Ebay van ad. Have I messed up?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326102996928?itmmeta=01HWMH2VK2HZRC7M4Y7CKBCVNY&hash=item4bed40d7c0:g:ANcAAOSwTWZmKkTl&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0HUU90Yi%2BfXxFiYI1r5csj6RmcuVY2fKg2TM4U72GJoZywlkcWFHSz956MxQZfHgU7HQ4QDCNli6n26qjPBjH9GLmTbUNjJSNgxRGIB%2BEOo%2BSZfwiwkX1aeyi%2Bu%2F72A5R9VMhmXZGrxOu53FlmcJGg%2FseWKdL65qY%2FqlnzpBLl2zXV42LRs4b2Gjmw2ANRQpRzqRaoxNmw24hUBMGT74TrKnxs2Dmr8XJwbGTxNNaxZNv7YpOBJDB4hffwNi8n1YuQc9uQGRd1%2FsIrjs9Tk7c2M%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR865i5HlYw

I’ve got my van on eBay. I’ve not sold owt ‘big’ on there before. I have just put it on auction for a week with a £1k reserve and cash on collection. I’ve had 3 bids which have gone up to the reserve price and then stayed there. I am wondering if putting cash on collection was a good idea or not in case I get messed about by the ‘buyer’.

I’m getting the ‘how much will you take to end early?’ messages but ignoring them.

I got a message from ebay saying that they were making some ‘micro deposits’ into my Bank Account and to verify when I received them. I can’t find where they have sent them but I’m not sure what they are for.

I got a message from ebay saying that they were making some ‘micro deposits’ into my Bank Account and to verify when I received them. I can’t find where they have sent them but I’m not sure what they are for.

When I pay for something by bank transfer I’ll always send a few pence to be sure that I have the details correct before I send ofvr the full wodge. Have a friend who lost a few k when they got something wrong.

Is the ebay message about the deposits in your ebay account inbox? That way you can be sure that is from ebay. Otherwise does seem a bit weird that they would do that.

If you are getting requests to end the action early that is encouraging.  People have bid until they’ve found the reserve price and most will now wait until the closing 30 seconds to show their hand with final bids (so others run out of time to incrementally push up the price.

If you get messed around when the buyer turns up, just tell them the next lowest bidder has already said they are still interested at the winning price. (eBay used to allow you to offer it as a second chance the next highest bidder, I assume this is still a feature)

I would be cautious if you literally mean ‘cash’ on collection. FYI there are supposedly more forged £50 notes in circulation than any other denomination and, if you are like me, it’s probably years since you saw a real one so you might not spot a fake.

Why cash on collection and not payment through ebay? Surely payment through ebay would be waaaaay more secure?

Thanks all. I think the micro deposits were something to do with them charging me for the fee for the ad. Which they have now done.

Noted about the fake fifties.

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Why cash on collection and not payment through ebay? Surely payment through ebay would be waaaaay more secure?

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The famous scam is.

Buy car and pay paypal

Buyer say “I’m in an oil rig can my mate collect the car”

Some one collects car

Buyer claims that the car was not collected by them or there mate

Raise dispute with PayPal

Paypal refund purchaser and claim money back from seller

Why cash on collection and not payment through ebay? Surely payment through ebay would be waaaaay more secure?

Nope, cash every time. Or bank transfer. Get it out of of the ebay system if you can. Too many chancers trying to claim refunds for this that and the other, if you have the money then that’s it, they’ve seen it and were happy with it and have no comeback.

With regards to end early, leave the aution running but if they seem legit invite them round to see it and if they make a decent offer for cash take that and then end the auction, saves all the agro of the winning bidder vanishing and again has the cash in your hands and no comebacks. And no fees.

Also, just clicked on your ebay link. Why hide the number plate? That’s a big red flag for me, I’ll imediately skip over any vehicle I can’t do an MOT check on

I got a message from ebay saying that they were making some ‘micro deposits’ into my Bank Account and to verify when I received them

Ive had that. I had to fill in the value of the deposit on ebay to confirm. it was no more than a quid.

I would be looking for payment in cash though ideally.

The famous scam is.

