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How to get eBay visibility to likely fraudulent seller
I purchased two AncestryDNA kits from a seller presumably from Canada for a great price on May 4 2024. The seller had over 900 items sold so I went ahead with the purchase.
The item has still not arrived despite a prompt shipping notice and the current date is July 2 2024, virtually two months after the purchase.
I took a closer look and observed the following:
1) ALL the positive feedback for this seller was over a year old
2) The seller has SEVEN negative feedback for lack of delivery recently that match my experience
3) The seller has NO positive feedback for recent delivery
4) When clicking a link in an email from the seller I am taken to an eBay link in CHINA
5) The tracking link provided by seller is obscure and drops tracking information
6) eBay allowed this "Canadian" seller to have a ridiculous delivery date range through July 17 (2.5 months) for a "Canadian" delivery
7) eBay appears to make it impossible to escalate a case and request a refund prior to the completion of the delivery date range
😎 I could not find a way to escalate reporting a seller through the help pages as it went through an endless loop of help pages that did not easily facilitate reporting the seller
9) The seller STILL has over 900 items available on ebay
I am 99.9% certain this is a compromised old account that is being fraudulently used to bilk many naive eBay buyers out of money with such a long delivery date range that it is allowing the seller to fraudulently accumulate sales and revenue for perhaps 3 months before they begin to receive reports of fraud and non-delivery. eBay seems to be co-conspirator in that they are allowing such a ridiculous delivery date range and no manner in which to escalate likely fraud prior to that delivery date.
Yes, I should have observed the ridiculous delivery date range and lack of any feedback whatsoever in past year along with the very low offering price, but eBay should also not allow a seller to offer such an unreasonable transit, a tracking that simply shows shipped activities but nothing domestic, a seller that appears to sell in one country (China) with fees collected in Canadian dollars for US customers (thus obfuscating the transit delay) and no way to readily flag such fraud.
I do not know if I am permitted to list the seller, item, tracking information or feedback in this forum, but if I am advised I can do so I will update this post with such information promptly. I can't help but believe such fraud has been perpetuated on eBay many times in the past so I am disappointed that it is so difficult to escalate rapidly as this fraudster needs to be stopped and his store needs to be terminated and all buyers must be refunded.
Appreciate any feedback here how to handle this. I can sit and wait another 2.5 weeks until my fraudulent shipping transit interval expires but the point is that this situation is OBVIOUS and complete fraud and that the entire seller account is fraudulent. Appreciate any assistance or help escalating visibility....
stuff4divas
Mentor2 years ago@d-m-g WOW!! longest post EVER!!
d-m-g
OP2 years agoIt would appear I can provide additional details so I shall do so:
1. Seller's fraudulent China tracking site: Tracking Site
2. Seller's fake shop - I was incorrect only 362 items sold.
3. Fake tracking data for my order
4. 8 recent negative feedback
Why was I conned? Heavily swayed by combo of Ebay guarantee AND free returns as sellers that offer free returns tend to be very reputable. Also at the time no negative feedback. Had I recognized the items shipped from China I would have immediately considered the listing nonsensical - why would a USA AncestryDNA kit ship from China - ever (hindsight why would it ship from Canada either?). Honestly I trusted the Ebay platform itself far more than I should have. The guarantee is only as good as the seller is honest and Ebay is very difficult to escalate fraud and issues for in this case almost 3 months.
I've spent 30 minutes trying to find a reasonably simple way to escalate this likely fraud to Ebay as they ought to be very concerned about shutting it down but have found endless loops back to automated agents or advice to wait until the 2.5 month expiry of the delivery transit. They need to fix this and make it easier to report fraud.
d-m-g
OP2 years agoApologies this may well be on the wrong board but not sure if I can move this post and do not feel it is better to remove and repost. If an admin can move this to correct board please do so with my apologies for inconvenience. The issue is important and quite honestly Ebay comes off as more pro-seller these days than pro-consumer and while I recognize that buyers can perpetuate fraud the platform itself must have high integrity in the long term. I now have MUCH less trust for listings with seller returns offered and foreign currency and will never purchase with such crazy transit times again. Caveat emptor.
d-m-g
OP2 years agoPROMISE this is my last respond
I finally found a page that I could report this to Ebay and dutifully put together details for 30 minutes.
https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicId=4850
After attempting to submit fraud report Ebay rejected the report with the following obscure error
"We ran into a problem. Please try again later."
CONCLUSION: Ebay does not truly care about seller fraud and is not consumer centric
d-m-g
OP2 years agoAfter hours of research I managed to resolve my own issue. I found valid email addresses for several executives at ebay and sent a detailed message regarding my entire situation including my inability to file a seller fraud report on the ebay website, the specifics of the item I purchased and suspicious circumstances, other buyer feedback of same situation, etc.
I received several messages from ebay Executive Customer Relations in response. To their credit, after alerting of the situation ebay deactivated the seller account, refunded my money in full and indicated to me that other buyers may accelerate their refund requests with ebay now that the seller was deactivated.
What was a bit disingenuous though is the following:
1. The only manner to report fraud on eBay's website was inactive with errors when I tried to report issues.
2. Excuses were cited in terms of reasons to allow a China seller to offer US customers a product in Canadian dollars. The C$ obfuscated the hoax they would take 2.5 months to deliver as initially the delay was perceived as a delay in Canadian international processing when in fact it was a fraudulent account from China.
3. ebay did not indicate they were going to proactively, automatically refund all buyers from this fraudulent seller but instead would allow the buyers to file a claim without waiting the mandatory 2.5 month transit.
4. ebay failed to address why they would ever allow a 2.5 month transit for any goods on the site.
I have learned a lot about my own process for vetting sellers, international purchases, and the limits of ebay guarantee and seller return offers. I will likely never make a purchase made in another currency and will always pay careful attention to the validity of any tracking information sent to me.