Turn on CNN or Fox News, read a column on the Internet or play your favorite all news radio station an you’ll become acutely aware of the “so-called” fraud online - specifically related to eBay.

Definition of Fraud: “In a broad strokes definition, fraud is a deliberate misrepresentation which causes another person to suffer damages, usually monetary losses.”

Like many, I have had negative experiences one eBay. However, I’ve also had negative experiences with unscrupulous people in the real world. The truth is that eBay is just a microcosm of real-life society where 99.9% of people are good nature.

Have you had a bad experience on eBay? I spoke with someone recently who said that a “fraudulent experience on eBay” ruined their desires to use eBay as a sales platform.” That seems just a bit immature, don’t you think? Just a few weeks ago my nine year old daughter left her board shorts on a lounge chair while swimming in the pool (at a nationally recognized vacation resort). When she returned, her shorts were gone. Someone stole her shorts. Fraud and theft. How should my nine year old respond? Should she never swim in a public pool again?

Of course not. But, she can learn a valuable life lesson of how to protect herself and her property. And to that we discover the purpose of this article. How can we protect ourselves from potential fraud on eBay?

Fraud on eBay, while small in proportion to the number of transactions that take place, is a real issue for the unsuspecting eBay member. Follow the following points to reduce the potential of fraud on eBay in your online trading adventures.

Fraud Tip #1: Understand Phishing

1. A new word to the Websters’ Dictionary for 2005, this has become #1 of the top areas of Fraud Alert in the history of the internet. Here is the definition from dictionary.com: “A method of identity theft carried out through the creation of a website that seems to represent a legitimate company. The visitors to the site, thinking they are buying something from a real business, submit their personal information to the site. The criminals then use the personal information for their own purposes, or sell the information to other criminal parties.” In specific terms, it may relate to your eBay membership, PayPal account, bank account, credit card, or other account where you need an ID, password and/or personal information.
2. Fraud on eBay can occur when you receive a phishing email that sounds 100% legitimate. It might come from: support@… And looks like this: “Dear eBay member, You have received this warning because we have strong reason to believe that your eBay account had been recently compromised and it could be used by a third party without your authorization. In order to prevent any fraudulent activity from occurring we are required to open an investigation into this matter. To speed up this process, you are required to verify your eBay account by following the link below.”

   a. Here’s what happens: when you click on the link listed, you are taken to a web page that looks exactly the same as the sign-in page — for example, you are sure you are at the eBay sign-in page. You are asked for personal information, including ID and password, etc.

3. How to protect yourself? You need to know that eBay, PayPal or any other secure site will NEVER ask for your personal, identifying information in an email. What should you do? Delete the email and tell yourself you’re not going to fall victim to a phishing scam.

A high percentage of online and eBay fraud is eliminated simply by understanding phishing and knowing how to deal with it.

Fraud Tip #2. Only Buy From Sellers With an Established Feedback Score

• Love or hate eBay’s feedback system, but is has its purpose. By doing your due diligence you can weed out potentially fraudulent eBay sellers simply by reviewing their feedback score. Pay particular attention to the last 90 days and be sure read all the comments posted on the first 3 pages. A sellers feedback score will is increasingly important if you are purchasing a high ticket item. Fraud on eBay can be dramatically reduced by following this Fraud Tip.

Fraud Tip #3. Do Not Pay With Western Union

• The chance of Fraud on eBay has been reduced through eBay’s own internal policing of buyer payment options. If you are going to pay for an item you purchase on eBay - always use PayPal as you are covered by PayPal’s buyer protection program.
• Here is eBay’s latest “Safe Payments Policy:

“Permitted on eBay.com: Sellers may offer to accept PayPal, credit cards including Mastercard/Visa /Amex/Discover, debit cards and bank electronic payments online for eBay purchases. Sellers may also offer to accept bank-to-bank transfers, often known as bank wire transfers or bank cash transfers. Sellers may accept COD (cash on delivery) or cash for in person transactions. Sellers may offer to accept payment through Certapay and Propay. Sellers may offer to accept personal checks, money orders, cashier’s checks, certified checks and other negotiable instruments.

