eBay - Is fraud on the increase?

[DadsAFOL]

Has anyone had the big-ticket item hacked account scenario through eBay GSP? I have a GSP order that I'm holding a couple days just in case. But this is the first time I've seen one through that channel

[Darth_Raichu]

13 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

Has anyone had the big-ticket item hacked account scenario through eBay GSP? I have a GSP order that I'm holding a couple days just in case. But this is the first time I've seen one through that channel

Yep.  It does not really matter what the shipping channel being used, really.

[MoHu]

5 hours ago, DadsAFOL said:

Has anyone had the big-ticket item hacked account scenario through eBay GSP? I have a GSP order that I'm holding a couple days just in case. But this is the first time I've seen one through that channel

I sold a few £150+ items mainly through GSP recently.  So far all good & almost all have left feedback.

I fired them out the next day.

I dont worry about fraud but follow ebay / paypal guidelines.  I even had to cancel an order THREE times because the buyer kept forgetting to change the delivery address in Paypal / eBay and thats the only address i post to.  He eventually got it right the fourth time.

[labfreak7]

I don't know if this has already been reported, but there are also buyers that are having their purchases sent to a 3rd party shipping company. I had a return request yesterday that I denied from a buyer who claimed the item arrived to them yesterday damaged. Tracking says that it arrived 2 weeks ago. I looked up the address, and it was a freight forwarding company. I called eBay, and they told me that if they can verify the shipping address as a shipping company, the buyer protection is void. Just another thing to be weary of as a seller.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

10 hours ago, MoHu said:

I sold a few £150+ items mainly through GSP recently.  So far all good & almost all have left feedback.

I fired them out the next day.

I dont worry about fraud but follow ebay / paypal guidelines.  I even had to cancel an order THREE times because the buyer kept forgetting to change the delivery address in Paypal / eBay and thats the only address i post to.  He eventually got it right the fourth time.

I no longer sell anything over £100 in value or above Small Parcel size overseas, it's just too risky these days. The UK isn't short of buyers if you're willing to wait a little while and accept 5% less. Since I've been doing that, I've not had a single GSP problem in the last 100 or so smaller shipments ;-)

However, I do get some issues related to eBay where I don't always get the A........ reference number and I need to chase them up. Out of interest, I do ask the occasional buyer to send me a photo of the arrived package and it often shows that Pitney Bowes take even less care than UPS!

A tip... ALWAYS use a double-walled box and put the set in a plastic bag before boxing up as they are often left out in the rain!

[KShine]

17 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

I no longer sell anything over £100 in value or above Small Parcel size overseas, it's just too risky these days. The UK isn't short of buyers if you're willing to wait a little while and accept 5% less. Since I've been doing that, I've not had a single GSP problem in the last 100 or so smaller shipments ;-)

However, I do get some issues related to eBay where I don't always get the A........ reference number and I need to chase them up. Out of interest, I do ask the occasional buyer to send me a photo of the arrived package and it often shows that Pitney Bowes take even less care than UPS!

A tip... ALWAYS use a double-walled box and put the set in a plastic bag before boxing up as they are often left out in the rain!

Your world is a very dark world.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

2 minutes ago, KShine said:

Your world is a very dark world.

Quiet the opposite, Sir! If only you knew what I really get up to ;-)

[Kenxxx]

Not sure if I'm missing something here... I've read this thread over a few times...  I see a lot of reports about scammers getting their product for free, but the sellers - for the most part - have been protected by eBay / Paypal.  Sure there were a couple posts about sellers "getting scammed out of" an expensive set, but the posters didn't elaborate much on who paid the bill.  And yes, some have posted that it took a couple phone calls, and " an hour" of their precious time to get their money back from Paypal... my violin plays for you.  But until you've been ripped off selling on Amazon (like I have), most of your stories look like a "win" to me.

Sure we love our precious Lego sets, and hate it when a scammer gets them for free, but it hurts a lot less when Paypal pays the bill.  I sold 18 valuable sets (over US$100) on Amazon during the holiday season, and was scammed on 2 of them. That percentage loss is way to high for me. Amazon took my money, sided with the buyers, and ruined my selling metrics, despite my following every rule in Amazon's book.  After much effort, I was able to (arbitrarily) get one of them reversed, but still lost the other. And by "reversed" I mean I got my money back, but am still carrying the black mark on my metrics.

Since then I've stopped selling high dollar items on Amazon.  My eBay account had been asleep for months,  but In the past six weeks, I've sold 19 items on eBay, (range $20 - $500, avg. about $150 each). If the shipping screen says "eligible for seller protection", I box it up and ship it out immediately, and have never rested easier.  If I had sold these items on Amazon, I might have made 5 or 10% more on each sale, but all it takes is one Amazon "buyer" to claim the Town Hall I sent them was fake, and I'm out $400, and (potentially) get my Amazon account shut down for life. For me, the best place to sell is is eBay (I've never tried selling on BL).

