4 ms·

Update on the eBay Scam

48 points by speckx 7mo ago

petra303 7mo ago
This is the reason I stopped selling on eBay. Zero protection for the seller.
- arcanemachiner 7mo ago
  As an ethical buyer, it's incredible... but I'll be damned if I ever take the risk of selling anything on eBay.
- elevation 7mo ago
  eBay's buyer protections are eroding as well. I bought a phone on eBay last month. The seller insured it with USPS. When the phone arrived with a cracked screen (the listing had photos of a not-cracked screen) I photographed the damage and submitted a return request with eBay. The seller then filed an insurance claim with USPS. USPS sent me a letter, requiring me to present the damaged package (and its contents) to my local postmaster. I documented this to the seller via eBay, but complied with the government authority -- I didn't want the seller to lose his insurance claim because I didn't comply. The postmaster kept the package, saying it was a requirement. Once the phone was out of my hands, the seller denied the return, keeping my money, while presumably keeping the money from the USPS insurance claim. I have no recourse with eBay.
- steveBK123 7mo ago
  I've come to the conclusion that anything under about $500 isn't worth trying to sell online anymore. eBay has eroded as a marketplace for sellers. For anything higher value, I have hobbyist forums I have 20 year memberships on where I can spend the time to due diligence individual buyers and transactions thoroughly. Even here I often don't get maximum dollars as I may have 3 offers and go with the person I am most comfortable transacting with. And even on the higher end, it's easier to just do a trade in at a retailer instead of trying to extract maximum value doing business online. On the lower end the problem is it's not worth the time to do the due diligence, and there are a tremendous number of time wasting tire kickers for lower value items. So I end up giving stuff away or just holding on to it, which is a shame.
  - Esophagus4 7mo ago
    I’ve gotten comfortable with selling things very cheap on Craigslist. E.g. a $300 recliner I’d sell for $25 because no one will give you hassle about it, and at that price, you can pick from several buyers the one that is least likely to be a headache.
  - pton_xd 7mo ago
    > anything under about $500 isn't worth trying to sell online anymore Anything under say $100 I'm fine selling on ebay because a) it's less likely to be scammed and b) even if it is, I don't care that much. Anything over that amount is only being sold in person on fb marketplace. Or, like you said, on a hobbyist forum. I agree that ebay has completely eroded for sellers. It's basically a ship and be pleasantly surprised later situation.
- x0x0 7mo ago
  ebay seems to scam buyers too. I was looking for a phone. Lots of sellers will list things as brand new which should imply new in box (unopened packaging). After you carefully read the listing, they actually mean open box which is far more variable. Ebay does not care at all. It makes the search basically useless.
nfriedly 7mo ago
I keep getting packages in the mail that are addressed to me, but not things I ordered. Lawnmower parts, plumbing hardware, a grill cover, a magnetron (!), etc. One had an amazon slip in it, but most of them have come through ebay. I reported the one to amazon and the rest to ebay (I gave them the USPS tracking numbers since I didn't know the order numbers), and also contacted a couple of the sellers who were businesses with public contact info. The sellers I reached both said they would send me return labels, but neither has yet. I feel like this has to be a scam, but I'm not sure exactly what the scam is. Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match?
- ribosometronome 7mo ago
  That does sound like brushing, https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam, which is effectively what you describe: >Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match
  - nfriedly 7mo ago
    Man, that seems wasteful. I opened all of the packages already, so it's too late to send them back. (I get enough things in the mail that I did order, that I pretty much have to open it to know it's something I didn't order.)
- tsss 7mo ago
  Man, I'd like to get a magnetron for free.
  - nfriedly 7mo ago
    Send me a shipping label. (I'm only half-joking. I told the original seller I'd send it back to them, so I feel like I ought to give them at least a week or two to get me the label they said they'd send. But, seriously, email me in a month, and if I still haven't heard back from the seller, I'll send it to you.)
buildbot 7mo ago
Not the only scam on eBay these days - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566523
rhoopr 7mo ago
This site features one of the worst fonts I’ve ever seen.
- chihuahua 7mo ago
  I thought so, too - dangerously close to Comic Sans, but for the block-quote, they throw in a cursive lowercase L. Just the one letter in cursive. I assume font nerds are going "ooh, it's so subtle, so elegant!"
