eBay - Is fraud on the increase?

[Alpinemaps]

I had a sale to the same Portland address I think. Buyer had 5 feedback but I waited a couple days to ship. Got no email from Paypal or Ebay on any problem so I shipped it. Funny thing is seller became unregistered right after but so far no chargeback.

I've had some good sales to freight forwarding companies in Portland before. So I don't rule them out.

But I like to check the PayPal info vs the eBay info and in this case it was obvious someone's PayPal had been hacked.

[Pseudoty]

I used to use freight forwarders in Delaware all the time to ship large amounts of lego to Asia but that all went away with their ability to source locally.  Some listings I will put no FF if it is a high end set that can not be replaced.  I make all FF shipments USPS Priority Mail  signature required then when the Paypal chargeback comes you are covered.  You are only responsible to get the item to the FF not its final destination. Having multiple chargebacks open is a pain especially when they take the money from you.  I am not into loaning scammers money interest free now up to 6 months later. PP was pushing it with 90 days IMO.

[minicoopers11]

2 hours ago, Pseudoty said:

eBay GSP fraud was rampant prior to the holidays. Very easy to spot new eBay member signed up that day with multiple purchases and 0 feedback, also crazy long member names with multiple special characters and same for email. I would call ebay to report it as fraud and you know what they would say, "Ship it anyway we have to give our new members a chance". As long as it makes it to Erlanger I get paid so no real risk on my end but someone ebay, paypal, a bank are eating that loss and it gets passed onto us in fees. 

Big theft items in EU were electric razors like 10x more prevalent then lego. 

The long username and e-mail is just the default that is used when someone makes a purchase without an account.

[Pseudoty]

5 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

The long username and e-mail is just the default that is used when someone makes a purchase without an account.

And a lot of them are just Amazon drop shippers that will send you a note "please no invoice or anything that reflects the price"

[Guest LegoFanSpot]

I thought I'd create a new topic as this isn't really "fruitcake" stuff, more like scamming bar stewards!
Out of the last 16 Star Wars UCS sets that I've sold, 4 have been "purchased" using compromised sellers' accounts - that's a shocking 25% fraud rate! Since this appears to be on the increase, I suggest you contact the buyer to confirm purchase and maybe wait 48 hours before posting any valuable item as it gives eBay/PayPal a chance to flag the transaction and advise you. I know this delays shipment, but any genuine buyer will understand.
This has only affected Star Wars sets so far as it's seems that the fraudsters aren't too interested in Modulars or Sea Cows. Then again, who is interested in a Sea Cow? ;-)
I've found another 10225 R2-D2 and 10221 SSD if anybody in the wants to PM me for a PayPal F&F or cash deal. I can post the R2-D2 but, I'd prefer the SSD to be collected.
Be careful out there, eBay security is going way downhill ;-(

Hi, There. You know what you right. Its why i had no other choice but to jackup my prices everytime id list something. Just to make up for those fees, but i noticed all it does slows down and affect sales. But then again i dont mind it at all. As long as i dont feel ripped off.
Most potential ebay buyers and collectors understand this, but on the other hand theres other buyers who seem not to or just dont want to. Some Try lowball and with others we just meet in middle or just bypass ebay then deal directly via paypal in order for us to mutually agree on a reasonable deal. That 10% ebay shipping fee is a ripoff and USPS raising their prices doesnt help neither.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

2 hours ago, LegoFanSpot said:

 

 

Hi, There. You know what you right. Its why i had no other choice but to jackup my prices everytime id list something. Just to make up for those fees, but i noticed all it does slows down and affect sales. But then again i dont mind it at all. As long as i dont feel ripped off.
Most potential ebay buyers and collectors understand this, but on the other hand theres other buyers who seem not to or just dont want to. Some Try lowball and with others we just meet in middle or just bypass ebay then deal directly via paypal in order for us to mutually agree on a reasonable deal. That 10% ebay shipping fee is a ripoff and USPS raising their prices doesnt help neither.