[remy1492]

1 hour ago, labfreak7 said:

I don't know if this has already been reported, but there are also buyers that are having their purchases sent to a 3rd party shipping company. I had a return request yesterday that I denied from a buyer who claimed the item arrived to them yesterday damaged. Tracking says that it arrived 2 weeks ago. I looked up the address, and it was a freight forwarding company. I called eBay, and they told me that if they can verify the shipping address as a shipping company, the buyer protection is void. Just another thing to be weary of as a seller.

Ive had this as well, I google the address, one buyer showed me a Lord OF the Rings pirate ship that was bent beyond recognition.  The only thing strong enough to bend those thick parts would be a truck or sledge hammer, he was going to give me a break and only wanted %80 of the value back, I messaged him a lot with the end goal in mind and him baiting himself, then used those messages in ebay to challenge his refund req and won.  Dont get mad early, just get them to talk and incriminate themselves for you.

[KShine]

Scams can happen on any selling platform, but based on the consensus of posts, it does seem that Amazon must have the easiest path to success.

Scammers will go after the easiest targets first (regardless of the platform) - So avoid being the easy target.

[Val-E]

I don´t know if this is new but  some Ebay.de listings now have an icon "Lego Official Authorised Seller".

A first step to gating and reducing fraud?

[marcandre]

6 hours ago, Kenxxx said:

Sure we love our precious Lego sets, and hate it when a scammer gets them for free, but it hurts a lot less when Paypal pays the bill.

We still foot the bill in the long run. Amazon, ebay, and paypal are only going to pass it back to us in increased fees. 

Edited March 16, 2017 by marcandre

[KShine]

14 minutes ago, Val-E said:

I don´t know if this is new but  some Ebay.de listings now have an icon "Lego Official Authorised Seller".

A first step to gating and reducing fraud?

After some quick online research - this doesn't appear to be a new event. I found discussions regarding this going back a few years.

Then again, just because we're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get us.

Edited March 16, 2017 by KShine

[Guest TabbyBoy]

33 minutes ago, Val-E said:

I don´t know if this is new but  some Ebay.de listings now have an icon "Lego Official Authorised Seller".

A first step to gating and reducing fraud?

Perhaps...

Some sellers have been adding this to their listings to increase sales so it may be more of a marketing ploy. However, there's nothing to stop you from contacting LEGO with your concerns and asking them whether the seller is, in fact, authorised. This could be a sneaky way to grass up a reseller to LEGO?

On the other hand... Knock-offs are such a huge problem that I think it's only a matter of time before eBay employs gating on certain valuable brands as Amazon do. This will be interesting if:

• Imposing a non-refundable "Branding Fee" to get your brand verified in a similar way that Amazon do. Who would pay say, £2000 for this? I wouldn't!
• Asking for several receipts from the manufacturer or authorised retailer (Eg. SaH or John Lewis) to prove where the item was purchased.
• Insisting on permission from LEGO for you to resell their products which will likely be denied.
• Of course... yet another increase in fees!

I always say, DON'T rely on eBay only for selling your sets as it can easily come to an end. You HAVE to find an alternative way of selling.

Gating is the biggest threat to LEGO investing as it's really screwed up some of my buddies who sell on Amazon and it's not just LEGO they sell. If LEGO want to screw us, all they have to do is tell eBay that their product can only be sold by an authorised retailer unless it's used. This is far easier for LEGO than litigation against Leper Bricks.

The way you could get round this is to list sets as used and then enclose a "catalogue" of new sets with every item shipped in the hope of dealing with the customer directly.

41 minutes ago, KShine said:

After some quick online research - this doesn't appear to be a new event. I found discussions regarding this going back a few years.

Then again, just because we're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get us.

Time will tell, but it won't surprise me if it happens this year.

[Darth_Raichu]

2 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

On the other hand... Knock-offs are such a huge problem that I think it's only a matter of time before eBay employs gating on certain valuable brands as Amazon do.

Knowing eBay, there is a good chance we are the ones getting kicked out of the platform if they decide they make more money from ko craps sellers

[Val-E]

It´s not marketing - it´s an official Ebay Germany icon same as power seller.

[Migration]

12 hours ago, Kenxxx said:

Not sure if I'm missing something here... I've read this thread over a few times...  I see a lot of reports about scammers getting their product for free, but the sellers - for the most part - have been protected by eBay / Paypal.  Sure there were a couple posts about sellers "getting scammed out of" an expensive set, but the posters didn't elaborate much on who paid the bill.  And yes, some have posted that it took a couple phone calls, and " an hour" of their precious time to get their money back from Paypal... my violin plays for you.  But until you've been ripped off selling on Amazon (like I have), most of your stories look like a "win" to me.

