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.

[dbfolks166mt]

     I am not sure what you mean exactly by "sketchy 3rd parties". If you are referring to Freight Forwarders (FF) that is not an uncommon practice. Lots of seller use US based FF to consolidate purchases and save on shipping for the international leg. If you are referring to something else please elaborate. 

    EBay has, for some valid reasons, never allowed a seller to block based on their registered address the only thing a seller can block is countries they do not ship to. If the buyer is using a US based FF then it doesn't matter what country their account is registered in. In reality you have no idea what a US based buyer is doing with your item once they receive it. They could just as easily be shipping in to some other destination anywhere in the world just as a FF does. 

     I have shipped a number of things through FF'ers and only had a problem once and in that instance I was covered by eBay policy since the buyer looses money back guarantee coverage once the item has been delivered to the FF. This of course does NOT protect you from CC chargebacks for NAD items. 

     Interestingly enough with the sanctions against Russia a lot of Russian buyers are purchasing items and having them shipped to Chinese, and other,  based FF'ers who receive the items, consolidate the shipping and forward the items to Russia bypassing the sanctions that are in place. Even if the blocks were based on the buyers registered address to impose the sanctions there are easy loopholes around that. 

[steph-bagne]

I've shipped to legit 3rd party re-shippers before.

That's not an issue

But when the buyer's account hyper links to a completely different account,

Then the buyer immediately deletes their account, Red flags pop up.

Or when the address provided has nothing but forum posts saying "GOT SCAMMED BY THIS RE-SHIPPER"

I tend to not trust such buyers.

Idk what to do when I get spammed with this group or individuals.

[lakefor94]

Jfyi, All freight forwarders have bad reviews. It is normally not an issue with the freight forwarders but with the buyers that have used the freight forwarders over the years. 

[ebooksdiva]

@steph-bagne 

No one can immediately delete their account, if they are NARUd then eBay suspended their accounts.

[steph-bagne]

Every time I cancel one of these orders the users account is deleted. 

eBay gives me a nice red bar that says "no longer a registered user"

Why does that happen every time???

[gurlcat]

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@steph-bagne wrote:

I've noticed when you click on their profile, it directs you to a different eBay seller. 

---

Did you mean buyer?  Or maybe they are also a seller, but in this transaction they bought from you.  Often an account name is different from address name (and store name, if they are also a seller) so if you're going by name alone, that's not proof of what you're saying.  

If someone has figured out a way to hack and hijack eBay's navigation software .... that would be on a whole other level beyond sending phishing emails and what-not.  So either you're mistaken or you're the first to report something huge.  

[steph-bagne]

Basically every time I cancel and refund an order, The buyer's account becomes "no longer a registered user".

Before I cancel the order, The buyers account will show a completely different store front.

A storefront with a completely different name and usually something well established. 

But when I cancel the order, that username will just default to "No longer a registered user"

[gurlcat]

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@steph-bagne wrote:

Before I cancel the order, The buyers account will show a completely different store front.

A storefront with a completely different name and usually something well established. 

---

Ugh in this case it is so frustrating that you can't show us.  Well you could show screenshots but you would have to blur out the names, and the names matter.  But HERE'S something you can do ... blur out the name but not the feedback number next to it.  If that number matches that of the "Storefront" then it is the same person.  If not, then something utterly novel and scary is going on.  

[soh.maryl]

Just checking  --  you aren't referring to overseas buyers who use freight forwarders, are you?  

[luckythewinner]

But when the buyer's account hyper links to a completely different account

I don't see how a scammer would be able to accomplish this.

Or when the address provided has nothing but forum posts saying "GOT SCAMMED BY THIS RE-SHIPPER"

That is the nature of this board. Very few people come to this board to report that a transaction went smoothly. You generally only see comments here when something goes wrong. And most of the time you read those threads, it was not the re-shipper who did the scamming.

[dbfolks166mt]

@steph-bagne 

No one can immediately delete their account, if they are NARUd then eBay suspended their accounts.

     Guest account possibly? 

[dbfolks166mt]

But when the buyer's account hyper links to a completely different account

I don't see how a scammer would be able to accomplish this.

     Possibly a seller searching for buyer items and using different guest accounts to make the purchases and keep track of the orders? 

     It would be a perfect way for Russian buyers to work through Chinese sellers to place an order through some communication channels and have the seller locate and purchase an item, have it shipped to the seller in China. The Chinese seller simply turns around and sells it to the Russian buyer outside of the eBay process. 

[gurlcat]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

But when the buyer's account hyper links to a completely different account

I don't see how a scammer would be able to accomplish this.

     Possibly a seller searching for buyer items and using different guest accounts to make the purchases and keep track of the orders? 

     It would be a perfect way for Russian buyers to work through Chinese sellers to place an order through some communication channels and have the seller locate and purchase an item, have it shipped to the seller in China. The Chinese seller simply turns around and sells it to the Russian buyer outside of the eBay process. 

---

But when the seller sees the buyer's i.d. on the order page and clicks on it to see the buyer's profile, how could it be a profile for a whole other account (even both accounts were started by the same person)?  They would have to hack eBay's navigation software, wouldn't they?  

[dbfolks166mt]

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

But when the buyer's account hyper links to a completely different account

I don't see how a scammer would be able to accomplish this.

     Possibly a seller searching for buyer items and using different guest accounts to make the purchases and keep track of the orders? 

     It would be a perfect way for Russian buyers to work through Chinese sellers to place an order through some communication channels and have the seller locate and purchase an item, have it shipped to the seller in China. The Chinese seller simply turns around and sells it to the Russian buyer outside of the eBay process. 

But when the seller sees the buyer's i.d. on the order page and clicks on it to see the buyer's profile, how could it be a profile for a whole other account (even both accounts were started by the same person)?  They would have to hack eBay's navigation software, wouldn't they?  

     I am unsure since OP has not posted screen shots I was just hypothesizing about a possible way this could be taking place. I am not sure if you can purchase an item as a guest while using an established account similar to the way you can enter a different shipping address for an item that is different from your registered address the way buyers do with freight forwarders. I have no way to test this it was just a theory.