  - BugsJustFindMe 7mo ago
    Oh! I recognize that font from the recent thread on fonts! It's called Maple Mono[0], and yeah the connected cursive italic lowercase l is weird. But it's also implemented/designed poorly[1], and there's a chance it only looks awful because of that (lol). But IDK because there's no example of it being done well to compare against. It certainly would look less weird if they just didn't try to connect them to preceding letters. Anyway, someone was gushing about it, and that struck me as very odd specifically because of how bad the lowercase italic l is, but you can disable that feature if you want. So maybe that's the version they were using. [0] - https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580590
    - Fnoord 7mo ago
      The cursive l I actually like. We learn to write that here at elementary school (at around the age of six). So if quoting, a handwritten font is nice. I use such in my nvim config as well. But AFAIK such a font is proprietary. Now, this fella's repo owner is CN, so I doubt they learned such at elementary school. It is also, like you said, weird since it stands out. If the rest also used cursive handwriting letters it would've been fine. So yeah, classic case of cha bu duo, or a quick personal hack you'd be embarrassed to share).
      - chihuahua 7mo ago
the_arun 7mo ago
Few years ago. A buyer cheated me on eBay. Basically, they purchased my mac and asked me to ship it to their son's address. They paid money through Paypal & cancelled the transaction after I shipped it. eBay didn't help/pay me because I didn't ship it to buyer's registered address. There is no accountability on eBay end. I lost $1.5K laptop. An expensive learning. Since then, I don't use eBay.
- matt_heimer 7mo ago
  I shipped with signature verification to the buyers address. The buyer claimed they didn't receive the item and eBay still sided with them and refunded their money. I will never sell anything on eBay again.
- gamblor956 7mo ago
  Something similar happened to a friend who sold a camera on eBay. They took eBay to small claims court and won easily. eBay paid them out (and then banned them but they had already stopped using eBay by then).
- DANmode 7mo ago
  > There is no accountability on eBay end If you don’t follow their carefully prepared rules………………
plagiarist 7mo ago
The scammer is doing so much effort for like... £85?
sneak 7mo ago
Got sold obviously counterfeit goods on eBay. eBay denied a refund despite me having clear photo evidence. Had to do a chargeback via the card. Will probably lose my 28 year old eBay account over this. I’m convinced the platforms are more than aware of the wide range of frauds and simply don’t care; they are complicit.
mcyukon 7mo ago
Just finished dealing with a eBay scam myself. Bought a used laptop, it got marked as shipped but the tracking number was fake and not real. Due to it being marked as shipped I had to wait 28 days for eBay purchase protection to do something about it as the seller was ignoring messages & making excuses. eBay protection refunded the purchase in less than an hour after opening the request. Did some searching online and learned there are quite a few scams running on eBay. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/how-carders-can-use-ebay-as-a-virtual-atm/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/how-carders-can-use-ebay...
b3ing 7mo ago
eBay doesn’t give a shit they hire Ivy League and h1b, when they could hire people that actually use the site, but that’s not how companies think. I seemed to know more about eBay than the support team did the few times I have called them
xtiansimon 7mo ago
> “We message back and forth on WhatsApp…” Why would you message the buyer outside of eBay? That’s a recipe for having eBay flag you as a scammer.
seabird 7mo ago
Seller protections on eBay are effectively non-existent. I’ve sold $50,000+ of stuff on the site and their compulsory Money Back Guarantee that they make on your behalf will make your blood boil when you get bullshit INAD shakedowns because the buyer didn’t feel like reading or didn’t know how properly use the item. Even if you have written communication from the buyer sent on eBay outright saying they’re abusing the system, eBay doesn’t care. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, but the extra 7% FVF they take on top of their base 13.5% is offensive. At this point I just lie and cheat the system as much as I can. I’ve had a significantly better experience since I started carefully massaging every metric, threatening INAD abusers with mail fraud reports, coaching buyers through returns to keep my metrics up, etc. I always have and always will do right by honest customers, but I’m done just grabbing my ankles when it comes to dealing with eBay and their policies.
retew22 7mo ago
Are you a victim of scam, go on 4victimsbyvictims.org and have a complaint filed.