 

 

FVF on postage is a piss-take and we should all petition against it. I don't incorporate P&P into listings as you can't separate it easily in the case of a return. Even though my P&P is slightly above the postage cost, I still have to pay for boxes (mostly large double-wall) which don't grow on trees. We could say that eBay are crooks but, the overheads of running a B&M shop or website are much, much higher. As long as they support sellers, I'm OK but, I still HATE the FVF on postage!

[Guest LegoFanSpot]

Yeah, Reason why ebay began charging 10% shipping fee. Is because crooked sellers began abusing and listing items for $1 & $100 shipping cost. Just to pay $0.10 ebay fee and pocket $100 clean. Ebay caught up to it and since then all honest sellers have been paying the price with this 10% ebay shipping fee. If everyone protest maybe we can succeed on having it removed. But, I guess ppl just dont mind it as much or just gave up on it.

[minicoopers11]

54 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

FVF on postage is a piss-take and we should all petition against it. I don't incorporate P&P into listings as you can't separate it easily in the case of a return. Even though my P&P is slightly above the postage cost, I still have to pay for boxes (mostly large double-wall) which don't grow on trees. We could say that eBay are crooks but, the overheads of running a B&M shop or website are much, much higher. As long as they support sellers, I'm OK but, I still HATE the FVF on postage!

I hate it too. BL doesn't have a fee on postage. Ebay does. That said, Ebay obviously wants to avoid the need to police more for inflated shipping/FVF fraud.

[KShine]

IMO, the fees on postage charges are borderline illegal.

At least they no longer ding you for negative postage charge feedback. You had to overcharge for postage (just to break even), and then when a buyer had a problem with it, ebay would then take away your TRS discount. 

[minicoopers11]

3 minutes ago, KShine said:

IMO, the fees on postage charges are borderline illegal.

At least they no longer ding you for negative postage charge feedback. You had to overcharge for postage (just to break even), and then when a buyer had a problem with it, ebay would then take away your TRS discount. 

In what way do you think?

We pay fees on everything, eBay and Paypal are involved with potentially refunding/eating everything.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Any suggestions on improving eBay security without charging us even more? I'm thinking of accepting Bitcoin as a payment alternative as it's impossible to get a chargeback or offer Bank Transfer at a 5% discount.

Of the 6,000+ sales I've made over the years, I've only been scammed with But It Now, never Best Offer and never auction.

If a buyer uses BIN to buy at full price instead of making a best offer, this is offen suspect.

[Gondorian]

As I posted on another thread, this has only happened to me once so far (and hopefully never again). It was a Star Wars set. The 7965 Millennium Falcon. There were three very strange things about it, which did not cause alarm bells at the time but certainly would in future.

1) It sold within minutes of me listing it, at about 30 seconds past midnight.

2) It was by no means the cheapest one on there.

3) The address had two postcodes, but then the eBay buyer sent me a message in bad English to confirm which one. "oh my good excuse me, i make a mistake on zip, ship it please on correct zip..."

If you've followed this on the Fruitcakes thread, you'll know that eventually a chargeback came through about 24 days after the sale (initiated via credit card company), which PayPal resolved against me after 14 days of holding my money despite me sending proof of delivery to the supplied address, but then I phoned today to complain and they fixed it and I have kept the money as though it was a normal transaction sent to the right place as opposed to a hacked eBay account sent to some fraudster in Leicester.

Not sure if this is the right place to raise this, but how do people handle cash on collection? I advise the person to not hit buy until we have met up and actually done the swap of cash for item. When they hit Buy, I can then mark as payment sent and dispatched and it's all sorted. I have done this for the 4 transactions done in person so far. If they hit Buy before we meet, then they can back out and I have lost any Final Value Fee offer I had. (This happened once.)

[feed]

Just sold a tumbler to a zero rated eBay user (few months old account), and Paypal have put the funds on hold for 21 days but with an OK to send and with seller protection.  My account is of course fine and this isn’t an out of the ordinary sale for me, I moved 3 Red 5s last month for instance.  

