Relentless overseas scammers

[steph-bagne]

Having issues with overseas buyers purchasing items off my store and trying to ship them to sketchy 3rd parties.

When I refund their money because I don't ship to 3rd party re-shippers, they delete their account and try again a few days later.

Each time with a slightly different name.

I've noticed when you click on their profile, it directs you to a different eBay seller. Typically one that has years and years of sales history. But that's not the account that are using. I don't know how they are doing that.

I know these are scammers looking to steal my designs.

As car parts I sell are for vehicles that do not exist in China.

Ever since this started happening my eBay is sales in general have plummeted. 

I'm assuming the eBay algorithm is punishing me for canceling orders.

How am I supposed to deal with this?

It's relentless, non stop every week.

And it's hurting my store by a huge margin.

[gurlcat]

Yeah it's a head-scratcher for sure.  I really think the OP didn't see what they thought they saw, and I provided one possible way to tell (message #9) but unfortunately as is so often the case, the OP has left the building ...... sigh.  

[ajw2203]

I think the freight forwarders are good for sellers.  If a buyer from Kuzcek, Kazakhstan wants to return an item you only have to pay return shipping from the USA address.  The buyer is not going to send the item back to the freight forwarder.

[gurlcat]

Agree 100%.  For MOST of us it is only a matter of whether the buyer could pull a scam or not, and in that regard overseas buyers are actually safer than American buyers (even more true if they buy through Ebay International Shipping).  

But the OP's concern is a totally different thing.  They're not worried about return scams or anything like that -they create and sell original designs for car parts, and they are concerned about Chinese manufacturers purchasing their items to copy and sell cheaper.  It's a legit concern and hard to navigate preventing it. 

I remember hearing about a Chanel luxury store in France prohibiting Chinese customers from buying their handbags, due to counterfeiting concerns.  But I mean ..... if we're talking about banning customers in-person, based on their appearance .... that's the definition of racial profiling, and someone who "looks Chinese" could be from any Asian country or even a Chinese-French citizen, with zero ties to manufacturers in China.  Yikes.  

[dbfolks166mt]

Agree 100%.  For MOST of us it is only a matter of whether the buyer could pull a scam or not, and in that regard overseas buyers are actually safer than American buyers (even more true if they buy through Ebay International Shipping).  

     From a scamming perspective both the EIS program and eBay's policy regarding FF's absolutely provide better seller protection for international sales than sellers have for domestic sales. 

But the OP's concern is a totally different thing.  They're not worried about return scams or anything like that -they create and sell original designs for car parts, and they are concerned about Chinese manufacturers purchasing their items to copy and sell cheaper.  It's a legit concern and hard to navigate preventing it. 

     If China wants to obtain the design it can easily be accomplished a multitude of ways. Given the amount of counterfeiting taking place in China I am quite sure there are a number of Chinese businesses that have established contacts in the US that simply obtain the items they are looking for and ship them directly to China or route them through a FF once they have received them. 

I remember hearing about a Chanel luxury store in France prohibiting Chinese customers from buying their handbags, due to counterfeiting concerns.  But I mean ..... if we're talking about banning customers in-person, based on their appearance .... that's the definition of racial profiling, and someone who "looks Chinese" could be from any Asian country or even a Chinese-French citizen, with zero ties to manufacturers in China.  Yikes.  

     Globalization. 

[gurlcat]

Yup.  While I feel for the OP, there's essentially no point in waging a 1-man battle against a whole nation with utterly abysmal business regulation, in the Information Age.  Especially considering he (probably correctly) assumes eBay punishes his account for so many cancellations.  He didn't say how many, what menu reason he chooses or whether he's had buyers report him, but it's risky every time.  

[steph-bagne]

Well, my fears were correct.

I accidentally let an item ship to that same RE-SHIPPER address everyone here was telling me was "legit".

Now there's 21, TWENTY ONE! Chinese eBay accounts selling a combined 2,100 counterfeit copies my my item.

Undercutting my price of course.

Amazing.

