Fake travel vouchers

[airsheep]

What's the best way to draw ebay's attention to a niche scam?  For a couple of years, I've been watching Amtrak vouchers being sold, and 99% of them seem to be from brand new sellers who list 1 voucher, sell (or don't) and are never heard from again.  Of those sellers, a substantial number never provide the voucher and get a neg, but if the ID is a throwaway, it doesn't matter to them.  Most of the sellers never get feedback, if they have actually sold vouchers, which seems very strange.

The original scammers were from Morocco, but the new ones are all listing in the US.  I reported a bunch for listing malpractice (listing as local pickup, but offering to e-mail the voucher), but nothing happened.  There are currently about 30 of these listings running, and finding a legit seller of these vouchers seems impossible.  I know ebay is 'buyer beware' these days, but seeing a long running scam of this type gets my goat.

[7606dennis]

I would probably contact eBay Trust & Safety by telephone.  I would also contact AmTrak as I'm sure they would like see such a scam eliminated.

[mudshark61369]

@airsheep,

This particular type scam has been around for a long time. Even so you should know by now that ebay cannot check every listing fom every new seller. They also cannot just pull listings because they look suspicious. If they did that and pulled listings from a legitimate newbie whose inexperience caused them to list something the wrong way, it could lead to a messy law suit, that would probably make the news.  That means they have to react, instead of being Proactive.

A single member reporting listings will not cause eBay to pull the listings for the same reason.  For all eBay knows, you may be reporting the listing to get rid of a competitor.

[airsheep]

In this particular instance, there are several repeating red flags: listing as pickup only but offering to e-mail the information in the text of the auction, the format of the new seller name, and the almost identical wording of the auctions. I'm almost exclusively a buyer, so eliminating the competition is irrelevant. As I said, it just bugs the stuffin' out of me to see such a long running scam with nothing apparently happening, but I might as well wish for the elimination of the 'car for sale cheap, will ship for your inspection, just send down payment to an off-ebay address'. That would probably have much more wide reaching benefits.

[lolita1948]

Great reply.  This was a great help for me.