Increasing instances of fraudulent/not authorized orders

[valueaddedresource]

We've been dealing with a sophisticated and wide ranging triangulation fraud situation since February and believe that the fraud may be using hacked/compromised user accounts. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Warning-Retail-Arbitrage-Credit-Card-Fraud/td-p/30822324 

We've also seen an increase in the last few weeks of notices from eBay not to ship orders because they were unauthorized purchases and we've noticed an uptick in reports on Twitter and other social media sites from users saying their eBay accounts have been compromised.

Is anyone else seeing increases in fraudulent activity and/or compromised accounts lately?

[valueaddedresource]

I inadvertently confirmed what we have suspected as far as hacked/compromised accounts being used for triangulation fraud.

I posted a warning on my personal Facebook page yesterday telling my friends that if they had ever set up an eBay account, now would might be a good time to change passwords and enable 2 factor authentication.  One of my friends from high school responded that her eBay account had been hacked recently, so I sent her a private message to find out more.

She’s had the account for almost 20 years, is a semi-regular buyer but never sold anything.  So it’s an older account, but not dormant.  Apparently whoever took over her account used it to create fake listings for an FLIR camera and a dehumidifier.  The MO definitely matches the triangulation fraud we have been dealing with since February.

She says eBay caught it within an hour and shut down the listings, which is good, but they also blocked the account. She was able to change the password, but she can’t get any further than that with trying to unblock/recover the account and eBay is not being helpful.

With so many years of history, watched items, saved sellers, etc., she really doesn’t want to have to start over with a new account, but it sounds like she has hit a wall where automatic action was taken and no one can or will do anything to reverse it or help her.

It definitely made me consider this issue from the buyer side and makes me wonder how many buyers is eBay losing who will never come back because they don't trust that their information is secure on this platform or that they can get assistance if their account is compromised?

[picknparley]

It's looking like none of the information is secure on ebay anymore. There's so many screwed up aspects of the entire ebay platform! 

Old addresses coming out of the woodwork years after it was changed.

Numerous false return scams and ebay enabling every one of them. 

Shipping labels that are so screwed up the packages never get to where they belong. 

Accounts being hacked. 

Buyers making a purchase just to find out the seller is / was a scammer and wait weeks to get their refund - and this befuddles me. 

Just like many other entities on the left this, too, has become a criminal friendly environment.

Sadly, the whole ebay experience for buyers and sellers is SO far away from what it once was.  And this lies solely on the desks of the ebay CEO, the security dept and the shareholders who put profit over ethics.

Sellers are afraid to list high dollar items, and the site loses profit because they can't provide a safely run site.

It's a hundred times worse when ebay is made aware of the problems / issues and STILL does nothing. 

I'm sincerely hoping that the Attorney Generals of every state get involved. 

Allowing illegal behavior is what's happening all across this country right now. 

ebay says they can do all this because of their UA.  We'll see.

acc756, thanks so very much for what you do. 

[mschacha]

Makes me want managed payments - NOT

[cynthealee2]

@valueaddedresource 

Tell your friend to go to eBay for business on facebook and talk to them there... they should be able to fix it.

[valueaddedresource]

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@cynthealee2 wrote:

@valueaddedresource 

Tell your friend to go to eBay for business on facebook and talk to them there... they should be able to fix it.

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Thanks @cynthealee2  - I told her to try Twitter as that seems to be where some people are at least getting responses from eBay support right now, but will suggest Facebook as well.

[valueaddedresource]

And we just had yet another order that was allowed to be placed and then within 5 minutes, we received a message from eBay telling us not to ship because it is an unauthorized transaction and a notice from PayPal that a chargeback had been filed.

What is going on here? Why are eBay and PayPal allowing these fraudulent transactions through? There seems to be a massive issue going on with accounts being hijacked.

[picknparley]

Gee, wouldn't you think that site security would be a top priority?

What's really sad is there are many sellers here with the same problems as you, but they don't have the IT to find it. 

ebay created so many of these issues by encouraging scam buyers and making it so easy for them to succeed. 

ebay also makes it easy for fraudulent sellers to play here, with over-seas scammers being the core of the problem. 

It's obvious ebay is in over it's head. They don't have the platform, nor the staff, nor the desire to run a safe site.  

ebay brags about their big profits, but what about putting improvements into the platform instead of just finding another way to push the losses off onto the legitimate sellers. 

The old CEO undeservedly got a big severence payment.

The new CEO is not talking. It remains to be seen what direction he will go - left or right, up or down.

Keep up the good work. Good thing you're being paid regardless of the official responses. 😄

[valueaddedresource]

I suppose this could help explain why eBay is downplaying all the compromised accounts and sweeping it under the rug.  How much of this "growth" is being fueled by rampant fraud?

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-reports-stronger-volume-growth-and-raises-revenue-and-gaap...

[valueaddedresource]

More reports of compromised accounts on Twitter today, including some from the UK.  Is anyone at eBay listening?

[picknparley]

Exactly.  All the growth numbers on 'all the new buyers / users' is tied to the fact that there are 2 dozen fraud accts created for every legit acct. 

ebay insists they monitor and shut down frauds, but they have no way to stop them from repeating the same offense over and over and over.  

The virus may have temporarily increased some of the sales, but with all the preferential 'approved' sellers many long-time little guys were guttered.  Those approved sellers still price gouged, but were approved to do so.  Go figure. 

All these factors are intricate parts of the future on ebay.  

[picknparley]

There are more reports on the US forum of accounts compromised with large sales numbers and dirt cheap prices. 

Is this tied to money laundering? 

[valueaddedresource]

https://community.ebay.com/t5/My-Account/eBay-changed-account-type/m-p/30991003#M72018

https://community.ebay.com/t5/My-Account/Account-hacked/m-p/30986391#M71956

[valueaddedresource]

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@picknparley wrote:

There are more reports on the US forum of accounts compromised with large sales numbers and dirt cheap prices. 

Is this tied to money laundering? 

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@picknparley  - I suppose you could call it a type of money laundering in the sense that it is a way to convert "dirty money" (stolen credit card info) into clean cash.

As to who is doing it and/or if they are just hackers or have ties to larger criminal organizations, I can't say.

[bar-29368]

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@picknparley wrote:

There are more reports on the US forum of accounts compromised with large sales numbers and dirt cheap prices. 

Is this tied to money laundering? 

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I doubt is as most of those types of scams never have the goods to send in the first palce.