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Postcode loophole enables fraudsters to hijack eBay parcels
- peteretep 7y ago> “This issue highlights the fact postcodes are based on out-of-date technology” Piss off, it shows that a postcode without a house identifier is a shitty way for Royal Mail to guarantee delivery is all.
- Zenst 7y agoMore so as the onus and legal aspect (data protection) means that the receiver has no way of disputing this with Royal Mail, only the sender does. So if the sender pays for the basic service, this can happen, if they paid a little bit more for the tracking service, thats different. Case is, you can send a letter - no way of tracking that, but if you send it recorded delivery, that's tracked. So issue here is not the Royal Mail, more case of Ebay etc allowing people to send things using the cheapest untrackable way and allowing such abuse to transpire. But then every system is abusable - you can send a recorded delivery item to a person, log into tracking and see a copy of that person's signature which you could then abuse in nefarious ways. But many systems open to such abuse. Send a cheque to somebody - they cash it. Then track via your bank and get the bank account details of the recipient. Heck send cheque via recorded delivery and and get the targets signature and bank account details, all legal like. Is that a fault in the systems and even if it is - how do you fix that! Well, Ebay could insist that all postings are done recorded delivery - would solve this instance.
- ryanlol 7y agoSo how does this enable the fraud? Why would this not work with an empty return package? E: I guess this is just one of many possible ways to force a carrier to "lose" a parcel, enabling the fraudster to use the same ebay account more times without attracting complaints from sellers.
- thinkingemote 7y agoit does work with an empty package but it just goes to another address. So the seller doesn't get any package. If the seller were to get an empty package they would have some proof to show ebay and so the fraud would be harder to stop.
- gambiting 7y agoIt still doesn't make any sense. What would be your proof in this case? A picture of an empty box? That's not a proof of anything really, or at least I'd hope it's not - if it is then scummy sellers would always say that you returned an empty package(picture of an empty box included).
- ryanlol 7y agoThere's no "postcode loophole", this is just a polished empty return scam. The trick described in the article just improves upon it slightly by making the seller think that royal mail lost the package. There's no dependence on this trick though, the scam works 100% of the time even if the seller receives an empty box.
- NikkiA 7y agoIt does change slightly, ebay will consider a 'hey my box was empty' if it's coming from a buyer with a decent feedback. But since the royal mail says 'nope, was delivered' it never leaves the automated system that just assigns guilt to the buyer.
- ryanlol 7y agoIt is the seller receiving an empty box, not the buyer. Ebay will always believe a "hey my box was empty", no matter your account history. They'll just ban your account at some point.
- ryanlol 7y ago>they would have some proof to show ebay At first glance the empty box seems pretty meaningless, it certainly won't win a dispute for the seller. I guess you're right though, now the seller won't even realize that they're getting scammed and won't report the buyer account to ebay.
- buro9 7y agoThere does seem to be a spate of something... articles in which the solution is "A British startup, what3words". They must be spending a steady amount on PR. The news seems perfectly constructed for the obligatory quote from their founder when in this case the answer isn't their system, but just that Royal Mail use the correct identifier: the post-code and the identifying information for the property (building name and/or building number as well as company name if applicable).
- spzb 7y agoCame to say the exact same thing. This is the second article in a major news publication I've seen this weekend touting what3words.
- mavhc 7y agoWhat3words has amazing technology, for getting media attention
- bredren 7y agoAny startup company with enough money for PR can get mentions in casually related articles written in just about any publication--even The Economist. It says nothing about product, traction or anything else. It only proves journalists and editors can be or already have been bought.
- peteretep 7y agoHere is their technology in full: Google “PR agency London”. Email the top five asking for a price-per-mention, and get offers back in the region of £500 a pop. Sign a contract. Talk about how you were featured on the BBC.
- lonelappde 7y agoThat's what the company name really means. What 3 words will get people's attention?
- pidg 7y ago
- jjp 7y agoHeadline whilst HN correct is misleading. TLDR - fraudster orders good, returns empty box with tracking, tracking label is photoshopped to different property in post code. Fraudster knows that tracking only records post code not property within post code. eBay issue refund. Problem is granularity of tracking nothing to do with post code loophole.
- FDSGSG 7y agoEbay would issue the refund even if the fraudster didn't photoshop the tracking label. Is the granularity of the tracking really the problem? I believe fraud is the problem, and it's an impossible one to solve.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThe issue is Royal Mail being negligent. Even for proofs of postage sometimes (always?) the certificate only lists the recipient's postcode instead of the name and full address.
- FDSGSG 7y agoThat may be true, but Royal Mail does not play a significant part in this fraud. There's nothing Royal Mail could do to stop this fraud.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoHaving correct tracking and proofs of postage, and potentially coherency checks between written address and barcode, would make it much more difficult to impossible.
- FDSGSG 7y agoNope, that'll do nothing at all. This scam works just fine even if the fraudster does not tamper with the label and the seller receives an empty box.
- gandalfian 7y agoI'm not sure an exact grid reference would help delivery drivers in many urban areas. There is just too much stuff jumbled on top and behind each other plus shadowed from an accurate GPS signal.
- why-oh-why 7y agoI find it ludicrous that we’re still not using GPS coordinates as addresses. My address would look something like First Last Street # or Building Name if any 18.0000 -7.0000 USA Basically the “ZIP city, state” line should be replaced by coordinates; 4 decimals are precise to 11 meters. And in less dense areas you might not need the second line either: First Last 18.0000 -7.0000 Mail is not handled manually anymore so why act like it still is?
