Potential Scam

[genre.s]

I am a seller and encountered a member with high feedback but joint accounts with a low feedback member.  Transaction with first member was okay but the transaction shifted to his low-feed back "girlfriend".  I noticed that this "girlfriend" had been buying jewelry.  "Girlfriend" ordered more low-value items from me (possibly to rake in more feedbacks) and then asked for a refund on the final allowable day, claiming lost mail. "Girlfriend" had no social media presence and an online namesake turned out to be an adult XXX personality. By the way, it appears the first member comes from a country that I no longer ship to.  My first eBay sale back in 2002 was to this country and the item was "lost".  Unfortunately, this person resides in Canada so country-exclusion is not enough.

Starting today, to protect my eBay account,  I am adding a caveat to my listings:

"Seller would like to apologize to sincere eBay members but reserves the right to decline sales to accounts with low feedback and limited social media presence."

Lack of Facebook, LinkedIn or internet presence could indicate spurious accounts. 

Declining sales to them will be good for honest eBay members.

[esclyons]

How do you know the accounts are linked, you must be selling on more than 1 account, as i don;t see jewelry in your items listed.. 

How do you determine if a buyer has a social presence outside of ebay? And what would that really matter in day to day sales.???

If you believe you have a scammer report the buyer to ebay, and block the buyer, if they show up again with a new buyer i.d.,  but the same ship to address, cancel the sale, and block them again..

Ebay forbids, the creation of a new account to circumvent a seller's blocks..

One of the few things ebay will go to bat for you..

[genre.s]

I checked the "girlfriend's" feedbacks.

[esclyons]

so how do you know it is a girl friend's feedback??  i am just wondering how you connected the 2 accounts..

[genre.s]

Linked:  The "girlfriend" emailed me to say that the first person reached his bid limit so she would be bidding for more on his behalf. In fact, the address name is joint, i.e. first person/girlfriend.

[genre.s]

Just to clarify: two user IDs but joint addresse, same address.

As I said, it is only a potential scam, so I am not quick to jump the gun.

[genre.s]

Social media. Most of my buyers have either Facebook, LinkedIn accounts or would come up on telephone searches. If feedbacks are over 1000, they are probably reliable, no need to check the internet. But even in this case, the first person has 1000+ feedback, the "girlfriend" under 200.  

My thinking is that 1300 gives you comfort, but it is the 200 that will be nasty. Almost like a bait and switch. Sorry it may not be politically correct, the most apt comparison is good cop/bad cop strategy.

[genre.s]

If you extend this strategy, the good (account/used ID) will remain good. It would be easy to replace/create another bad (account/used ID) if found out or blocked. eBay could check for this by checking for users that have the same address. I am a retired computer guy with datawarehousing experience so I know it would be easy but time consuming to do, assuming legal or privacy concerns are not problematic. Perhaps someone can have a database of questionable user IDs, sort of better business bureau for seller, but I am not sure this is allowed.

[genre.s]

Yes I could block a user, but a scammer will probably not go back to the same seller; there are plenty of "us" to scam. It is probably not wise for eBay to provide a better business bureau-type service. But it would be good if they give info on the number of times a buyer reported "not received" merchandise because such info cannot be gleaned from feedbacks alone.