When you stop to consider that eBay is a worldwide phenomenon is it any wonder that this awesome service has been taken advantage of? There have been many cases of fraud against both ebay itself and those who shop through this extremely successful and profitable internet enterprise. However, buyers are not the only ones getting taken for a ride. Sellers have been taken for a ride at times when the buyer refuses to pay for the item that they purchased. These are only a few of the problems that have cropped up recently for eBay users. There are a few ways to protect yourself from getting scammed; pretty simple ways too.

Are you going to be paying for your purchases with a credit card? This is one of the best ways to keep track of all of your transactions as the credit card company keeps a very close watch on the transactions of its cardholders. This has become absolutely necessary in this age of identity theft run rampant. You may be asking if that is the only way to pay for any purchases you make through eBay. Well, the answer is no; a credit card actually is not the only payment method available to you. PayPal is another, very reliable way to pay for what you buy through eBay. Anyone who has a PayPal account can tell you how simple it is to process transactions through their PayPal account. As PayPal is also an eBay company, they can do a lot more than the average customer can to verify that a seller is legitimate and has no complaints against them and that buyers actually do have the money in their PayPal account. This actually provides buyers and sellers with a little extra assurance that any problems that come up can be tracked very easily and possibly resolved easily without too much hassle.

There are a couple of very simple things that you can do to make sure that you will have a great experience when you buy something on eBay; The main thing is to check out the feedback comments left by other buys that a seller has worked with. This should give you a good idea about the reliability of the seller. However, these comments can actually be forged so you still need to be wary. If you have any serious questions or doubts you can contact the customer service department or help desk and ask them. Another option is to simply not do any business with that individual. Another situation to be extremely wary of is a seller who absolutely insists on cash or a cashier's check as payment method. These sellers could have something to hide or could also be scammers. The main problem with this is that there is not a “paper trail†or transaction history to follow in the event that you actually are scammed. There is no way to actually prove that you sent the payment in the case of a cash payment being sent. The only advantage of a cashier's check is that the bank has a record of the check being issued; but there is no proof that you actually sent the check or that the seller received it.