E*bay Alert Message - should I be concerned?

[yvalenz]

I have an auction up and a potential buyer submitted a question through the "Ask a Seller" link. I responded, and now the same person has submitted an offer on the item.

Immediately after I received an Alert from E*Bay
[FONT=Arial, Verdana]Our records show that you recently received an email from ***Members Name*** through the Ask Seller a Question or Contact eBay Member features. This email may be fraudulent and an attempt to do one of the following:

- Obtain your eBay password
- Gain access to your eBay account
- Use your eBay account for fraudulent activity
- Set up an outside-of-eBay transaction which may be fraudulent[/FONT]

Okay, so it's none of the above. the person indicated her location, and when she submitted her offer, her zip code came up and it's the same as what she said.

Obviously the item would be shipped with dc, insurance, and sig conf.

Should I be concerned about this?

 

[mmmsc]

I have an auction up and a potential buyer submitted a question through the "Ask a Seller" link. I responded, and now the same person has submitted an offer on the item.

Immediately after I received an Alert from E*Bay
[FONT=Arial, Verdana]Our records show that you recently received an email from ***Members Name*** through the Ask Seller a Question or Contact eBay Member features. This email may be fraudulent and an attempt to do one of the following:

- Obtain your eBay password
- Gain access to your eBay account
- Use your eBay account for fraudulent activity
- Set up an outside-of-eBay transaction which may be fraudulent[/FONT]

Okay, so it's none of the above. the person indicated her location, and when she submitted her offer, her zip code came up and it's the same as what she said.

Obviously the item would be shipped with dc, insurance, and sig conf.

Should I be concerned about this?

Could be a hijacked account? I would contact ebay and talk to them about this.

 

[NorthStar]

I got the same message several days after a brief back and forth through the e*bay message system...the buyer in question didn't end up bidding, but it really made me wonder what the deal was, and why it took so long to notify me!

I guess that I would get in touch with e*bay first before committing to sell the item to this buyer. Anything necessary to CYA when selling these days is a good thing.

 

[coachfreak]

honestly, I think this is just a case of eBay trying to make sure a sale is done through eBay so they don't lose their commission.

I know it is probably fairly common practice to contact a seller using Ask a Question and then sell outside eBay, avoiding eBay fees.

You could contact eBay, but I doubt they will tell you why the message was sent. If you like the offer and they are paying with Paypal, just do everything to cover your butt.

Send with full insurance, only to the address in Paypal, and get signature confirmation.

 

[luvmycloset]

I had this happen before as well, I had a couple questions back and forth and got the alert message. The user didnt bid so I didnt really worry about it to much but a couple days later I got another message from the same user name and it was a solicitation, it was somethine to the extent of "we can offer you high end designer goods wholesale etc etc..." basically advertising fakes. I dont know if the user was legit and had their account hijacked after they ask me questions about my item or if they were just scammers all along trying to establish some sort of communication.

 

[K.Z.]

I would definitely contact fBay about this before shipping anything.

 

[yvalenz]

Thanks ladies.

I did speak with live chat and they indicated that there was an alert on the buyers account - they suspected suspicious activity with her account, but she cleared it a week ago. The rep indicated the alerts are automated and may still be on her account, but should be cleared.

Seller confirmed a few things also (location, confirmed address, etc).