48 points by speckx 7mo ago

petra303 7mo ago

This is the reason I stopped selling on eBay. Zero protection for the seller.

arcanemachiner 7mo ago
As an ethical buyer, it's incredible... but I'll be damned if I ever take the risk of selling anything on eBay.
elevation 7mo ago
eBay's buyer protections are eroding as well. I bought a phone on eBay last month. The seller insured it with USPS. When the phone arrived with a cracked screen (the listing had photos of a not-cracked screen) I photographed the damage and submitted a return request with eBay. The seller then filed an insurance claim with USPS. USPS sent me a letter, requiring me to present the damaged package (and its contents) to my local postmaster. I documented this to the seller via eBay, but complied with the government authority -- I didn't want the seller to lose his insurance claim because I didn't comply. The postmaster kept the package, saying it was a requirement. Once the phone was out of my hands, the seller denied the return, keeping my money, while presumably keeping the money from the USPS insurance claim. I have no recourse with eBay.
steveBK123 7mo ago
I've come to the conclusion that anything under about $500 isn't worth trying to sell online anymore. eBay has eroded as a marketplace for sellers. For anything higher value, I have hobbyist forums I have 20 year memberships on where I can spend the time to due diligence individual buyers and transactions thoroughly. Even here I often don't get maximum dollars as I may have 3 offers and go with the person I am most comfortable transacting with. And even on the higher end, it's easier to just do a trade in at a retailer instead of trying to extract maximum value doing business online. On the lower end the problem is it's not worth the time to do the due diligence, and there are a tremendous number of time wasting tire kickers for lower value items. So I end up giving stuff away or just holding on to it, which is a shame.
- Esophagus4 7mo ago
  I’ve gotten comfortable with selling things very cheap on Craigslist. E.g. a $300 recliner I’d sell for $25 because no one will give you hassle about it, and at that price, you can pick from several buyers the one that is least likely to be a headache.
- pton_xd 7mo ago
  > anything under about $500 isn't worth trying to sell online anymore Anything under say $100 I'm fine selling on ebay because a) it's less likely to be scammed and b) even if it is, I don't care that much. Anything over that amount is only being sold in person on fb marketplace. Or, like you said, on a hobbyist forum. I agree that ebay has completely eroded for sellers. It's basically a ship and be pleasantly surprised later situation.
x0x0 7mo ago
ebay seems to scam buyers too. I was looking for a phone. Lots of sellers will list things as brand new which should imply new in box (unopened packaging). After you carefully read the listing, they actually mean open box which is far more variable. Ebay does not care at all. It makes the search basically useless.

nfriedly 7mo ago

I keep getting packages in the mail that are addressed to me, but not things I ordered. Lawnmower parts, plumbing hardware, a grill cover, a magnetron (!), etc. One had an amazon slip in it, but most of them have come through ebay. I reported the one to amazon and the rest to ebay (I gave them the USPS tracking numbers since I didn't know the order numbers), and also contacted a couple of the sellers who were businesses with public contact info. The sellers I reached both said they would send me return labels, but neither has yet. I feel like this has to be a scam, but I'm not sure exactly what the scam is. Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match?

ribosometronome 7mo ago
That does sound like brushing, https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam, which is effectively what you describe: >Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match
- nfriedly 7mo ago
  Man, that seems wasteful. I opened all of the packages already, so it's too late to send them back. (I get enough things in the mail that I did order, that I pretty much have to open it to know it's something I didn't order.)
tsss 7mo ago
Man, I'd like to get a magnetron for free.
- nfriedly 7mo ago
  Send me a shipping label. (I'm only half-joking. I told the original seller I'd send it back to them, so I feel like I ought to give them at least a week or two to get me the label they said they'd send. But, seriously, email me in a month, and if I still haven't heard back from the seller, I'll send it to you.)

buildbot 7mo ago

Not the only scam on eBay these days - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566523

rhoopr 7mo ago

This site features one of the worst fonts I’ve ever seen.

