Regards,
Be a wise buyer. Learn how to avoid seller scams:
Scammers are on the lookout for unsuspecting eBay buyers. Novice buyers are especially susceptible to being scammed. As a buyer, there are a few things that you should always do:
- Buy only from sellers with at least a feedback score of 50 and 99% positive rating.
- Verify item is eligible for PayPal's buyer protection program.
- Use PayPal for payment.
- Use a credit card to fund the PayPal payment.
- Require shipping insurance for expensive items.
Just doing these five things will protect buyers from most sellers' scams. For expensive items, examine the seller's feedback more closely.
Fraudulent Item Scam
This scam is quite simple. The scammer will list something they don't have. Usually the item is expensive such as a digital camera. When the buyer pays for it, the scammer takes the money and disappears. Always use PayPal for purchases as the buyer is protected against non-receipt of the item. Make sure the amount of the protection covers the final price of the item.
Counterfeit Item Scam
Knockoff products are everywhere and eBay is no exception. Tiffany and Co. has publicly stated that 75% of all Tiffany products sold on eBay are fake. Jewelry, designer handbags and celebrity signatures are examples of categories full of counterfeit items. I have seen fake plastic Canon cameras intentionally designed to look like expensive professional cameras. It is buyer beware situation and buyers need to know exactly what they are buying. The seller actually may not realize that they are selling a knockoff product.
To protect yourself from receiving counterfeit products, do some research. There is a lot of information on the web offering tips on how to detect a counterfeit. Always use PayPal for your purchases. The buyer protection policy provides protection when the item is not as described.
Shill Bidding Scam
This type of activity occurs more often than eBay likes to admit. Instead of listing an item with a reserve price or a high starting price, the scammer will list the item with a low starting bid. When a buyer bids on the item, the scammer will use another account to shill, or bid up the item. If the buyer has placed a proxy bid, the shill will keep bidding until the proxy bid is exceeded. Now the scammer knows the value of your proxy bid. The shill will then retract the bid and with a different shilling account, bid right up to your maximum proxy amount. The effect of shill bidding is the buyer will pay more for an item than they normally would.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to detect shill bidding. You can check the current bid history to see who is bidding on the item. Then check if any of the current bidders have bid on other items from the same seller. If you notice unusual bidding activity, then there may be shill bidding occurring.
Fake Escrow Site Scams
This scam typically involves very expensive items like cars and big screen TVs. The scammer tries to lull the buyer into a false sense of security by suggesting to use an escrow service. Unfortunately, the escrow service suggested is completely fake and is operated by the scammer. Fake escrow sites look very authentic and the domain names look similar to real escrow site names. Once you send the money to the fake escrow site, the scammer takes your money and disappears.
The only escrow site recommended for use by eBay is www.escrow.com Don't use any other site. If a buyer or seller recommends using a different site, it is probably a scammer trying to rip you off
Hijacked Account Scam
Scammers are on the lookout to hijack the accounts of sellers with good feedback. Once the scammer has access to an unsuspecting seller's account, they use the account's excellent feedback to scam buyers. The scammers will list high-end expensive items and disappear with the buyer's money.
The scammers need to use dormant accounts otherwise the true owner of the account will notice the fraudulent listings appear. Check the seller's feedback to see if the account has been dormant. See if the current listings are consistent with the items sold in the past. If an account is suddenly selling plasma TVs when only children's books were being sold in the previous month, then the account may have been hijacked.
Be suspicious of listings that only use stock photos for expensive items. While a scammer can steal someone else's pictures as use them, most don't even bother and will use a stock photo provided by eBay. Ask the seller to send you a picture of the serial number or some other unique feature of the item. If the seller is unwilling to do that, you may be better off looking elsewhere.
Blame the Shipper for Damaged Item Scam
Unscrupulous sellers that have broken or damaged goods try to unload them on unsuspecting buyers. The scammer will claim the item is in excellent condition in the item listing. Usually only stock photos of the item is used. When the buyer receives the item, the scammer will claim it was damaged in shipping. An insurance claim will be filed with the shipper. If you are lucky, you will get your money back from the insurance.
PayPal may or may not honor a claim for damaged goods if it was uninsured. If PayPal rejects your claim, call your credit card company to reverse the charges.
Unsolicited Offer to Purchase An Item Scam
You may receive an offer to buy the item after you have just lost the auction. Sometimes these offers look like second chance offers from the seller of the original auction. In reality, they are scammers trying to steal your money. The scammer will insist that you make the purchase outside of eBay and will offer you a discount for doing so. Unfortunately, you won't be covered by eBay or PayPal’s buyer protection program for transactions outside of eBay. Once the scammer has your money, they will disappear and you will receive nothing in return. Never accept unsolicited offers to buy outside of eBay no matter how cheap it sounds. If it is too good to be true, then it is.
Fake eBay transaction using Email
This is a variant of the unsolicited offer to purchase an item scam. The scammer will contact you with an offer to purchase an item. Instead of trying to get you to purchase the item off eBay, the scammer will try to win your confidence by running the transaction through eBay. The scammer will claim this will protect both the buyer and seller.
Instead of listing the item on eBay for you to purchase, the scammer will send an official looking email that appears to be a completed transaction on eBay. Satisfied that the buyer is protected by eBay, the victim sends the money to the scammer. Often the email will instruct the buyer to wire money directly to the scammer. Whenever a seller wants you to wire money, it is most likely a scam. Once the scammer has your money, they will disappear.
