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Let’s say you place a bid on an item listed on the eBay auction
site and then you receive an email from the seller asking if you’d like to purchase
the same item from them directly without using eBay. Maybe they offer a
discount too.
Should you accept? No, it’s against eBay policy and it’s also
risky. Offers of this sort are intended to avoid paying eBay's fees and there is also
a potential fraud risk. Here are some examples of “off-eBay” offers:-
- Your bid
was not successful, but the seller contacts you and asks if you’d like
to purchase a similar item directly, at the price you bid.
- A bidder
contacts the seller with a request to purchase an identical or similar
item without using eBay.
- A seller
agrees to end a listing early in exchange for selling the item directly
to a bidder.
- A seller
contacts losing bidders to ask if they wish to purchase identical or
similar items directly.
When you buy or sell an item through eBay, you benefit from a
number of protection programmes that help make sure buyers and sellers are
honest, can be contacted and, in the event of non-payment or non-delivery,
compensation is available either from eBay or from PayPal (if this payment
method was used).
Occasionally, members report getting offers to buy “off-eBay”
from sellers insistent on payment being made via third-party instant money
transfers. Beware! Using this type of payment often puts you at significant
risk of fraud – it’s almost as risky as sending cash in advance to someone
you know little about.
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