Not permitted on eBay.com: Sellers may not solicit buyers to mail cash. Sellers may not ask buyers to send cash through instant cash transfer services (non-bank, point-to-point cash transfers) such as Western Union or Moneygram. Sellers may not ask buyers to pay with Stormpay. Finally, sellers may not request payment through online payment methods not specifically permitted in this policy.”

With regards to cash payments on eBay, “The U.S. Postal Service tells us it’s unsafe, and now eBay is telling everyone that it is unsafe,” said Matt Halprin, eBay’s global policy VP. “So if a seller solicits or encourages offers to accept cash, [they are] encouraging unsafe payment methods and we do remove that seller’s listing.”

eBay Fraud, which accounts for only a small fraction of one percent of all transactions can be significantly be reduced by your use of PayPal.

Fraud Tip #4. Preventative Measures - Tips For Your Protection

• The IFCC ( Internet Fraud Complaint Center) has an excellent website that includes a tips page where you will read about Internet Auction Fraud, Non-Delivery of Merchandise, Credit Card Fraud, Investment Fraud, Nigerian Letter Scam, and Business Fraud.

In a perfect world, everyone would be honest and trustworthy, but, unfortunately, there are those who will try to take advantage of others. The Internet provides tremendous opportunity - like anything else, use it wisely.

Adam Ginsberg - Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker

Adam Ginsberg is internationally known as a small business and online expert and highly sought after speaker and trainer. Adam has published the #1 best sellers “How to Buy, Sell & Profit on eBay”.as well as “The Automatic Money Machine on eBay”.

For more information or to contact Adam you can also visit:

Adam Ginsberg

Tags: online fraud, ebay security, make money on ebay, google, online scam, ebay, ebay scam paypal, ebay fraud

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Posted on November 19th, 2008 by sowhat2
Filed under: trick auctions | No Comments »

Ya know, I sort of giggle when I look at an ad on eBay that’s just a black and white description of the item or product that’s up for bid. It wasn’t long ago at all that I would have done the exact same thing, but once I understood some traditional marketing techniques, not just been exposed to them; everything looked totally different.

It’s been a few years now and I can’t imagine how I got by in a “sales” career beforehand. I had been a fairly successful salesman in the mortgage business, or the term the public uses; Mortgage Broker. A commission only job with no promised monthly salary. My income was totally based upon my sales success or “lack of”, each month. How was I able to eat without knowing how to write ad copy or how to use the “hook”, or how to effectively use a “take away” move..?

Simple answer: Born for it.

If you’re like me, in that you enjoy selling something that you, yourself are sold on, then eBay is where you need to be and learning traditional marketing techniques is the way to have any type of success. There is no other way for, us po folk(not millionaires), to reach such a huge amount of potential buyers for ANY type of item at all. One hundred twenty five million users! Whoa. At this point, they have daily new user sign ups in excess of one hundred thousand people…100,000 each day!

THE PRODUCT IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE SELLING!!!

Things are much more technical than that. Here’s a short list of the different focuses:

1. Gallery picture is to grab attention only. It’s not about looking nice and neat or pretty or professional; it’s about human instinct, the power of basic colors, and their contrast with each other. It’s about getting noticed on a page of 25 items in a list! We all just browse lists…there is no reading lists word for word! Of course I know that there are exceptions, but the majority are predictable.

2. The title is not for describing the item! Don’t think for a minute that you will get noticed by enough people to make real money if they don’t see you when they search. The bottom line is that most purchases are the result of a search at the top of the ebay page. Knowing this, you’d think that the search would be checking the entire ad text for matches, …not! There is a specific checkbox to choose this option right next to the search area, but most don’t “check” it, so normally the search is only checking the title. Think about that. Now do you understand why some of those auction titles sounded so stupid..? You got it! They are the smart ones. There’s a real art to creating a title that sounds somewhat normal while being keyword rich.

