Sellers Beware!

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

I just came across a interesting article from a few months ago about a range of new buyer scams on ebay. I won't post a link, so copy and paste the title into the search bar and search for news. Great information that may make you change your mind before listing high priced items on ebay.

 Search this title!        It’s seller beware as eBay’s buyer guarantee is exploited by scammers

[aubreyclay56]

Since ebay started this it was only a question of time before scammers would find a way to get lots of free stuff,all they have to do is claim the item is not as described and well they get there item free,shipping included,ebay gets there fees regardless,everyone is happy??????

[recped]

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@aubreyclay56 wrote:

Since ebay started this it was only a question of time before scammers would find a way to get lots of free stuff,all they have to do is claim the item is not as described and well they get there item free,shipping included,ebay gets there fees regardless,everyone is happy??????

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How do they get their item "free" if they have to return it?

How does eBay get their fee if the item is returned and the fees are refunded to the seller?

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

The new scam is a buyer receives your item, takes it out of the box, keeps your item, refills the box with rocks or something that weigh the same, files through ebay for a return on defective item, returns it to you with tracking. Buyer has proof item was returned with the tracking number, seller has no defense.  Ebay sides with buyer in the end to keep the buyer happy. 

[ricarmic]

Yes but the seller also theoretically reports the buyer, so theoretically the buyer will only do this a certain number of times under that ID before they get "caught" and suspended....

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

Meanwhile, you are out lets say a $500 computer laptop and Ebay refunds the buyer his money out of your account.  If scammers are targeting big ticket items, do you think they care if their stupid Ebay account is suspended?

[recped]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:

The new scam is a buyer receives your item, takes it out of the box, keeps your item, refills the box with rocks or something that weigh the same, files through ebay for a return on defective item, returns it to you with tracking. Buyer has proof item was returned with the tracking number, seller has no defense.  Ebay sides with buyer in the end to keep the buyer happy. 

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One comment and one question.....

Comment: Not a "new" scam, first time I heard of this was 20 years before eBay existed!

Question: Has this actually happened to YOU?

[ricarmic]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:

Meanwhile, you are out lets say a $500 computer laptop and Ebay refunds the buyer his money out of your account.  If scammers are targeting big ticket items, do you think they care if their stupid Ebay account is suspended?

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I was only suggesting that there is a weak defense (as opposed to no defense) to report the buyer.

I happen to live in a relatively safe selling world (postage stamps). I could not do what I do selling cell phones or laptops, or if I did, I would have to have different risk mitigation strategies in place.

Having said that, I have "caught" repeat offenders showing up multiple times under multiple ids, because I have my own strategies in place to catch them.

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

What does it matter if it happened to me or not? I was just reading up on "Scams on Ebay" and this one jumped out at me. Its genius! There are several other situations where the seller will never win a dispute, and just has to suck up a huge loss and learn a lesson from it. The bottom line is, Ebay does not protect sellers, and in the event of a dispute the buyer wins. So I am spreading the word that Ebay is not a good place to sell high priced items due to the many different ways you can get scammed out of your item. Sure, if you want to eek out a living nickel and diming people with made in China junk, its the right place to do it. Ebay is going down, if it is even around in 5 years I will be amazed.

[momcqueen]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:

Meanwhile, you are out lets say a $500 computer laptop and Ebay refunds the buyer his money out of your account.  If scammers are targeting big ticket items, do you think they care if their stupid Ebay account is suspended?

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That's when I march my **bleep** straight to the local police precinct and open a fraud investigation complaint against that person. Then that report goes to paypal with a carbon copy to ebay. No one gets away with these kinds of shenanigans more than once. Theft it theft. If a department store will call the police because a person switched price tags on a pack of 24 crayons, do you think the police will care any less if you sold something online that was stolen. 

If this happened to me, I would exhaust every avenue available to me to hold those responsible accountable. Exhaust. Every. Avenue. 

[recped]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:

What does it matter if it happened to me or not? I was just reading up on "Scams on Ebay" and this one jumped out at me. Its genius! There are several other situations where the seller will never win a dispute, and just has to suck up a huge loss and learn a lesson from it. The bottom line is, Ebay does not protect sellers, and in the event of a dispute the buyer wins. So I am spreading the word that Ebay is not a good place to sell high priced items due to the many different ways you can get scammed out of your item. Sure, if you want to eek out a living nickel and diming people with made in China junk, its the right place to do it. Ebay is going down, if it is even around in 5 years I will be amazed.

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I first read that on this board in 2000 and again in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. I expect I'll read it again in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 20201, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, 2033, 2034, 2035, 2036............after that I'll probably be dead but eBay may still be around, doing well and making money for themselves and for the merchants who use it.

