammers prey on the less experienced user(s)… but they hit all hoping for one/two successes.
Yes, Ebay has a number of problems, some international. There have been so many counterfeit guitars coming from China that the maker Ibanez put a warning right on their home page. I don’t use Ebay as much anymore, since it moved from being largely individuals selling their stuff, to be dominated by gray-market retailers, and resellers who sell other people’s used stuff with no guarantee that it works.
Some people actually went to the trouble of making non-item auctions that were just warnings (and discussion pages) for people buying guitars, naming some of the counterfeiters.
I also just made a Craigslist sucks! thread though, so I don’t seem to have any good options.
Hey, there’s another option no one’s mentioned.
Require Immediate Payment!
When you list the item, click Show/Hide options at the top right, then go to payment in the popup window, and select “Require immediate payment when buyer uses Buy It Now”. Then, there will be another box to check right under where you set your PayPal address, so check that one too.
You need to have a business or premier PayPal to do this, but what it does is, it sends them directly to PayPal to pay once they click Buy It Now. Then, if they don’t really, truly pay right away, your item’s not sold on the site, so no scammers can end your listing with Buy It Now and not pay.
So if you do “Require Immediate Payment”, and if you use Fixed Price format, you are guaranteed a real payment if someone buys your item. If you use Auction format with Buy It Now, though, this is only valid for the Buy It Now price, but it’s still a good idea to use if you’ve got a Buy It Now. You’re still vulnerable to the people who bid $8000, but at least you can Second Chance Offer it.
(If your listing has no bids and more than 12 hours left, you can still revise it to require immediate payment too.)
I hope that made some sense there! Not too good at explaining, hehe.