Buying things on eBay & a look at PayPal
1.If you wish to buy something on eBay, check out the prices you’d pay
on Amazon & other online sites (for new/used items), and follow
several auctions on eBay for the item you’re interested in. Perhaps
try out making a few lowish bids, to get an idea of how to make a bid,
etc.
2.When registering with eBay (& its bank, PayPal), choose a password
which is 10 or more characters long … a mixture of letters and numbers,
and a symbol too … eg an underscore.
NEVER reply to any emails from eBay or PayPal, as these are most likely
bogus ones (from people wishing to steal your money). Instead, go to
the main internet site, and then go into your account, to change any
details such as your credit card info, which might be out of date.
3. Follow several auctions for the item you’re interested in … try making
a few low bids yourself, just to get a feel of what the auction is like,
or just watch what happens in the closing minutes of an auction as
several bidders try to outbid each other.
4. When registering with eBay and/or PayPal, create a password of 10
characters or more … a mixture of letters and numbers and possibly a
symbol like an underscore as well.
5. When signing in, note that you can sign in for all day.
6. When searching for an item, you can narrow down the search by
selecting “auctions only”, and also by selecting “sort by time ending
soonest”.
7. At the top right corner of the eBay page are two useful buttons, one
for “Site Map”, which contains everything you need to know about buying, selling, PayPal, protection for customers, & how to give feedback,
and the second one for “My eBay”, which gives access to
“Watch this item”, and your account details.
8. Read through the “buyer’s protection” section carefully … eBay and
PayPal have set out a protocol for you to follow in the event of anything
going wrong … there are time limits for making any complaints. Check out
too what protection & what items PayPal will cover you for … certain
items such as tickets, vehicles and services, are not covered.
9. Access eBay and PayPal UK via Google or better still by typing the
dot co dot uk address into your URL box at the top of the internet page.
10. Contact PayPal by email or by phone if you have any issues about
security/fraud. You can access the info via PayPal’s security centre.
PayPal will generate a web pin number for you to use, when contacting
them.
I’ve found a cheaper phone number than the one listed for the UK, which
might work …. 020 8605 3000 (PayPal Europe Ltd).
(Please let me know if this does/doesn’t work for you).
11. It’s common sense to buy from someone with an excellent feedback
rating (from previous customers), and from someone living in the UK.
12. Have a look at eBay’s “automatic bidding” process, and how to “watch
this item”, in eBay’s information guides.
13. If you’re on Broadband, you can have two internet windows open at
any one time. So you can toggle between two open pages by clicking on
the icons on your taskbar (at the bottom of the screen), and keep one
eye on your bidding page, and your other eye on the main eBay page to
see how other people are bidding against you.
Use the “Refresh” button at the top of this internet page, to update
it frequently, especially in the last few minutes of an auction.
You might wish to buy yourself a stopwatch so you can set alerts for
yourself, at various stages in the auction. (I bought one at Argos for
about £8).
14. You might wish to ask a friend to bid with you for an item ~ you’d
need to maintain telephone contact with each other in the closing
minutes of an auction, so as to avoid outbidding each other. :)
15. If you win the item, eBay will email you to confirm this. Arrange
payment a.s.a.p., to speed up delivery of your item and for good
feedback from the seller. Remember to give your feedback on the
transaction too, after you’ve received the item.
If you have any feedback about all this, positive or negative, I’d be
very pleased to hear from you. My phone number is in our U3A
newsletter (and is on our website too).
Happy shopping.
John Hollins
P.S. I've had an interesting comment from David Ling of Mansfield U3A:
"You might like to add a caveat that PayPal isn't accessible via the
basic Firefox, so you need to open it using the Internet Explorer (IE)
extension in order to pay." Thanks, David.
