UPDATE March 5, 2012: please take the screenshots below only as an illustration, perhaps this listing and the seller are completely normal, just had problems (or an account was hacked).On March 5, 2012 (after more than a week) this seller on ebaye began to receive fresh positive feedback on expensive purchases.Now I think that maybe I was mistaken and reacted too suspiciously to the seller (as one in one resembled real scammers on eBay from personal experience) or the seller did have some temporary problems.
He has dealt with scammers on eBay several times and has developed several rules that (I believe) are necessary to fulfill in order to make a safe purchase.
On the example of screenshots show what should be suspicious. So: ')
The price (with delivery) is lower or slightly lower than similar sellers ask. Maybe so that the price is the same as the rest, but the delivery is much cheaper. For example: $ 30 dollars for shipping a smartphone via USPS Express Mail, while other sellers cost $ 60 dollars and more.
Photo of the product "stock" (i.e. taken ready from the manufacturer's website)
Example: Normal seller is not too lazy to make your own photo of the goods, even in the box.
Positive reputation of the seller is formed by 95% of the "small things" for 1-3 dollars
Clicking on the name of the seller, we can see his reputation and reviews in more detail:
Click here:
The panel with general information on reviews opens:
Click on the positive reviews (circled in the screenshot above) and see these reviews mainly on purchases of low cost:
Negative reviews just go for "expensive" purchases (as opposed to positive reviews)
Links to negative reviews in the information about the seller:
And the negative reviews themselves:
With at least one of these items, the risk increases, especially if the purchase is expensive. According to the experience, PayPal returns money, but at the same time it is necessary to spend your time, energy, nerves on monitoring the situation and its resolution and it will take to challenge the situation from 30 to 60 days.