[QUOTE=casdave]
Jayrot
If you would not say yes to such a person, why would such a person want to do business with you ?
[/QUOTE]
I’m pretty sure Jayrot didn’t know you meant COD, rather - you ship me the goods, I’ll inspect them and then make the effort to pay you.
Yeah, I’m fine with COD.
I parsed your statement “ask if you can collect from the seller and pay cash on collection” as meaning, I’ll win the auction and then come to your house and pick up the item and pay you in cash. Maybe this isn’t what you meant, but it was implied by the “thousand miles away” comment as well as the subsequent post about not worrying about damage or lost in shipment.
Honestly, I don’t think I’m unusual in the fact that if I sell something on eBay, particularly a bigger-ticket item, I don’t want some random person coming to my house, nor do I want to meet to make a tradeoff in some parking lot somewhere. When I’m selling on eBay I want it to be an online transaction, as I imagine most buyers do as well. Someone wanting to pay “cash on collection” is the suspicious one, not me for refusing.
On further consideration, I suppose selling a car through eBay would be an exception to this.
If you’re representing yourself as a business, it’s wholly reasonable for me to expect to visit your offices to engage in a transaction.
If you’re a consumer selling off your personal goods on Ebay, it’s a different story.
[QUOTE=Mr. Slant]
If you’re representing yourself as a business, it’s wholly reasonable for me to expect to visit your offices to engage in a transaction.
If you’re a consumer selling off your personal goods on Ebay, it’s a different story.
[/QUOTE]
I really don’t think so, at least not in the current world of e-commerce that we live in. Whether you’re talking about eBay or just businesses in general on the internet, it is NOT reasonable to expect to be able to visit the offices and engage in a transaction.
Having ONLY the option of purchasing something online does not make something shady. No contact information or no physical address is one thing, but expecting to be able to drive over to Amazon, Newegg, or eBay seller “compu-global-hyper-net” and buy something is just silly.
Frankly I’m rather suprised at this whole line of discussion.
The point is not that the auction winner will actually go COD, its just a way of rooting out scammers.
No scammer is ever going to allow COD, not a chance, and if you live a thousand miles away you are not going to do this anyway.
You ask about COD before you bid, and if you choose not to bid, you lose nothing, and there will be another seller along soon enough.
The only ones likely to accept COD will be highly likely to be genuine sellers, once you have established that, then you move on to paying for shipping.
Lots of people find that the buyer paying on collection works out, there is less risk of transit damage and all the accusations that can flow from that, and there isn’t all the hassle of packing something and getting it to the shipper, on largeish objects, and especially large fragile objects its a real help not to have to worry about shipping.
You can spot scammer articles fairly easy, but usually you also lump some honest sellers in, or you are not too sure.
So if you are in the market for taking a chance on someone who looks perhaps iffy, but might not be, it could be worth it, because whatever makes someone look suspicious to me, will make them look suspicious to others, and that will push the price down.
If someone emails you from a proper ISP account onstead of a free email account such as hotmail or yahoo, then its a good sign, that’s not to say Hotmail EBAYers are all crooked, its a number of things that add up to form a picture.
I think we’re not together on the exact meaning of COD. According to my understanding of Cash On Delivery, I can’t see how being a 1000 miles away has anything to do with it. I think we’re confused on that.
Furthermore, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I contend that nearly 100% of honest, normal sellers on eBay, selling an average item (not super cheapy or a house) are not going to be willing to have someone come to their house to pick up an item or otherwise deviate from the standard pay-and-ship transaction.
OK then, lets call it cash on collection. payment at pickup ?
Scammers would definately not want someone coming around to collect goods, because they don’t have them.
If you get someone who is not prepared to allow payment when the item is collected, it would be a negative indicator, but you would already have some suspicions first, such as the item not being the usual stuff the seller offers, or the contact email is a free account and is included in the listing etc.(typical messages when they do this are things like, contact me before purches, do not use the EBAY ‘contact seller’)
Now the seller does not know where bidders are located for the most part, you could be one block away, you could be halfway across the world.
So if you say that you would like to pay and collect, they will not know you live far away and that collection is impossible.
The scammer will refuse you coming around, whereas the genuine seller is very likely to agree, and if you do live miles away, then you just state that you would pay for shipping when you win the auction.
[QUOTE=casdave]
Now the seller does not know where bidders are located for the most part, you could be one block away, you could be halfway across the world.
So if you say that you would like to pay and collect, they will not know you live far away and that collection is impossible.
[/QUOTE]
If you click on an eBay member ID, the profile page tells you what country the member is registered in. So if the seller is in China, he can be pretty certain your are not going to be showing up at his door from the US.
[QUOTE=Jayrot]
I contend that nearly 100% of honest, normal sellers on eBay, selling an average item (not super cheapy or a house) are not going to be willing to have someone come to their house to pick up an item or otherwise deviate from the standard pay-and-ship transaction.
[/QUOTE]
From my experience, I’ll disagree. Twice I’ve won an auction from someone in the same city as me, asked if I can come round to pay and pick up the item, and been able to do that. These were just ordinary people, not making a living off eBay, and they were happy for me to save on the costs of shipping this way. Not everyone will be happy with this, but (judging from these cases) many will. From their point of view it means they get cash, not PayPal or a money order, and they know immediately that the customer is satisfied.
[QUOTE=Jayrot]
…Honestly, I don’t think I’m unusual in the fact that if I sell something on eBay, particularly a bigger-ticket item, I don’t want some random person coming to my house, nor do I want to meet to make a tradeoff in some parking lot somewhere.
[/QUOTE]
I think you are in the minority on this. I’ve asked that same question to several sellers and got an affirmative answer every time. Admittedly they were for physically large items (bicycles in particular) that are difficult to ship. Also, for such items, it’s not unusual for an eBay listing to say “local pickup only,” meaning they won’t ship it.