I think I'm gonna try out my own e-commerce website.

Between dealing with an onslaught of Chinese scamers, I pay a crazy 14% commission to a group of people who don't care about sellers.

And surprise surprise, that Chinese account that purchased the item is now DELETED.

Doesn't exist.

[a_c_green]

---

@steph-bagne wrote:

Well, my fears were correct.

I accidentally let an item ship to that same RE-SHIPPER address everyone here was telling me was "legit".

Now there's 21, TWENTY ONE! Chinese eBay accounts selling a combined 2,100 counterfeit copies my my item.

Undercutting my price of course.

Amazing.

---

Your first post here was 11 days ago. Are you saying that within the past 11 days, 2,100 counterfeit listings have appeared for your part? (That would include the days spent getting the part forwarded from the U.S. to China, tooling up for copies, getting listings prepared for 21 accounts, etc.)

I suspect that they had their hands on a sample a lot longer ago than that. Which item are we talking about here?

[steph-bagne]

No, apparently before I started noticing the China boys scammers I let one ship to that 3rd party reshipper.

The same address I mentioned above.

That was December 22nd 2023.

The copy cat item listings are almost all new within a week ago.

I guess on the positive side, because I water marked all of my photos; they couldn't steal any. 

That and that and they don't have the cars that I'm selling parts for so all all their photos are just CGI nonsense.

It's all so tiresome.

[gurlcat]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think anyone in the thread tried to assure you that freight forwarders are safe when it came to the particular fears you expressed, only that they're safe when it comes to the fears eBay sellers typically have (INR scams, return scams, etc.).  

But as for design copying, I still don't get what you think the FF's have to do with that.  They are just middlemen, and if it's not 'this' one it's 'that' one .... and if a manufacturer in China was absolutely determined to get their hands on one of your items for copying, and it appreared you were resisting by cancelling all orders with FF addresses ...... they would just figure out some other way, like pay a FF extra to let them use their home address rather than the strip mall office or whatever.  

What is the title of your item that they copied?  This I gotta see. 

[steph-bagne]

They copied my item name &

Description.

And of course the design itself.

But since eBay doesn't care about IP rights, I'm out of luck.

But, it looks like they haven't sold any so far.

Jokes on them, the community I make parts for is VERY small.

& Since The part is incredibly difficult to manufacture, they only managed to undercut me by 10%.

Usually the China boys can under cut by 1/2 .

I'll be more diligent next time.

[gurlcat]

  Can you post a screenshot of your listing and then one of the copycat's?  

[steph-bagne]

 china copy  on top. My legit item on the bottom.

Search for those titles and 27 China listings show up.

The description is basically a copy paste of mine just mixed around.

If you notice they don't even include a real photo of the item. Just a rendering.

So annoying.

[gurlcat]

It's interesting that they didn't include 'Camaro' or 'Firebird' in their title.   I wonder if there was a reason for that, seems like it would be a real handicap for this item to be visible to owners of those models who use the model name in their searches.  Ha, dummies.  And I don't think the slight amount of $ savings will make up for the fact that you can't even see photos of the real item, also I bet your feedback and history is better and longer -I can't speak for all buyers but those things matter to me; I will definitely pay more to a more trustworthy-looking seller.  Also if I know car pimpers, they don't want to wait for their next modification; they want it YESTERDAY, and yesterday aint coming from China, ha.  

[steph-bagne]

Well the thing is, the Chinese have no idea what a Camaro or a Firebird is.

So they can't write accurate descriptions.

But whatever, I'll be more diligent next time. 

Always learning.

[gurlcat]

Now when you say you'll be more diligent, just to reiterate, I don't think cancelling orders with freight forwarder addresses is going to stop a diligent copy cat who really wants to get their hands on a creative specimen for copying.  What's more, every cancellation is a risk of the buyer reporting you for it, and that can get your account crippled badly and even shut down.   Starting your own website would certainly enable you to set your own rules, but you realize it would take years to establish a buyer base, whereas eBAy has a huge one built-in.