The golden rule does not apply to eBay

A majority of eBay users take part in honest, smooth transactions; however, the world’s most popular online marketplace is littered with swindlers who profit off of average, hard-working citizens. These criminals deserve to be prosecuted and jailed, but unfortunately, most will never be reprimanded for their parasitic actions.
I feel that eBay users need to be made aware of common scams and also how these scams can be avoided. Knowing scam prevention techniques may not drag scammers into a courtroom, but they can help us honest consumers avoid losing our hard-earned dough.
Since eBay began as AuctionWeb in 1995, scammers have discovered methods to cheat the system and its honest users. According to ScamBusters.org, there are nearly 2,000 scams in progress on eBay at any given time. Everyone I know that has ever browsed eBay has seen less-than-truthful listings. Even my 9-year-old brother once spotted people selling empty boxes of brand new video game systems. Unfortunately, most eBay scams are much more difficult to spot than items listed as “Brand New Playstation 3 – Empty Box.”
The most common scam appears in the form of an email that is presented as an official eBay or PayPal e-mail. The e-mail directs the user to a fake eBay page and once the user enters his or her login information, the scammer can gain limitless access to the user’s account, allowing the scammer to sabotage the user by bidding thousands of dollars for a single “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” DVD.
Though the e-mail scam is the most popular, there are a multitude of other common scams, such as sellers shipping incorrect, fake or broken items, sellers raising bids on their own items through different accounts, fake “Second Chance Offers” and many more.
Although eBay users cannot always protect themselves from scammers, there are several precautions users can take to reduce the possibility of being scammed. I have been employing several of these techniques and have not yet been taken for a single penny.
The most important technique to avoid being scammed is to always read the seller’s feedback. If a seller’s feedback has a message saying, “This nincompoop took my money and disappeared,” then he/she is probably not a good person to do business with.
Another simple technique is to read the entire listing of the item carefully. Unless you are seeking a broken item, do not bid if it is described as being broken.
Creating a separate e-mail address strictly for eBay and PayPal will make it easier for you to keep track of all eBay-related messages and will prevent scammers from finding more information about you by performing a Google search of your main e-mail address.
There are hundreds of websites describing many other methods that can be used to avoid being scammed. Sadly, there is no sure-fire way to avoid scams, as scammers have become accustomed to finding loopholes and inventing new scamming methods. Though scammers will most likely not become extinct in the near future, we have the power as consumers to thwart their selfish plans by educating ourselves on scamming techniques to prevent becoming victims.