Selling Phones Online - Stupid "Customers"

[prb]

I listed a cell phone on Kijiji, a classified site. After 3 weeks of lowball offers, I listed it on eBay.

This customer takes the award for stupidity:

E-mail from him: this phone is brand new for 50 dollars?
Me:Hi, I still have it, however I have listed it on eBay
Him: So is it still for sale at 50 dollars?
Me: Did you even look at my eBay auction? It's at $132 and it keeps going up. So then, putting common sense into use, it is not still for sale at $50, but rather for auction (currently at $132). If you want, go to my eBay auction and place a bid.

I'm expecting him to make a bid of $50000 (eBay enters your bid at the lowest amount, in this case 135, then automatically bids above that for you), then pay via PayPal, then - after getting it - making a dispute on PayPal claiming that I advertised it as $50.

[bigjimaz]

Your phone is now at 132.50. The increments at that level would be 2.50 (not 1.00) so the next bidder's proxy would be 135.00. Good luck selling it and beware of the scammers. Cell phones are a high scam category. Make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's as far as Paypal policy requirements. A bit of advice from a long-time seller if I may. You shouldn't use stock photos you get from a website. You expose yourself to a possible VeRO takedown for using the intellectual property of the picture owner. Take a picture of the actual phone and add it to your listing. You'll get more for it because the buyers will know that you actually have it in your possession rather than dropshipping it. Also, remove the words "like Sidekick" from the title. It's against ebay policy under the keyword spamming rule. You can say that in the description but not the title. Having it there means that if someone reports it, ebay will take down the listing without warning you to fix it. Good luck.

[prb]

Your phone is now at 132.50. The increments at that level would be 2.50 (not 1.00) so the next bidder's proxy would be 135.00. Good luck selling it and beware of the scammers. Cell phones are a high scam category. Make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's as far as Paypal policy requirements. A bit of advice from a long-time seller if I may. You shouldn't use stock photos you get from a website. You expose yourself to a possible VeRO takedown for using the intellectual property of the picture owner. Take a picture of the actual phone and add it to your listing. You'll get more for it because the buyers will know that you actually have it in your possession rather than dropshipping it. Also, remove the words "like Sidekick" from the title. It's against ebay policy under the keyword spamming rule. You can say that in the description but not the title. Having it there means that if someone reports it, ebay will take down the listing without warning you to fix it. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice

The $2.50 increments I didn't know, i was just saying $1 because I didn't know

Actually, I didn't know about the keyword policy. The others I did, but was just taking a chance. I had 3 of these phones, and sold all 3 on eBay, but PayPal limited my account and eBay cancelled the auctions for "Suspicious activity" after they all sold and 1 paid, but I cleared that up and now am selling them one at a time.

I' ve actually got some experience on eBay, my grandmother sold and bought on it a fair bit, and I did everything for her, but I use my account now(which is new).

[TWOLF]

there is a small catch with this that I didn't see so thought I should mention that might help you out. When you list phones make sure that you say what company the phone works, mainly who you got it from. The reason I say this is alot of places on ebay sell phones they say will work for other companies but won't. The biggest issue any cell phone rep has is trying to explain to a customer why the phone they bought on ebay will not work with the carrier. In regards to what people will pay, good luck with that.