- pidg 7y agoHow does your mail get delivered? Mine still gets delivered by a human.
- why-oh-why 7y agoYour mailman follows a screen that tells them where to go.
- nemetroid 7y agoFrom the few mailmen I know, this is hardly the case.
- Traster 7y agoSo everyone in the North-East facing apartments in my apartment building have the same address?
- why-oh-why 7y agoYou didn’t read. The second line is still your regular address if you live in dense areas.
- Traster 7y agoI read it, you didn't describe what you think you described. You didn't say regular address, you said street - which doesn't tell you which apartment in a building you live in.
- vanilla-almond 7y agoThis article is quite confusing in the way it explains the fraud technique. Here's my understanding (using a made-up example): In the UK, a full postcode e.g B40 4XJ (made up) can be shared by more one than home or building. So the homes numbered 1-20 Acacia Avenue all share the same full postcode: B40 4XJ Janet lives at 7 Acacia Avenue. She sells her iPhone via eBay for £200 to Patrick living elsewhere. She posts a parcel containing the iPhone to Patrick. Patrick, via eBay, contacts Janet and says the iPhone is faulty and wants a refund. Through eBay, Patrick generates a return label (shipping label) which lists Janet's address: 7 Acacia Avenue, B40 4XJ. However, Patrick, alters the address on the label to state: 19 Acacia Avenue, B40 4XJ. He can do this, of course, because the label is generated online, and using some graphics editing program, he can alter the label before he prints it. Patrick posts an empty box to 19 Acacia Avenue and keeps the iPhone. Patrick now has the iPhone and a refund from eBay for the £200 he paid for the iPhone. What of the empty parcel posted to 19 Acacia Avenue? Presumably, the parcel isn't signed for when it is delivered? Or is it? If the parcel requires a signature on delivery, surely the resident of 19 Acacia Avenue will immediately notice the parcel is addressed to someone else? Please do correct the above if it's incorrect.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> In the UK, a full postcode e.g B40 4XJ (made up) can be shared by more one than home or building. It's not that they 'can' be shared, like it's some sort of bug or corner case - they're designed to be shared. A full address is a house number or name plus the postcode.
- mamon 7y agoMy understanding is that the empty box is posted to a different addres, because eBay only issues a refund when they get the confirmation that the parcel was delivered. I assume that the unsuspecting resident of 19 Acacia Avenue, B40 4XJ will sing off receipt for the parcel, then open it and find the box empty, but since they weren't expecting any delivery at all they will do nothing about it, maybe just tell the story as an anecdote next time they go to drinks with friends. Another thing that enables the fraud is that eBay only compares postal codes, so the delivery to 7 Acacia Avenue and 19 Acacia Avenue is all the same for them.
- esotericn 7y agoThis has almost nothing to do with a "postcode loophole" and almost everything to do with the two following facts: - eBay are supremely uninterested in being an unbiased arbiter of disputes. This goes back as far as I can remember and likely to the dawn of eBay. People have been scamming each other on there for 15 years at a minimum. - Royal Mail do not provide proof of postage at a granular level. Combine that with the above where eBay will probably take a piece of tissue paper as proof of postage and there you are.
- FDSGSG 7y ago>- eBay are supremely uninterested in being an unbiased arbiter of disputes. It's not just eBay though, it's also the credit card companies. You can't escape this by switching platforms.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThe alleged issue highlighted in this piece of PR for a commercial company (shame on The Guardian for playing along) has nothing to do with postcodes. If there is an issue it is with the way Royal Mail handles tracked mail and proofs of postage. UK postcodes are more precise that in any other country I'm familiar with and are a terrific system [1]: Postcodes are precise to about the street level vs. a whole town or district in most countries. This allows websites that need your address to work it out fully just by asking postcode and house number in most cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...
- em-bee 7y agothe most precise postcode is likely singapore where each building block has its own post-code. the worst is probably hongkong, which does not even have a postcode.
- cameronh90 7y agoIn the UK, most large buildings (with more than 25 units) have their own postcode too. Everywhere I've lived in London has its own postcode.
- em-bee 7y agolooks like it's the same as singapore then. i don't think singapore even has buildings with less than 25 units :-)
- jon-wood 7y agoEven more impressive is that Royal Mail have an even more accurate database than the postcodes people are used to. Every address in the UK has a Unique Property Reference Number, which as the name suggests uniquely identifies a single address.
- chaz6 7y agoUPRN's are allocated by local authorities; Royal Mail uses UDPRN's (unique delivery point reference numbers).
- aaron695 7y agoSkipping that this is just an ad for a company So the bit I didn't get in the scam is you can send it to any address in the postcode as as the seller which you pick it from a phone book (since you don't know where the seller is until you start the refund) And assumably have a low cost item in it so the receiver accepts it no questions asked. I assume the tracking number is used for the automated system until it gets to the physical postie who then uses the written info for their part of the trip. Else it's nothing to do with the postcode, since you could send it to a photoshoped address anywhere.
- beautifulfreak 7y agoThis can happen in the US, too. I sat on a grand jury that heard a case involving the same scam.
- llacb47 7y agoGo away what3words PR team