What struck me as interesting was this: 

REASONS WHY YOUR FUNDS COULD BE DELAYED

Funds could also be delayed if a higher than normal level of risk is associated with this transaction or with your account-for example a sudden spike in eBay Buyer Protection cases, PayPal disputes or claims, unusual selling activity, items with an exceptionally high selling price, or sales in a new category or a category such as electronics, tickets, travel or gift certificates. In addition, PayPal may place a hold of up to 21 days on payments based on a seller's account tenure, transaction activity, any past disputes and overall customer satisfaction. Learn more about PayPal funds availability

I do wonder if the fraud is starting to hit Paypal and they’re getting a little more sensitive to the protection cases.  
 

[John82]

19 minutes ago, feed said:

Just sold a tumbler to a zero rated eBay user (few months old account), and Paypal have put the funds on hold for 21 days but with an OK to send and with seller protection.  My account is of course fine and this isn’t an out of the ordinary sale for me, I moved 3 Red 5s last month for instance.  

What struck me as interesting was this: 

REASONS WHY YOUR FUNDS COULD BE DELAYED

Funds could also be delayed if a higher than normal level of risk is associated with this transaction or with your account-for example a sudden spike in eBay Buyer Protection cases, PayPal disputes or claims, unusual selling activity, items with an exceptionally high selling price, or sales in a new category or a category such as electronics, tickets, travel or gift certificates. In addition, PayPal may place a hold of up to 21 days on payments based on a seller's account tenure, transaction activity, any past disputes and overall customer satisfaction. Learn more about PayPal funds availability

I do wonder if the fraud is starting to hit Paypal and they’re getting a little more sensitive to the protection cases.  
 

I had this happen to me last year when flipping some Police Batman v Superman watches, I called them and they said it was down to unusually activity as I sold multiple quantities of the same item in small space of time. 

Once the buyer leaves feedback, the funds will clear the next day IIRC. Also once the buyer has signed for the item you can call paypal and the funds should go through. If you have sent the parcel without proof of posting then you're in for a long wait.

Edited March 1, 2017 by John82

[feed]

4 minutes ago, John82 said:

I had this happen to me last year when flipping some Police Batman v Superman watches, I called them and they said it was down to unusually activity as I sold multiple quantities of the same item in small space of time. 

Once the buyer leaves feedback, the funds will clear the next day IIRC. Also once the buyer has signed for the item you can call paypal and the funds should go through. If you have sent the parcel without proof of posting then you're in for a long wait.

It’s not gone yet and I’ll use all the standard processes/protection for 0 rated eBay accounts.  
But what struck me as odd is that this is not an unusual transaction for me.  Not even close.  
 

[John82]

19 minutes ago, feed said:

It’s not gone yet and I’ll use all the standard processes/protection for 0 rated eBay accounts.  
But what struck me as odd is that this is not an unusual transaction for me.  Not even close.  
 

I would call paypal for an explanation before proceeding, if it isn't unusually activity then they should not be holding your funds.

[Yellowtot]

I'm just so glad I moved off eBay onto Amazon years ago. Don't get me wrong Amazon has its issues, ( seller support do seem to be just getting worse and worse ) but after selling on there for about 3 years now I've only had one chargeback which, when I uploaded tracking, etc. Amazon instantly sided with me and oddly enough, I was going through my INR's the other week and in 3 years I've only had 7 total on Amazon, ( this is 1000's of transactions ) compared with my INR's on eBay back in the day where I could have 7 in several months its just crazy.

[Highlander]

16 hours ago, Gondorian said:

As I posted on another thread, this has only happened to me once so far (and hopefully never again). It was a Star Wars set. The 7965 Millennium Falcon. There were three very strange things about it, which did not cause alarm bells at the time but certainly would in future.

1) It sold within minutes of me listing it, at about 30 seconds past midnight.

2) It was by no means the cheapest one on there.

3) The address had two postcodes, but then the eBay buyer sent me a message in bad English to confirm which one. "oh my good excuse me, i make a mistake on zip, ship it please on correct zip..."

