Check this out - I just don't get it

[MrsZoidberg]

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/black-button-large-/190600601435?pt=UK_Crafts_Buttons_EH&hash=item2c60ae5f5b

The seller has listed several of these in the past 24hours. It doesn't list size or anything but at £6 postage it must be huuuuge. All have one 1 bid from a newbie on them.

What is more freaky is if you check feedback you'll see that one sold for £102, and 2 more for £10.50. All to newbies.

I want to scream scam, but if it is, I can't work it out.

Any ideas

strange!bumping up feedback score?

Thats what we thought but you only get 1 feedback per buyer per week.

DH thinks money laundering

Definite scam - to get feedback % up?? Wierd - wish my stuff would sell even to ebay newbies! I got paid the other day with an echeque - that was fun (not!)

It does seem a bit odd, especially as it doesn't show the size.
She has listed a lot with postage of £1.20, wonder why that is different to the £6 postage ones.
The ones that sold were all bought by the same person

I wonder if the £6 is to discourage those not in the scam from bidding?

very weird!

Its an expensive way of getting feedback up - the £102 would have a FVF of £10.20

Is it worth hitting the report button?

All the bids on the other unsold buttons are from the same two newbie buyers who bid on the sold one. I can't see that it would be worth a money launderers while to move money in such tiny amounts.

I'm 99% certain it is a feedback scam - to make the seller look like she has great feedback.

Item number: 190600593214 sold at 13:50 today, and just 2 minutes later the buyer had given feedback praising the fast delivery . As if by magic...

The same thing with the £102 button.

I can't think why any other sort of dodgy dealing would need the instant feedback.

Black button is slang for mushrooms/hallucinogenic cactus.

Nah probably is money laundering.

sausages, hopefully its not that, given that the other listings are baby items.

The listing has been removed now

what was it?

The seller had a lot of large single black buttons listed, each listed as a single item. Look like normal coat buttons
She was charging £6 p&p and she managad to sell at one for £102 and another for £10.20 .
It was all very odd

thanks though bruffin, was being nosy!

how wierd

Oh I'm annoyed I missed it now. That's very strange! Has the buyer been removed from eBay too?

I stupidly didn't make a note of her name! All the button listings have been removed.

I didn't hit the report button so who did?

I think the seller must have gone completely, if you check the item number quoted above it doesn't come up which is unusual for a completed item I think.

Or maybe eBay just removed all her auctions. Someone must have reported it. I guess she was trying to bump her own feedback up using 2 other accounts, and didn't realise you could only leave 1 feedback per week which would count with the score.

fergoose - is feedback so important to a seller that its worth paying the final fees on item that "sells" for £100? There were actually three accounts involved - the seller and two different "buyers"

I suppose ebay must have quite sophisticated systems to know they were all the same person.

The moral of the story is don't sell a button for a stupid price if you don't want to get found out. How did you find the listing MrsZoidberg?

I think if they have no feedback as a seller they want to get a few under their belt from 'happy' customers. Butt I think they were just plain daft and maybe didn't realise the fees incurred, or maybe they are mutually cancelling all the auctions. Maybe there was another reason - who knows?

Either way flipping nuts!

I was looking for Large buttons - I sell novelty buttons in my shop and my wholesaler has Clown Buttons in stock so I was researching to see if they sell and how much.

I saw loads of large black buttons, and noticed the £6 postage. I thought it was FVF avoidance until I investigated more.

I figured it was a scam, but couldn't work out what the scam was.