Sure we love our precious Lego sets, and hate it when a scammer gets them for free, but it hurts a lot less when Paypal pays the bill.  I sold 18 valuable sets (over US$100) on Amazon during the holiday season, and was scammed on 2 of them. That percentage loss is way to high for me. Amazon took my money, sided with the buyers, and ruined my selling metrics, despite my following every rule in Amazon's book.  After much effort, I was able to (arbitrarily) get one of them reversed, but still lost the other. And by "reversed" I mean I got my money back, but am still carrying the black mark on my metrics.

Since then I've stopped selling high dollar items on Amazon.  My eBay account had been asleep for months,  but In the past six weeks, I've sold 19 items on eBay, (range $20 - $500, avg. about $150 each). If the shipping screen says "eligible for seller protection", I box it up and ship it out immediately, and have never rested easier.  If I had sold these items on Amazon, I might have made 5 or 10% more on each sale, but all it takes is one Amazon "buyer" to claim the Town Hall I sent them was fake, and I'm out $400, and (potentially) get my Amazon account shut down for life. For me, the best place to sell is is eBay (I've never tried selling on BL).

Amazon is really good for flipping large numbers of sub $100 sets...For higher value items I tend to agree with you, ebay, in my experience, is a bit better. Not much, but enough to make me more confident when selling higher dollar items.

[ravenb99]

39 minutes ago, Migration said:

Amazon is really good for flipping large numbers of sub $100 sets...For higher value items I tend to agree with you, ebay, in my experience, is a bit better. Not much, but enough to make me more confident when selling higher dollar items.

scams are abound everywhere but yeah as long as you ship to what they give you you are covered 99.99% of the time.  I've lost maybe 2 or 3 in the last 3 years and at 26,000 transactions per year that is roughly 2 or 3 in 78k so it is pretty slim you lose.

Had 2 in the last week though where buyer with 0 feedback has sent just the street number out of the address so you get the address not valid.  Decided to call my paypal direct line rep and they said yeah if you change it other from the digits it won't be covered which obviously is impossible to ship to.  The one last week was like a $5 item, today's was higher so just wanted to see what they would say.   I know if you change the ebay it void's it but wanted there response too.  Just said cancel it so I did.

So keep an eye out on that one.  Have seen it in past but 2 in a less than a week is the sign of a new trend.

[Bold-Arrow]

out of curiosity , what happens if an eBay buyer/scammer claims the product is a fake ?

[exciter1]

22 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

out of curiosity , what happens if an eBay buyer/scammer claims the product is a fake ?

You ask them to return it.

[ravenb99]

19 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

out of curiosity , what happens if an eBay buyer/scammer claims the product is a fake ?

as of now nothing but I am sure it is tracked.  There is a return reason for "item does not seem authentic".   I don't get those on my one account but have had a few on my jewelry account.  As long as a case is refunded on your end ebay does not care.  It is all about keeping customer happy.  Like I said though I am sure it is tracked behind the scenes and if enough came over something would be done. 

If you get 2 counterfeit vero's in a year it is a 7 day listing suspension.  Think 3 is 30 day and 4 indefinite (lifetime) ban.  Had that happen about 4 years ago.  They use the BS that you are not an authorized seller so it has to be fake.  I just never list anything I've ever been vero'd for again.

 

[Val-E]

4 hours ago, exciter1 said:

You ask them to return it.

And if they return you a fake (bought from another source)?

[exciter1]

4 hours ago, Val-E said:

And if they return you a fake (bought from another source)?

Open a case

[Pseudoty]

Yeah open a case and once again both parties usually get what they want with the cost being passed on to all of us. They keep track of buyers who do this frequently but they just make new accounts. Avoid products that are high theft and counterfeit items. 

 Theft:

1. Meat
2. Razors
3. Baby formula
4. Cosmetics
5. Alcohol
6. Laptops
7. OTC medications
8. Smartphones
9. Clothing

Counterfeit:

• Rolex, Cartier, and other exclusive designer brands.
• Louis Vuitton.
• Coach.
• Michael Kors.
• RayBan.
• Ralph Lauren.
• Uggs boots.
• Nike.

[Phil B]

9 minutes ago, Pseudoty said:

Yeah open a case and once again both parties usually get what they want with the cost being passed on to all of us. They keep track of buyers who do this frequently but they just make new accounts. Avoid products that are high theft and counterfeit items. 

 Theft:

1. Meat
2. Razors
3. Baby formula
4. Cosmetics
5. Alcohol
6. Laptops
7. OTC medications
8. Smartphones
9. Clothing

Counterfeit:

• Rolex, Cartier, and other exclusive designer brands.
• Louis Vuitton.
• Coach.
• Michael Kors.
• RayBan.
• Ralph Lauren.
• Uggs boots.
• Nike.
• LEGO

Fixed that for ya.