Justhandguns
Practically Family
- Messages
- 780
- Location
- London
I think if you use Paypal these days, they have a new system which acts a bit like your credit card, i.e. they pay for it for your item first and deduct from your account later (with your approval). I do not know how useful this is going to be, but that is an extra layer of protection for the buyers. For me, myself, I almost exclusive buy only from ebay. I have only sold a handful of items so far, mainly just to "recycle" some things that I would never use or able to use, not really for making money. But I think to become a smart buyer/bidder, you really have to learn from these unhappy lessons. I think the best judgement is how much you are willing to risk, more like on a casino table. When you place your maximum bid, just expect the worst would come, if it turns out to be the item as described, you will have one very fine day.
There is also a bidder's psychology, some people possess a "winning" mentality, sellers always welcome these type of bidders, but then, some of them ending up as missing buyers most of the time. Gems are hard to find, usually mis-titled items or released from private owners who do not know what treasures they are getting rid of. On the other hand, most of them are just too good to be true, especially those items which have been floating around for ages or relisted items. My word of advice is be patient, and spend a lot of time doing researches, like searching for similar items, finished items, price researches and so on. Even is you really like an item, hold your horses and look carefully, every single word of the description. Be careful when you see things like "New without tags", blurry or tiny pictures as mentioned, too short of a description etc. I have also seen sellers posting pics of their "once brand new" jackets (photo taken when they were new) while the buyers complained about getting some entirely different beaten jackets.
There is also a bidder's psychology, some people possess a "winning" mentality, sellers always welcome these type of bidders, but then, some of them ending up as missing buyers most of the time. Gems are hard to find, usually mis-titled items or released from private owners who do not know what treasures they are getting rid of. On the other hand, most of them are just too good to be true, especially those items which have been floating around for ages or relisted items. My word of advice is be patient, and spend a lot of time doing researches, like searching for similar items, finished items, price researches and so on. Even is you really like an item, hold your horses and look carefully, every single word of the description. Be careful when you see things like "New without tags", blurry or tiny pictures as mentioned, too short of a description etc. I have also seen sellers posting pics of their "once brand new" jackets (photo taken when they were new) while the buyers complained about getting some entirely different beaten jackets.