Selling cues on ebay, anyone had problems?

[Argee1977]

I have had to now relist my cue on ebay due to some 12 year old getting onto his mummys computer, i see ebay are still as good as security as before because this user had a hotmail address and a false address (a 5 year old could see it was made up!). So is it a risk putting buy it now on items, has anyone else suffered from this on ebay?

[Qubit]

Buy It Now is always a risk. One option would possibly to slightly over price the item and include offers into the auction and hope to attract reasonable offers, which you can then vet.

Bottom line for me is that when selling something valuable i simply wont send it unless im as satisfied as possible that the buyer is genuine, even if that runs the slight risk of bad feedback. For example I wont send to a unconfirmed address, end of. Ive asked a couple of buyers for a cheque in these circumstances in the past - a genuine buyer shouldnt really mind (I wouldnt).

[Argee1977]

Ah, ebay pulled my previous auction because i put in the offers thing

This will be the third listing of the cue, what a pain it's been

[subzeer0]

what cue is it ...someone here may buy it

[JasonOwen]

I have sold close to 200 old antique cues on ebay and can hand on heart say Ive never had a problem with any of them. There are a few numpties about on ebay but youll find that most decent cue sellers share there blocked bidders list so these people dont last long. The most annoying thing is the "will you sell it now for £20" brigade.
I always start every auction at 99p as it generates interest and makes it much more fun watching bids come in. An item will nearly always reach its value so why bother with buy it now.

[Argee1977]

It looks like a hit and run, the guy joined on the 12th of May, and appears to have hit a few buy it nows. Hopefully ebay have their act together and can do something about it through his IP address and ISP. He sent me an email full swearing and saying how he's doing this to annoy people, yet ebay still haven't banned him, he's still a registered member.

[stegorjus]

I don't understand why buy-it-now is riskier. A non-paying bidder is more likely in the auction format. People get auction fever and bid higher than they intended, quickly followed by buyer's remorse.

An item listed as buy-it-now can include an 'immediate payment required' stipulation which means it remains on sale until the PayPal transaction is complete. As a seller you can also change your buyer requirements to prevent bidders with negative feedback or non payment strikes; and block individual bidders.

Refusing to send to unconfirmed addresses may limit your market. I sell quite a few things on eBay. (Mostly non-snooker related.) At least 50% of buyers have unconfirmed addresses. There is no requirement for buyers to confirm their addresses so most don't bother. If the item is high value then it may be worth it, but do you really want to stop a buyer with 1000+ 100% feedback from bidding?