4 ms·

I like to think I'm pretty scam-savvy, but it only takes a moment of the holes in the swiss cheese aligning. I saw a recreation of a movie prop that looked like

by masto 3y ago

I like to think I'm pretty scam-savvy, but it only takes a moment of the holes in the swiss cheese aligning. I saw a recreation of a movie prop that looked like a good gift idea for a friend and made an impulse purchase. Something was nagging at the back of my head and a couple of minutes later I had a sinking feeling that it might be a scam -- sure enough, a little research showed that the product photos were stolen, the original was a limited-run authorized item that sold for 20x what I paid, and I found a forum post where this scam item was being discussed. The web site I bought from was a single legitimate-looking veneer page with most of its content lifted from templates, and there was no functional tracking or order management anywhere, so I immediately e-mailed them asking to cancel the order, to which they replied that they that the product was "good quality", "you can rest assured that you have it", and that they would charge me a 5% fee to cancel. So I opened a case with PayPal and they closed it saying the transaction was "consistent with my purchase history", whatever that means. I appealed and they doubled down that it was not fraudulent. There are no more buttons to press at that point, but I wrote back again reiterating all of the evidence that they were actively providing a payment service to facilitate fraudulent transactions (the scammer was still around and still advertising the same fake products) and after a long period of silence I suddenly got a refund. PayPal is not on your side as a customer, especially if you're dealing with a professional scammer who knows how to play the game and string things out. I suspect what happened here was that they got one too many complaints, and if they'd been a little less greedy or more careful, they would have walked away with the bag of money.