chihuahua 7mo ago
I thought so, too - dangerously close to Comic Sans, but for the block-quote, they throw in a cursive lowercase L. Just the one letter in cursive. I assume font nerds are going "ooh, it's so subtle, so elegant!"
- BugsJustFindMe 7mo ago
  Oh! I recognize that font from the recent thread on fonts! It's called Maple Mono[0], and yeah the connected cursive italic lowercase l is weird. But it's also implemented/designed poorly[1], and there's a chance it only looks awful because of that (lol). But IDK because there's no example of it being done well to compare against. It certainly would look less weird if they just didn't try to connect them to preceding letters. Anyway, someone was gushing about it, and that struck me as very odd specifically because of how bad the lowercase italic l is, but you can disable that feature if you want. So maybe that's the version they were using. [0] - https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580590
  - Fnoord 7mo ago
    The cursive l I actually like. We learn to write that here at elementary school (at around the age of six). So if quoting, a handwritten font is nice. I use such in my nvim config as well. But AFAIK such a font is proprietary. Now, this fella's repo owner is CN, so I doubt they learned such at elementary school. It is also, like you said, weird since it stands out. If the rest also used cursive handwriting letters it would've been fine. So yeah, classic case of cha bu duo, or a quick personal hack you'd be embarrassed to share).
    - chihuahua 7mo ago

the_arun 7mo ago

Few years ago. A buyer cheated me on eBay. Basically, they purchased my mac and asked me to ship it to their son's address. They paid money through Paypal & cancelled the transaction after I shipped it. eBay didn't help/pay me because I didn't ship it to buyer's registered address. There is no accountability on eBay end. I lost $1.5K laptop. An expensive learning. Since then, I don't use eBay.

matt_heimer 7mo ago
I shipped with signature verification to the buyers address. The buyer claimed they didn't receive the item and eBay still sided with them and refunded their money. I will never sell anything on eBay again.
gamblor956 7mo ago
Something similar happened to a friend who sold a camera on eBay. They took eBay to small claims court and won easily. eBay paid them out (and then banned them but they had already stopped using eBay by then).
DANmode 7mo ago
> There is no accountability on eBay end If you don’t follow their carefully prepared rules………………

plagiarist 7mo ago

The scammer is doing so much effort for like... £85?

sneak 7mo ago

Got sold obviously counterfeit goods on eBay. eBay denied a refund despite me having clear photo evidence. Had to do a chargeback via the card. Will probably lose my 28 year old eBay account over this. I’m convinced the platforms are more than aware of the wide range of frauds and simply don’t care; they are complicit.

mcyukon 7mo ago

Just finished dealing with a eBay scam myself. Bought a used laptop, it got marked as shipped but the tracking number was fake and not real. Due to it being marked as shipped I had to wait 28 days for eBay purchase protection to do something about it as the seller was ignoring messages & making excuses. eBay protection refunded the purchase in less than an hour after opening the request. Did some searching online and learned there are quite a few scams running on eBay. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/how-carders-can-use-ebay-as-a-virtual-atm/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/how-carders-can-use-ebay...

b3ing 7mo ago

eBay doesn’t give a shit they hire Ivy League and h1b, when they could hire people that actually use the site, but that’s not how companies think. I seemed to know more about eBay than the support team did the few times I have called them

xtiansimon 7mo ago

> “We message back and forth on WhatsApp…” Why would you message the buyer outside of eBay? That’s a recipe for having eBay flag you as a scammer.

seabird 7mo ago

Seller protections on eBay are effectively non-existent. I’ve sold $50,000+ of stuff on the site and their compulsory Money Back Guarantee that they make on your behalf will make your blood boil when you get bullshit INAD shakedowns because the buyer didn’t feel like reading or didn’t know how properly use the item. Even if you have written communication from the buyer sent on eBay outright saying they’re abusing the system, eBay doesn’t care. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, but the extra 7% FVF they take on top of their base 13.5% is offensive. At this point I just lie and cheat the system as much as I can. I’ve had a significantly better experience since I started carefully massaging every metric, threatening INAD abusers with mail fraud reports, coaching buyers through returns to keep my metrics up, etc. I always have and always will do right by honest customers, but I’m done just grabbing my ankles when it comes to dealing with eBay and their policies.

retew22 7mo ago

Are you a victim of scam, go on 4victimsbyvictims.org and have a complaint filed.