Buy car and pay paypal

Buyer say “I’m in an oil rig can my mate collect the car”

Some one collects car

Buyer claims that the car was not collected by them or there mate

Raise dispute with PayPal

Paypal refund purchaser and claim money back from seller

Surely if the collector scans the QR code they can’t say they haven’t got it? No QR no collection. And ebay payments have nothing to do with paypal anymore. The buyer pays through ebay direct, and ebay put it in your account shortly after.

You need more in the ad if you want more confidence for the buyers and more money from them.

– more photos: at this price point, show me the tyres. Show me the seats without the faded manky seat covers. Dashboard with lights on and mileage. Engine bay.

– Get rid of the bed and the curtain, it looks weird.

– more service history. Where is the paperwork? How many services? Why registration plate obscured? I need it to look at the MOT history…

– who did the injector replacement? How do you know #2 is dead and if it’s so easy to fix why didn’t you do it already? When you say the van runs – does that mean you can drive it around or just that it will start up…?

Also, just clicked on your ebay link. Why hide the number plate? That’s a big red flag for me, I’ll imediately skip over any vehicle I can’t do an MOT check on

Ostensibly so you can’t clone it.

But in the real world they’ll just rip the plates off a nissan micra and stick them on a transit. The ANPR camera doesn’t know the difference.

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Surely if the collector scans the QR code they can’t say they haven’t got it? No QR no collection. And ebay payments have nothing to do with paypal anymore. The buyer pays through ebay direct, and ebay put it in your account shortly after.

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Presumably you’re saying they’ve closed that loop hole. I was simply repeating a story that favours cash on collection

If you take cash insist that it is banked first if you are worried about forgery.  Means you have to do collection on a working day.

I did for a 12k car and the buyer was OK with that.

The bank said cash was safe the moment it was counted in.

Ostensibly so you can’t clone it.

But if I wanted to clone it – it wouldn’t take long to find one in real life?

The micropayments used to be a way of verifying you actually controlled a bank account, they may still do something similar but its odd if you have got them without understanding them!  Typically they would be two payments or between £0.01 and £0.99 on different dates and you would be required to confirm the value you received, therefore giving almost 10,000 possible combinations* to avoid scams where you later claim you never receive the proceeds of a sale, or that the account wasn’t yours etc.

* I know someone who set this up for an online card processor and the amounts were all £0.1x or £0.2x  but its still gave them 400 combos for less than the cost of sending a letter in the post!

But if I wanted to clone it – it wouldn’t take long to find one in real life?

Quite a lot longer than finding a picture of one online. If you wanted to clone a Renault Traffic just google it, find a picture online, copy the plate, job done. If you find the pic in a for sale ad you even know the van is current and on the road, you could even find one the right colour. Or go walking the streets and hope for the best. Sensible precaution IMO, and certainly not a red flag.

I sold my old car on ebay & it went fine. Put it on for a 99p starting bid & sold for cash for £400.
was happy with that as WBAC only offered me £140.

Now ebay have the QR code on collection thing, then as long as you use that it should be OK.
I would edit the listing to make it clear you expect to see the QR code upon collection & won’t be handing the van over until that is scanned. I had several queries about a turbo trainer I sold with people asking if their ‘brother’ or ‘mate’ could collect it. As soon as I mentioned that they could so long as they bought the QR code with them, those enquiries went dead.

Just be wary of counterfeit notes, I suppose.

Quite a lot longer than finding a picture of one online. If you wanted to clone a Renault Traffic just google it, find a picture online, copy the plate, job done. If you find the pic in a for sale ad you even know the van is current and on the road, you could even find one the right colour. Or go walking the streets and hope for the best. Sensible precaution IMO, and certainly not a red flag.

Equally I was looking at a van a couple of weeks ago that had the plates part hidden, after a few minutes digging it turned out it was using fake plates off a different make and model, hence why I’m not convinced the people doing it are really searching for matching cars on streetview/google images.

There’s so many scam adverts at the moment that if I can’t at least check the simple stuff quickly I just don’t bother.

Someone suggested putting the reg number in the advert text, solves the issue of someone doing a google image search but means any buyers can check the MOT , do a HPI check etc.