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

 That's great! I am glad you enjoy selling on ebay! I used to enjoy it a lot more, but with all the loop holes set up to defend buyers, it is only become my second choice as a selling platform on the internet.  Even though I get all my listings free on Ebay, I prefer to sell elsewhere, where there are no final value fee's and no fee's on shipping charges, and no feedback to hold you hostage. I have made thousands of US dollars in the last 4 months part-time using a new selling platform,  all I pay is Paypal fee's, so I concentrate all my efforts there now. If you search around maybe you can figure out where it is since I am not allowed to disclose the name of the site on this forum. Even if Ebay is around in 5 years, I won't be selling here until some drastic changes are made to the way they treat sellers, its just to much hassle.  There are far better venues out there to use for free. Good luck!

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

Most scammers use fake ids and maybe stolen credit card numbers. How are the police going to catch a guy who lives in Bulls Nuts, Arkansas, using a fake id and credit card number? His IP address? Not likely. Meanwhile. Paypal freezes your account until its settled, and some dude still has your laptop. Some things are just designed to be scammed, and ebay/paypal buyer protection program is one of them.

[momcqueen]

Please explain to me how someone shops with a fake credit card, I'd love to get into that.

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

You will have to figure that out yourself, sorry.

[i.am.vivian]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:
Most scammers use fake ids and maybe stolen credit card numbers. How are the police going to catch a guy who lives in Bulls Nuts, Arkansas,

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Is that a real place?  (Could be, there's that town in Austria) 

I think what mjwl2006 was saying is that a seller who has been scammed and goes to the police will have a police report number to pass on to eBay /PayPal and this will help get the seller's money back.  It shows the seller is dead serious.  If a seller actually sent beetroot instead of a phone that person would not be going to police.  Whether or not the scammer in Arkansas ever gets caught, who knows, that's up to police and maybe they forward the info to AR for their records.  Maybe not.  But sellers who just whine about being ripped off aren't doing a whole lot to help themselves. 

FWIW, I agree with you.  Scammers are a real hazard and myself and dh, we don't sell certain things here.  We are not hard up financially and would rather take less on a sure sale than risk ending up with nothing.  There have always been those kinds of people, those who spend $1000 on an ipad and get to thinking about all that money and what they can say to trick a refund out of the system.  Its not new.  The problem is there really are sellers who will ship beetroot instead of the item.  It goes 2 ways.

If you have something expensive to list, make it "local pick up only".  It will take longer to sell but are you in that big a hurry?  Lots of people make a good living from selling on eBay.  If you or anyone else gets a scammer, REPORT the buyer.  Always.  And if you lose big, go get a police report number.  File with the Post Office fraud section and get that report number too. 

It was a good article, that one from The Guardian.  Interesting how no matter what the sellers did or said, not until the Guardian got involved in these obvious scams was the seller reimbursed.  Its just that its nothing new.

[fashionoutletdeal]

very easy and than they take the money from your account without even asking you.They will send you after a letter.....Was there...

[reallynicestamps]

Oh dear gods, the old 'box of rocks' story.

Heard it, heard it, heard it. Never seen pictures.

(I have read first person seller complaints about having an ancient damaged item returned for the more modern NIB item they sent, and I believe those.)

The way eBay (incompetently) protects sellers is by demanding the return. Like most seller I prefer the Paypal policy of demanding that the unhappy buyer pay for the return. Especially with international shipping being what it is.

A good seller will take responsibility for errors in description or bad packaging and refund the return shipping. A bad seller may have to be hunted down by eBay to get even the original payment refunded.

[reallynicestamps]

What does it matter if it happened to me or not?....So I am spreading the word that Ebay is not a good place to sell....

Because spreading false news is easier than telling the truth.

The truth is complicated and nuanced.

The current term is 'clickbait'.

The purpose of the shock/horror title is to get the eyeballs on the page where there is also an ad, that was paid for. (And which may have nothing to do with the story.)

The product being sold by clickbait* is not the story, it is your eyeballs

You are not the customer, you are the product.

*And back to the old news that recped and ricarmic point out, the viewer as product was a hypothesis first made by Marshall McLuhan as "The Medium is the Message" in Understanding Media possibly before you were born. (In 1964)

[momcqueen]

I'd like to mention that earlier today, I replied to a post from a buyer asking what to do about getting half a muffin in a box that was supposed to contain his $900+ iPad. 

Scammers aren't buyers exclusively. There are bad actors on each side that ruin it for all parties afterwards. They've fouled the pool and left. But it's not always the buyers. Look to the Discussion Board or Answer Centre any day of the week and I'd bet you the posted 'bad seller' questions outnumber the 'bad buyer' discussion threads three to one. At the very least.