Does anyone know how ebay works? Do you have to pay a fee to join? Can you just look at th items or do you have to put in your details?

Is it safe - anyone had bad expereince of using ebay?

Thanks

You can look on Ebay to your hearts content, You need to join if you want to bid. Nothing dodgy happened to me re Ebay but ignore any Emails from Ebay because they can be dodgy.:cool:

I've been buying on eBay for a while now, and everything's been OK. You can browse for free, but if you want to buy or sell, you have to register. It's free if you just want to buy, but there's a small charge if you want to sell. Have alook at the 'Help' on the site, it' explains everything very well. You do get dodgy spoof emails occasionally, but if in doubt forward them to eBay's address for suspect mails and they'll check it out. Be careful, eBay can become addictive!:)

Shouldn't you say 'appear to come from Ebay', Bikertec, as they actually come from a criminal source and not the real Ebay?

Had very good experience, but beware that (as with anything to do with a large successful organisation) hijacking has taken place.

Have a browse and use your own judgement. Users are rated by other users, so you may want to stick to longstanding clients with good records.

I've had stuff I've bought off Ebay go missing in the past, but that's been more the fault of the post office numpties than Ebay users themselves.

if u search for horror stories about e-bay you will find thousands. but look how many MILLIONS use it.

i have been using it for a couple of years. never lost anything, only had 1 dodgy dealing and that was someone advertising something wrong and i got stuck with something for £60 that i cant get rid off or use for the purpose that i wanted it for.

I am a self confessed E-Bay queen, i sell and buy on there and its my second income.

It has been very easy and secure to use...untill last month. I recieved several Spoof e-mails. They requested personal information etc etc. They were very convincing to open it up you are required to put your password in..i did this then smelt a rat.
I thought it strange. After a week or so my E-Bay account was locked up i had no way of getting on. I contacted them and after having to go through very stringent security routine several days (that took nearly a week!) they let me back on.

What had happened a dodgy charactior from the USA had got my details and were selling fancy motorbikes in my name. They were false auctions. I had to re-set my home account with Bt yahoo and all my settings including my bank account passwords!

Allthough this all seems a lot of trouble..it does let you know that E-Bay is secure and they are on the ball with international fraud.

It seems the biggest worry about eBay is the spoof emails. You should never click on a link in an email, whether it's for eBay, your bank or anywhere else that requires a secure signin.

I have several email addresses on different domains so I have an email address that is publicly abused by spammers and gets all the spoof emails but my ebay address is kept a secret so is un-spammed and only recieves the real emails.

I've used eBay for a couple of years and have to say it's not as good as it was. Buying stuff is easy enough, but you have to be careful what you're buying as eBay aren't as bothered about fraud as they let on, I've never had one reply from any requests for assistance or to report illegal listings, which never get pulled.

So, in short, be cautious, as you would in any shopping environment.

I had several spoof emails about the same time as Cruella. They're very convincing, but if you read vcarefully they seem always to have a mis-spelling or strange sounding English, which is a give-away. The simple rule is that eBay never ask for personal info, account info, passwords etc by email , so if it asks for any such info, it's a spoof. like other posters say, you just have to be careful, but that applies to anything you do on the internet.

Just joined ebay today - was quite easy really. Also applied for a PayPal account [verified version] for secure money transfer.

There is a good section on ebay describing security scams, and there is a search Toolbar you can download which shows if the page you are on is a proper ebay one - see here

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/spoof.html

:thumbsup:

I've been buying and selling on Ebay for several years and up to now I've been lucky. Try to only bid from sellers with 100% feedback. Check out what they have sold before and read the feedback before bidding. To reitarate what another person said about emails. NEVER reply to any emails supposedly from Ebay that ask for your credit/debit card details. I have had loads of them in the past and dumped them in the trashcan.