Have a chap on E-Bay suggesting I sell him my GTX570 by reducing price to £1 and upping shipping fees to £184.00 thereby avoiding Ebay fees on the sale. He gets it cheaper, I get what I want for it (minus PP fees). Little interest in the market here at the moment unfortunately Not being thoroughly versed in Ebay speak, is this suggestion above board? Is there any risk to me either being susceptible to scam or EBay's wrath? Can't find anything definitive to say it cant be done but something has me a little uneasy about it. He has previously sold EVGA classifieds x2 using the same method in the last month... Anybody done this before or shed any light please?
Wouldnt it be better to just ask him to pay you the full amount via paypal gift? As in, dont bother with ebay at all. That way ebay are not involved and you dont need to be sneaky about it.
I thought it probably would be but may have been worth it as a one off. Nevermind - there has been movement on the marketplace here so it looks like its a null point now anyway. Cheers lads
FWIW though: 1) If you did reduce the selling price to £1 and increase the shipping to £184, it wouldn't do you or him any harm financially- if you list the item as a buy it now then even better. It is possible ( I think ) to list a private auction and only send the link to a selected party- handy for conducting sales via ebay so that you have buyer & seller protection in case the sale turns sour. I've done the same for a few people on low value items- I avoid paying as many seller fees & paypal fees that way, and ebay is none the wiser unless someone reports the auction or a roaming ebay moderator/employee stumbles across the auction. 2) if the buyer pays the money via paypal directly & you conduct the sale outside of ebay ( which is perfectly okay as it happens, as there are options / reasons to select when you want to send money to someone; you just have to remove the item for sale on ebay ), and he selects 'gift' as the reason, he wouldn't be able to get any of his money back if he tries to pull a scam as there are no 'goods' to refund the money on. Money sent as a gift can't be refunded- money sent for goods or services can, so that is a handy thing for sellers to remember if you don't fully trust or know the buyer. On the other hand it's bad news for buyers because any goods found to be faulty can't be refunded as the seller cannot be forced to issue a refund on goods paid for as a gift transaction- so be careful when buying items if the seller asks you to send payment as a gift...
