Messages requesting cancellation not from buyer?

Question

I got 2 cancellation requests for an order. I cancelled it "at buyer's request." The buyer then repurchased the item, I got another cancellation request message, and then the buyer messaged me saying that someone else has been asking to cancel his purchases. The user names are similar but not the same and the "fraud?" ones are very newly created accounts.

What is the purpose of this sort of thing? I've tried finding a way to report the accounts to eBay but no options align with this problem to allow me to report it. Is this a common thing?

Will the actual buyer turn out to be the scammer trying to get items for free somehow with this?

banjobridges · Answer

And ANOTHER message with a similar user name but different than the previous TWO requests asking to cancel so they can get a refund. Very, very odd. I'm blocking each new account and also the original buyer as I'm not convinced it isn't him trying to pull something.

eburtonlab · Answer

What is the purpose of this sort of thing? Hard to say without more details, but some users will send messages claiming to be the purchaser and request an item to be shipped to a new location as a way to get a free item at the seller's expense. Never change a shipping address based on a message, and ignore messages that are not from the buyer's account -- or at least contact the buyer's original account to verify if the cancellation is intended. Unless the message sender actually knew who the buyer was, it would be hard for the message sender to create an account with a similar name, though, as eBay does not reveal buyer information to anyone but the seller. Edited to add: Perhaps the message sender hoped to get the purchase canceled and the item relisted to have an opportunity to purchase the relisted item, and take it away from the original buyer that way.

comics-scifi-collectibles · Answer

@banjobridges Always verify that the USER ID is the same as the one that made a purchase.

While I have never heard of someone requesting to cancel another sellers item, scammers do sometimes try to get you to ship to a different address. Maybe you have a popular item and the scammer is hoping to swoop in and buy it, they must know the members ID somehow since it doesn't show on the sold items list.

Always ship to the address provided at checkout, you can not change it without canceling a sale and relisting.

Report the fake messages by using the 3 dots on the upper right of the message.

Also add the scammers to your blocked buyer list> https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/BuyerBlock