Gortal278 3y ago
It's time to move away from Paypal and use a credit card when buying online. Fraud protection with credit cards is much stronger. Paypal has proven itself bad for consumers again and again.
- EricE 3y ago
  It boggles my mind that people still think paypal is trustworthy.
  - Karellen 3y ago
    s/still think/ever thought/
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      Hey, before Paypal buying on eBay was sending someone a money order or a check. It was a million times better / more trustworthly / more reliable / faster.
      - acdha 3y ago
        I don’t like PayPal but I am impressed by their ability to stay popular. I think the first “don’t use this company, they’ll help scammers screw you” horror story I heard was before the turn of the century, and it’s not like they didn’t have competition at any point but they managed to get locked into a lot of people’s minds as the best option.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
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- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  The advantage of PayPal is you don't have to give anyone your payment information.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    But you do: you have to give PayPal your payment information. Sure, you don't have to give other people your information, but honestly there are few people that I’d want to business with that I feel less comfortable giving payment information to than PayPal.
- pasttense01 3y ago
  Paypal is available for a great many small, part-time sellers while accepting credit cards are not. Suppose you were selling some stuff and I wanted you to mail it to me. Could you accept a credit card for payment?
w-ll 3y ago
Was it the Jurassic Park Barbasol Can? I got it as an Instagram ad, $30 lesson.
- jolt42 3y ago
  I was thinking if that camera was only $30 I'm not sure I'd jump thru the hoops, and so more people would get scammed.
- masto 3y ago
  That was the one. Two for $70 in my case.
  - w-ll 3y ago
    Wow, i was half serious but did buy it from the IG ad, and 3 months later after seeing the ad over and over, notice the orignal creator kept tracking the scams and posting in the ad comments it was a scam, I reported it to paypal, and the day after that (roughly 2-3 months) they shipped it, and it was wack.... like parts of it seemed to be machined, but not the acutally thing from the video from the og prop maker. Edit: for anyone wondering here is mine: https://i.imgur.com/wc9hgwM.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/wc9hgwM.jpeg It's not the worst thing, but definitely not what the ad showed, it showed the movie style twist and pop. Every part onb this is loose/free floating. I cant seem to find the original ad or the scam ads, but this is what I'm at least referring too.
    - fuzzfactor 3y ago
      Interesting. It's difficult to second-guess a scammer but this could very well be something that started out like a scam with the intention of shipping nothing, but within 3 months turned into more like a Kickstarter where they got a bonanza of buyers beyond expectations and decided to build and ship some products after all. At least ship to the wheels that squeak enough. And only ship when product is available, it doesn't have to be a sustainable business if it was supposed to be fly-by-night to begin with. So they could quit any time, or keep going for quite some time even after "inventory" has been fully depleted. Could be about the reverse of the Kickstarters that started out legitimate but end up the equivalent of a scam when they fail to deliver anything.
maerF0x0 3y ago
I fell for a sob story about a woman who's kid died and left behind a PS5 they wanted to get rid of. I was kind and sympathetic and said "If you want I can sell it for you and forward you the money" they then asked for money to ship it to me. (I immediately caught the scam there and blocked them). This happened on an open groupme group apparently people can enumerate and join them randomly. in hindsight 1) Don't sell something for someone else-- you dont know if it's stolen and 2) Don't front strangers any credit/money (I didn't)
Symbiote 3y ago
In Britain you have the right to cancel an online or mail-order purchase up to 14 days after delivery. This is not new, I think the origin is probably from disappointing catalogue ordering. The business refusing to cancel the order would make an easy claim to reverse the payment. https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  In the EU, We have similar consumer protections for online purchases¹: a cooling off period of 14 days where no reason has to be provided for cancelling an online purchase of products or services (I’d wager the UK consumer protections are pre-Brexit rules that remain in effect). You’re actually better off making an impulse purchase online than you are in a bricks-and-mortar store. ¹ https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
ssss11 3y ago
I’m savvy too and had a similar one recently that I stopped myself at the check out. I was surprised I got so far before realising. I clicked a Facebook link for a clothing brand’s factory outlet, which went to a site that had all the logos, a web store with correct looking products, and really great prices. Like 80% off. I hurriedly loaded up some stuff in the cart and checked out. At the credit card entry I realised the URL wasn’t tied to the brand’s website.. it wasn’t a subdomain, it was like https://brand.outletfactory.com https://brand.outletfactory.com or similar… still could be legit as a business partner may have been running the site. Before entering the cc details I went to the brands website to see if there was a link to follow to their outlet site and there wasn’t. At this point the dread set in as there was no actual link between the brand and this site despite the right logos, products and a nice looking webstore, so I googled for a scam and found people had been caught out. I promptly backed out of the transaction and reported the ad to Facebook. I can’t remember the exact response I got but I remember being underwhelmed as if the scam ad would continue but I had been taken out of the filter.
is_true 3y ago
Paypal's CEO should read this. I got my account limited because they mistook my birthday date. When the guy on support told me the problem was that I was still underage and I told them that, they just deleted all messages, haha.

by masto 3y ago

Gortal278 3y ago

It's time to move away from Paypal and use a credit card when buying online. Fraud protection with credit cards is much stronger. Paypal has proven itself bad for consumers again and again.

EricE 3y ago
It boggles my mind that people still think paypal is trustworthy.
- Karellen 3y ago
  s/still think/ever thought/
  - brianwawok 3y ago
    Hey, before Paypal buying on eBay was sending someone a money order or a check. It was a million times better / more trustworthly / more reliable / faster.
    - acdha 3y ago
      I don’t like PayPal but I am impressed by their ability to stay popular. I think the first “don’t use this company, they’ll help scammers screw you” horror story I heard was before the turn of the century, and it’s not like they didn’t have competition at any point but they managed to get locked into a lot of people’s minds as the best option.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
BobaFloutist 3y ago
The advantage of PayPal is you don't have to give anyone your payment information.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  But you do: you have to give PayPal your payment information. Sure, you don't have to give other people your information, but honestly there are few people that I’d want to business with that I feel less comfortable giving payment information to than PayPal.
pasttense01 3y ago
Paypal is available for a great many small, part-time sellers while accepting credit cards are not. Suppose you were selling some stuff and I wanted you to mail it to me. Could you accept a credit card for payment?