If you've followed this on the Fruitcakes thread, you'll know that eventually a chargeback came through about 24 days after the sale (initiated via credit card company), which PayPal resolved against me after 14 days of holding my money despite me sending proof of delivery to the supplied address, but then I phoned today to complain and they fixed it and I have kept the money as though it was a normal transaction sent to the right place as opposed to a hacked eBay account sent to some fraudster in Leicester.

Not sure if this is the right place to raise this, but how do people handle cash on collection? I advise the person to not hit buy until we have met up and actually done the swap of cash for item. When they hit Buy, I can then mark as payment sent and dispatched and it's all sorted. I have done this for the 4 transactions done in person so far. If they hit Buy before we meet, then they can back out and I have lost any Final Value Fee offer I had. (This happened once.)

I Managed to intercept the 10225 R2-D2 from the post office last month before it was posted.

The post office asked for the receipt to get the parcel back & wouldn't give it back, so I'm out £13 on postage fees. 

The day after it sold paypal did a charge back on the sale.

I couldn't be bother with the hassle chasing ebay & paypal for the postage costs, just glad i got the set back.

Lesson learned, cancel every order if the postage address doesn't match the confirmed address in any way.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

5 minutes ago, Highlander said:

I Managed to intercept the 10225 R2-D2 from the post office last month before it was posted.

The post office asked for the receipt to get the parcel back & wouldn't give it back, so I'm out £13 on postage fees. 

The day after it sold paypal did a charge back on the sale.

I couldn't be bother with the hassle chasing ebay & paypal for the postage costs, just glad i got the set back.

Lesson learned, cancel every order if the postage address doesn't match the confirmed address in any way.

I've even had the dodgy address marked as confirmed and match on eBay & PayPal. There's no sure way to check unless you contact the buyer before shipping. Every buyer who buys a £100+ item from me gets a message to call me. Not one genuine buyer has complained about me doing this. Auctions are rarely a problem, just BIN. The only issue with an auction is that you can't list say, 25 items under the same listing unless it's Dutch (VERY bad idea!). This is my last year on eBay and I only have a handful of £100+ sets left.

My last 2x SSD & 1x R2-D2 will have to wait in stock until there's a safe way to sell them as there's no way that these are going on eBay!

If you ever do a cash on collection deal, make sure that you both leave feedback there and then. Remember, they know where you live!

[scuttfarkas]

"The customer is always right" was a good phrase and mantra by which to run a business....until the customer found out about it. 

[Guest TabbyBoy]

1 hour ago, scuttfarkas said:

"The customer is sometimes right" is a good phrase and mantra by which to run a business....until the customer found out about it and took the piss.

Fixed it for you.

I remember the good old days when customers gave us good service. Not only are there a lot more dishonest ones out there now, there's also a lot more very demanding ones. I'm so glad that I'm not in retail otherwise I'd be saying 'off quite a lot ;-)

[Lego Templar]

Ok. Not sure if this is fraud or what but it's fishy.

 

Let me start by saying I've had issues with my post office the past 2 weeks. My lego SDCC Jean Grey went MIA at the post office (finally found after 3 days) I have another package that shows delivered (was not I have cameras) and now once again I was expecting a SDCC exclusive and I see delivered. I'm like OMG here we go again...pull tape nothing (I'm off today and was home all day) I go to the post office quick and show them tracking. As usual they have an attitude for 0 reason and says "it went here this is what the person wrote to ship it to" I told them well it's from eBay so it's unlikely they would put a random address.

 

I look at the address on their screen and shows a country club that's about 5 minutes south of me. She calls the guy to go pick it up and bring it back here. With 0 faith in them I took the time to drive there and they didn't have anything with my name on it. They said I just missed the guy. So I started to drive around and actually found him. He got the call to look for it but couldn't find it so we both headed back to the country club to look. We go into the office and talk to the girl and said we only got 2 things today. One an invoice and one with nothing in it. She pulled it out the trash and the USPS guy looks at it and asks for the tracking number and sure enough it was my tracking number.

