The Garage Sale Millionaire: Make Money with Hidden Finds from Garage Sales to Storage Unit Auctions and Everything in Between, Revised and Updated

Protecting Yourself as a Bidder

Properly evaluating the legitimacy of a seller is one of the foremost ways you can protect yourself as a bidder on eBay. There are a few things you can look for when examining the authenticity of a seller:

Million $ Tip

If the price seems too good to be true, be very careful.

Study the Seller’s Feedback Score and Feedback Percentage. The higher the number score and percentage, the better the chance any transaction from this seller will be legitimate. You can view this data by clicking on the seller’s name directly under the seller info header.

Go to the Ask A Question link to ask the seller a question about the item or to request more information about the item up for auction. Pay careful attention to how quickly the seller answers your questions and note the completeness of the answers. See if the seller offers extra useful information about an item.

Million $ Tip

Be wary of spoof e-mails from seemingly legitimate sources such as eBay and PayPal asking for your financial information. The act of spoofing involves an e-mail that is sent to trick the recipient into thinking the e-mail is coming from a legitimate e-mail address. Instead, it comes from a criminal source in an attempt to trick the recipient into unknowingly releasing sensitive personal information, opening up the recipient to identity theft.

View all the detailed pictures of the item if they are listed on the auction page. Every seller is different and may list this feature ...