3. Feedback must remain clean, if not perfect! It’s an opinion and mine will not sway. There’s an inherent communication problem on the internet already. Why would you do anything at all to place more doubt in a prospective buyer’s head..? Well, one bad comment can ruin the whole record for, at least 10 more sales because they’re structured like this blog, backwards! The bad comment will be there until you fill the page again with positive comments! Just keep it perfect at all costs or don’t get upset when they bypass your item for someone else’s.
4. Pricing. Again, more of a marketing or psychological factor than most think it is. Information products are even more suited to this because their value is based, partly, on perception or what people think it should cost. That literally means that a new product can sell more units priced higher than comperable products just because it’s more expensive! Now, what I just said was not that they sell for more so they make more. I said “units”. It’s possible to sell 10 for one price and 10 for a higher price, quicker. If the whole dynamic, or feel of the ad, gives the item a higher perceived value, rather than a “ripp off”, they may even move faster because of being more expensive. I’m beating this horse because most people are trained the opposite of this, that cheaper is better… Pricing is a tool, just a really important one to get right.
5. Traditional ad copy is usually a sales letter that is absolutley focused on purchasing your interest with well placed, and sometimes viosually appealling, words. Just as the title was only to get you to click the ad, the headline or first words in the desciption should be focused on getting you to read it and go to the next line. That’s where the hand off takes place and now it’s the second area or headline’s job to kepp you and send you to the next. Just that methodical. The only way I can see to do this effectively is being obsessive about it. Invest some time in this because it directly effects your income, period. Sometimes I like to write most of the ad, right off the top of my head, then go over it with a fine tooth comb, making adjustments, over and over and over and over… Till it works and flows properly. Every great marketer has seemingly strict opinions as to which words to use or not and which colors to use or not. The funny thing is that a huge part of a marketer’s job is to test new things and question there skills to hone them. I’m caught up in this circle all the time…
6. Your “store” policies. The only way to really get the idea of why you need to be particular about things such as this is to look around at the other auctions. You will definately run into some cheesy ones and some really well done policies. Now pick which seller you feel more comfortable paying money to “up front” for a purchase… Get my point..? Be a pro at all times, trust me; everyone is watching. Make your store policies more fair than most and make them easy to read and understand. Don’t write them exactly the way you want to see them, smarter people than you will read them AND dumber people than you will read them. You need to make each of us feel good about you here.

Once you grasp these as the truth that they are, you’ll see the potential of eBay just because you will simply be in the minority! These are the first steps of becoming an extremely over paid telecommuter or PJExec.

I’ve sold almost a half million dollars worth of products this year, from my bedroom, without employees, and in my PAJAMAS! Not one of my sales were drop shipped and almost every one of them was an Information Product.

I’m a High Level Powerseller on eBay, AND, I’m a Certified eBay Education Specialist, trained by eBay. When I took the acceptance exam to be an Education Specialist, in September 2004, my exam ranking was number 1! There were 582 other trainers at that point.

I have gross eBay sales of more than $300,000 this year.

I also have gross website sales of more than $140,000 this year.

I have 100% Positive Customer Feedback!!!!

I have Zero Employees.

I work, at home, in my PAJAMAS!

http://www.PajamaExecutive.com

Tags: ebay, sell, how, powerseller mindset, pajamaexecutive, powerseller, chuck mullaney

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Posted on November 18th, 2008 by sowhat2
Filed under: trick auctions | No Comments »

eBay sees Keyword spamming as a minor violation. However repeated warnings over this policy will eventually have your account suspended or even terminated.

So, what exactly is Keyword spamming?

Firstly you need to release how eBay users works. The majority of users on eBay search for keywords - they do not browse though the relevant categories.

For example if I was looking for a new car, I would type “HONDA” into the search box rather than browse to the Honda category of the vehicle section.

Secondly you need to be aware that eBay’s system only searches for these keywords in the title - It will not scan the description for the keywords I specify.

eBay would then present me with a list of items with the keyword “honda” in the title. Any item such as Honda CRX or Honda keyring will be shown to me as the search results.

So, some sellers will fill their item title with keywords that they expect will be searched for more. If the keywords are relevant to the item they’re listing then it’s within eBay policy.

If the keywords they use are not relevant to what they’re listing, it is known as Keyword spamming.

One example of Keyword spamming would be “Honda CRX for sale - not nissan or toyota” Anyone searching for the keyword “nissan” will be shown this item and it’s fairly obvious the words are not relevant.

Apart from being against eBay policy, using techniques like this is likely to irritate most users as they’re presented with unexpected results.

Mark Kenny runs an eBay forum where you get rewarded for contributing your point of view.

Tags: policy violation, keywords spamming, ebay keywords, ebay title

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Posted on November 17th, 2008 by sowhat2
Filed under: trick auctions | No Comments »