 

I'll post the picture of the letter at the bottom of this. It's odd. Handwritten letter to the country club with my tracking label on it. Top right of the letter has the date like 2/21/17 (I bought this 3/8/17) I'm confused to say the least. 2 options pop up for me.

 

1. The seller sent it and just found a random address near me (I found this unlikely do to their feedback/time on eBay)

 

2. Someone at the post office swapped the labels (on purpose or not I don't know)

 

I find it weird and why I don't think it's an accident is because in the actually package there was nothing...no letter no object just an empty envelope. Who would randomly ship an empty letter? I contacted the seller and he's confused and going to look into it.

 

Not sure WHAT could have happen much less what to do. Sucks too I got the item for a good price.

 

Do I contact eBay? Open a case?

 

 

 

[Lordoflego]

@Lego Templar, not sure how and if it will help, but I think post office reuses tracking numbers...

 is there a way to check weight of the envelope accepted by usps? And you could weight what arrived...

senders address on the envelope, is that your seller?

Edited March 14, 2017 by Lordoflego

[Bold-Arrow]

14 minutes ago, Lego Templar said:

 Who would randomly ship an empty letter?

TRU.com

[Phil B]

25 minutes ago, Lego Templar said:

Ok. Not sure if this is fraud or what but it's fishy.

 

Let me start by saying I've had issues with my post office the past 2 weeks. My lego SDCC Jean Grey went MIA at the post office (finally found after 3 days) I have another package that shows delivered (was not I have cameras) and now once again I was expecting a SDCC exclusive and I see delivered. I'm like OMG here we go again...pull tape nothing (I'm off today and was home all day) I go to the post office quick and show them tracking. As usual they have an attitude for 0 reason and says "it went here this is what the person wrote to ship it to" I told them well it's from eBay so it's unlikely they would put a random address.

 

I look at the address on their screen and shows a country club that's about 5 minutes south of me. She calls the guy to go pick it up and bring it back here. With 0 faith in them I took the time to drive there and they didn't have anything with my name on it. They said I just missed the guy. So I started to drive around and actually found him. He got the call to look for it but couldn't find it so we both headed back to the country club to look. We go into the office and talk to the girl and said we only got 2 things today. One an invoice and one with nothing in it. She pulled it out the trash and the USPS guy looks at it and asks for the tracking number and sure enough it was my tracking number.

 

I'll post the picture of the letter at the bottom of this. It's odd. Handwritten letter to the country club with my tracking label on it. Top right of the letter has the date like 2/21/17 (I bought this 3/8/17) I'm confused to say the least. 2 options pop up for me.

 

1. The seller sent it and just found a random address near me (I found this unlikely do to their feedback/time on eBay)

 

2. Someone at the post office swapped the labels (on purpose or not I don't know)

 

I find it weird and why I don't think it's an accident is because in the actually package there was nothing...no letter no object just an empty envelope. Who would randomly ship an empty letter? I contacted the seller and he's confused and going to look into it.

 

Not sure WHAT could have happen much less what to do. Sucks too I got the item for a good price.

 

Do I contact eBay? Open a case?

 

 

 

 

Tracking number matches delivery at the address you mention:

If your zip is not 33324, but something else, if you want to play by the EBay rules, you can just file an "item not received" case. But before you do, and since you've already spoken with the seller, have them send you anything that confirms the label and the destination address. They might need to go to their PO for this, just to have them extract the address details, because judging from the printed postage and the tracking number barcode this postage was purchased directly at the PO counter, not via any online service.

Should the seller not be able to provide this, I would inform them that you are going to claim "item not received" via an EBay case and then work it from there.

Now, there is a small change that the seller tried to pull a fast one on you (perhaps they oversold their supply?) - they found an address with the same Zip code in your neighborhood, sent an empty envelope there, then claim they sent you the item and rely on EBay/USPS to make it right. Not sure if and how that would work, but I would be on the look-out for something like that.