w-ll 3y ago

Was it the Jurassic Park Barbasol Can? I got it as an Instagram ad, $30 lesson.

jolt42 3y ago
I was thinking if that camera was only $30 I'm not sure I'd jump thru the hoops, and so more people would get scammed.
masto 3y ago
That was the one. Two for $70 in my case.
- w-ll 3y ago
  Wow, i was half serious but did buy it from the IG ad, and 3 months later after seeing the ad over and over, notice the orignal creator kept tracking the scams and posting in the ad comments it was a scam, I reported it to paypal, and the day after that (roughly 2-3 months) they shipped it, and it was wack.... like parts of it seemed to be machined, but not the acutally thing from the video from the og prop maker. Edit: for anyone wondering here is mine: https://i.imgur.com/wc9hgwM.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/wc9hgwM.jpeg It's not the worst thing, but definitely not what the ad showed, it showed the movie style twist and pop. Every part onb this is loose/free floating. I cant seem to find the original ad or the scam ads, but this is what I'm at least referring too.
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    Interesting. It's difficult to second-guess a scammer but this could very well be something that started out like a scam with the intention of shipping nothing, but within 3 months turned into more like a Kickstarter where they got a bonanza of buyers beyond expectations and decided to build and ship some products after all. At least ship to the wheels that squeak enough. And only ship when product is available, it doesn't have to be a sustainable business if it was supposed to be fly-by-night to begin with. So they could quit any time, or keep going for quite some time even after "inventory" has been fully depleted. Could be about the reverse of the Kickstarters that started out legitimate but end up the equivalent of a scam when they fail to deliver anything.

maerF0x0 3y ago

I fell for a sob story about a woman who's kid died and left behind a PS5 they wanted to get rid of. I was kind and sympathetic and said "If you want I can sell it for you and forward you the money" they then asked for money to ship it to me. (I immediately caught the scam there and blocked them). This happened on an open groupme group apparently people can enumerate and join them randomly. in hindsight 1) Don't sell something for someone else-- you dont know if it's stolen and 2) Don't front strangers any credit/money (I didn't)

Symbiote 3y ago

In Britain you have the right to cancel an online or mail-order purchase up to 14 days after delivery. This is not new, I think the origin is probably from disappointing catalogue ordering. The business refusing to cancel the order would make an easy claim to reverse the payment. https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...

Anthony-G 3y ago
In the EU, We have similar consumer protections for online purchases¹: a cooling off period of 14 days where no reason has to be provided for cancelling an online purchase of products or services (I’d wager the UK consumer protections are pre-Brexit rules that remain in effect). You’re actually better off making an impulse purchase online than you are in a bricks-and-mortar store. ¹ https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...

ssss11 3y ago

I’m savvy too and had a similar one recently that I stopped myself at the check out. I was surprised I got so far before realising. I clicked a Facebook link for a clothing brand’s factory outlet, which went to a site that had all the logos, a web store with correct looking products, and really great prices. Like 80% off. I hurriedly loaded up some stuff in the cart and checked out. At the credit card entry I realised the URL wasn’t tied to the brand’s website.. it wasn’t a subdomain, it was like https://brand.outletfactory.com https://brand.outletfactory.com or similar… still could be legit as a business partner may have been running the site. Before entering the cc details I went to the brands website to see if there was a link to follow to their outlet site and there wasn’t. At this point the dread set in as there was no actual link between the brand and this site despite the right logos, products and a nice looking webstore, so I googled for a scam and found people had been caught out. I promptly backed out of the transaction and reported the ad to Facebook. I can’t remember the exact response I got but I remember being underwhelmed as if the scam ad would continue but I had been taken out of the filter.

is_true 3y ago

Paypal's CEO should read this. I got my account limited because they mistook my birthday date. When the guy on support told me the problem was that I was still underage and I told them that, they just deleted all messages, haha.