eBay Money Making Unveiled

Ok, so it has taken me a while to get this started! But bear with me - I'm now updating more regularly.

So today, let's talk about the money-making scams on eBay. Here is a screenshot that I took today:


There are currently 2,333 results for a search of "make money" on eBay's UK website, so it's probably worth exposing the 99.99% of it that is either misleading, or an outright scam:

1. "I'm selling my eBay business"

What these guys and gals are selling is the chance to sell eBooks. eBook business sellers can also be identified by using codewords like "the biggest selling item on eBay" or words to that effect.

So what you'll receive is a bunch of eBooks that you are meant to list and sell. So in addition to paying for the "business" that is being sold to you, you will have to pay for the following:

- eBay listing fees: with so many eBooks flooding eBay, you probably won't sell the majority of your listings. And those that do get bought will probably end up being resold in competition with you. And considering the low cost that you will have to sell them for, you'll probably end up making pennies, or even a loss

- Selling Manager Pro: this is a premium service offered by eBay for a fixed monthly fee. You will often be told that you need this to run your business, and certainly, it is necessary to run the business on "autopilot" since it automates relisting, processing of feedback, etc. More importantly, it is the condition of all guarantees attached to such businesses that you have to do everything that they tell you to. So you'll have to fork out £5.99 a month (in the UK) to run your "business" and make this back with profits.

- eBay Shop: setting up an eBay shop means that you can store a permanent inventory for a monthly fee and recurring fee for maintaining your stock. This is often one of the ways to becoming a PowerSeller, which, contrary to the listings of some of these sellers, isn't the big deal it seems when all you sell is eBooks

- Electricity! Seems bizarre, but bear with me here: one of the keys to these businesses is telling you that they can be automated; "run your business on autopilot", "earn money while you sleep" are all key indicators. This is an easy one to expose. Using Outlook or Outlook Express, you can set up rules on how to handle your e-mail including by looking for keywords in the subject. Doing this, you can automatically send replies, thus delivering eBooks the second they are bought. Fiddly to set up, but doable. But remember, to offer the 24/7 service, you'll have to have a computer on all the time - that will rack up a power bill quite quickly!

So there are some of the hazards that cover about 30% (a FreddyP(tm) estimate) of the money-making plots on eBay that don't really work.

The next post will handle the Casino scams on eBay - these include things that offer to make you a fixed sum of money overnight. Then we'll handle all the remaining scams for sale on eBay, and then we shall brave the world beyond one website, and start to tackle the world wide web.... :)

N.B. These posts should not reflect badly on eBay itself - it would be unreasonable to expect them to patrol and check the legitimacy of all these money making schemes.