Top 10 Ways to Avoid Auction Fraud

(10) Check who is bidding in your auction and cancel bids by bidders with negative feedback.

(9) If you don’t get a response from a winning bidder, try using another email address - preferably another service (e.g. If you are on AOL, use a hotmail account) to reach them, in case your mail is being blocked by a filter.

(8) Use eBay to send a reminder after 3 days. After 7 days of non-payment file a non-paying bidder alert.

(7) Request a user’s contact information from eBay and try to directly contact the user by phone to resolve payment. Do this within the first few days. If it is a communication
problem, you may catch them before they bid on a similar item.

(6) eBay allows sellers to block bids from up to 1000 user IDs. If you have a problem with a bidder and/or if someone with negative feedback bids in your auctions you can add them to your block list. There are also databases and lists online of non-paying bidders that you can use.

(5) Be very specific about your shipping and handling charges, and place them prominently. eBay recently conducted a study among buyers that did not pay for an item, and 21% responded that the shipping and handling charges led to non-payment.

(4) Boldly state the forms of payment you will accept. If you can, accept as many types of payment as possible. The same study conducted by eBay revealed that the second highest reason for unpaid items was desired from of payment unavailable. A staggering 24% did not pay for this reason.

(3) If using Buy-It-Now, then enable immediate payment so that anybody who uses purchase must pay for it at that moment to end the listing.

(2) Require users with low feedback (less than 5 is a good rule) to email you prior to bidding. This affirms their commitment and understanding of the eBay system. Many non-paying bidders are new users that do not understand the binding nature of bids.

(1) The number one way to reduce auction fraud is the simplest one of all: USE RELIABID!