Always verify eBay transactions on the eBay website. Don't click on any links in the email as the link could point to a spoofed site. Go to the eBay website yourself and enter the item number into the search box. If it is a valid transaction, the appropriate listing will appear.
ebay have gone the EXTRA mile to protect Scammers and Shill bidders, and IMHO are happy just to SIT back, and let the FINAL VALUE FEES, ROLL in.
3 weeks ago (give or take a day or 2) I was in the market for a LAPTOP, and as I'm able to...check-out the other bids (3 at the time) I found an issue with 2 of them (2 bidders) 1 with a 100+ feedback score @ 99%, the other with only a score of 9 @ 100% WELL (I thought) the bidder with only 9 feedbacks has gotta be OK...wouldn't yer think?
Ooops
BOTH turned out to be serial bid retractors, at 230ish EACH over the past 6 months, and 25-30ish each over the past 30 day's, and BOTH have a history of bidding/retracting in this LAPTOP sellers auctions, and have CONTINUED to do so for as long as I can tell.
The following I have CUT n PASTED from the bidding details, firstly of "DUMB", with his ID changed by ebay to "PROTECT" him , and I in turn have wiped the "Item description", and I ALSO cleared the "bids on this item" section, again to remove the excuse ebay Mods will be looking for (as in the past week) to delete my post.
PS
Upon my hitting "post" I got a message about an invalid HTML (don't ask me) and it's been "Removed", so here we go again...fingers crossed
Bidder Information Bidder: y***l
( 9 )
Feedback:
100%
Positive Item description:
Bids on this item:
30-Day Summary Total bids:
143 Items bid on:
24 Bid activity (%) with this seller:
47%
Bid retractions:
28 Bid retractions (6 months):
237
Bid History: Details
NOW to "DUMBERS" "Bid History"
Bidder Information Bidder: 
l***s( 105
) Feedback: 99%Positive Item description: Bids on this item: 30-Day Summary Total bids: 135 Items bid on: 15 Bid activity (%) with this seller: 95% 
Bid retractions: 23 Bid retractions (6 months): 243
ebay has been told. I have 2 reference numbers, but this SCAMMING seller is STILL at it, with BOTH scumbag "bidders".
WHY, only today, an auction managed to run it's course to the end (many have been...cut short, due to "Errors in the Listings") but the STRANGE thing is, that BOTH DUMB n DUMBER have even retracted in these, at roughly 20 minutes B4 the seller ends, yet ALWAYS within 1-3 minutes of each other's retraction. But WHAT about today's auction?
Won by an "outsider", an HONEST ebayer, somebody who THOUGHT he was in an HONEST OPEN auction, not an auction with a couple of SCUMBAGS (or just 1 bidder?, perhaps even just the 1 person. A buyer/seller 3 in 1?)
Thanks in no small part on ebay, this seller has had 4 ID's in the past 2 years, but if I were to give them to you, the MODERATORS (ebay's answer to the secret police) would REMOVE this post, in the interests of...well, of EBAY, but please note MODERATORS I haven't "NAMED and SHAMED" as you put it, and I haven't given any of the previous ID's you (ebay) so KINDLY supplied the seller, that changed FLAWlessly.
I don't remember seeing your post B4...SPOT ON.
I like the point about a SELLERS feedback, just a shame eBay rigged the system. And to use CREDIT cards to fund PayPal?, that's a beauty. I've alway's known about "Charge back", but within UK law...
What people fail to understand, is that you don't have to put yourself into debt by using a credit card, as the second you use it, you can PAY BACK the credit card, from your debit card/account...It's what you might call a NO BRAINER.
Cheers
Please accept my apologies for such a badly laid out post. HELL I wrote it, and I had to read it a couple of times, ter make any sense out of it.
I confess I have slight memory issues, so I can't remember if was ON Med's at the time, or if I SHOUDDA been?
I confess I have slight memory issues, so I can't remember if was ON Med's at the time, or if I SHOUDDA been?
@moviestarmaker I gave you a Helpful on your thourough post. I am both Buyer and Seller but mainly a Seller on this venue. As a Seller in looking at the main subject sections in the original post the word Seller could easily be replaced with the word Buyer in that Sellers get scammed on a more regular basis than Buyers do ... if one reads enough posts here in The Community they would see that is true. Sadly, any online sales venue relies on BOTH parties being open and honset with their part of the transaction.
What you may find interesting is earlier this year I had reason to speak with eBay's Trust and Safety department and when our business was finished I broached the subject of this topic and wanted to get an honest feel for what % of all eBay transactions resulted in one or the other party being dishonest. The answer I got (and the person I spoke to wished the company would publish the numbers) was 2% or less. How does that compare to other venues? I don't know. Could eBay make some changes on their venue to cut down on these occurances? Yes they could. Are scams more prevelent on certain items? Yes, they are. Our expereince here in 1.5 years of Selling, several IDs and over 800 transactions is that we've had 2 bad ones ... so we are well under the 2% but I think that is largely due to not selling high scame items.
In closing, again, good post.
@mr_lincoln wrote:@moviestarmaker I gave you a Helpful on your thourough post ... Sellers get scammed on a more regular basis than Buyers do ... In closing, again, good post.
Thank you Mr. Lincoln. I agree, sellers need to be just as cautious as buyers. Scammers are everywhere.
tomlang wrote: " . . . You buy it, and have to wait 6-8 weeks to find out it was never shipped. I believe the sellers are hoping a few buyers won't follow the lack of shiping progress, and will forget the sale from a month or to ago, and won't request a refund."
Thanks. Great post. In that case, even if just 20% of the buyers don't request a refund, the seller makes a good profit. But my guess, it's more like 50%. People are very busy these days.
