Fake "offers" from Chinese sellers
Lately, I have received several fake offers on items I WAS NOT WATCHING. All identical items. They appear out of nowhere. When I click on the item the standard listing appears. It cannot be declined or removed. The latest in CCP chicanery.
11 comments
mudshark61369
·10 months ago@po18guy ,
I happen to have a new offer and can show you what @jonathanbrightlight was talking about above the listing if you click on its Title in the offer message.
Below the item price there also a Review Offer button along with the Buy It Now, Add to Cart, Add to list, buttons.
Clicking on either Review Offer button in the message should show:
Under the seller's username which I'm not posting is the rest of the message.
Those are the things I see on my computer. I do not use the app so I do not know what it would look like on it.
"This has occurred exclusively on mainland Chinese sellers and only on the exact same item from different sellers".
If you clicked on any of the Sponsored listings all you see beneath the photos is;
You have to open the listings to see where the sellers/items are located. If the listing page you are on is a China based seller's page, ebay my be showing items only or mostly from China, depending on if there are many using the Sponsored listings program for that particular Item.
po18guy
OP10 months agoWe are talking past each other. Thank you.
mudshark61369
·10 months ago@po18guy ,
"Lately, I have received several fake offers on items I WAS NOT WATCHING. All identical items".
Chances are the Offers you are receiving come from clicking on the photos of identical or similar items displayed on another seller's listing page. Some may be from China based sellers, but most will be from domestic ones.
Those are Sponsored listings, and sellers pay extra to have their items posted that way, so ebay is not going to shut off those Special Offer notifications. Just clicking on one of those listings triggers receiving an Offer after a certain number of Views chosen by the seller have been made. They usually say Others have received the offer... in the message.
You may also see items on a search results page that say Sponsored just above the item title. Clicking on one of them will result in an offer being sent just by opening the listing.
"When I click on the item the standard listing appears. It cannot be declined or removed".
On the offer you will see its expiration time. If you open the notification after it has expired the listing does not show the Offer price.
Below that, you will still see;
Clicking on Review offer after the offer expires, shows the original price.
"The latest in CCP chicanery".
Most China based sellers do not list Sponsored items. Doing that incurs an additional fee for an item that is most likely already priced lower than a domestic sellers items and with Free Shipping.
po18guy
OP10 months agoWell, regardless, they are not offers but solicitations. There is no special offer price - it goes away the moment you click and your choice is only the original price. It is a form of forced watch list, as it cannot be deleted. If this is per eBay policy, I will certainly search less, as these fake offers clog up the My eBay page.
jonathanbrightlight
·10 months agoThat's not how that feature works. If the offer has expired, perhaps you would only see the original price, but if not, look along the top of the page for a button to view the offer. I don't have a screenshot because I don't have any waiting right now, but that's what I've seen previously. There is no way for them to send you an offer as a notification but not have that offer be available to actually purchase the item.
reallynicestamps
·10 months agoWatchers may get those Best Offers , but since Watchers rarely buy (or they would have immediately) Viewers are the ones getting the Offer.
Views are more recent, since sellers only see them (numbers not identities) for 30 days.
Watcher numbers are there until the watcher deletes the item from their watch list whcih can be years
jonathanbrightlight
·10 months agoWhen you are viewing that listing with an offer available from the seller, there is a button at the top to view it and you can decline from there, but you are not required to respond to it at all.
The seller does not send those to you specifically, and they do not need to be Chinese or from any particular nationality or live anywhere in particular. They have simply used eBay's option to send offers to interested buyers, and they are not shown who those are sent to unless the offer is accepted and paid.
You can turn off all offers from sellers here if you'd like: https://commspreferences.ebay.com/commsprefs (Under "Buying Activity", turn off "Offers to buyers"). Note that that will turn off all offers from sellers, not just any specific type. It's all or nothing.
po18guy
OP10 months agoEXCEPT! When you click "review offer' the review box does not pop up. Thus, the offer can neither be accepted nor declined. It can only be purchased at full price and the "offer" price is gone. I doubt this an eBay forced marketing scheme. This has occurred exclusively on mainland Chinese sellers and only on the exact same item from different sellers. I suspect some form of hacking the eBay system to aggressively market their items.
jonathanbrightlight
·10 months agoIf the box is not popping up when you click review offer, there is an issue in your browser that needs to be resolved. Either an ad/content blocker is mistakenly blocking that portion of the page and you can disable that or whitelist eBay in that blocker, or you need to clear your cache and site data.
po18guy
OP10 months agoOK, I routinely clear my cache. My question is: Why only a certain item from mainland China and never any other item? The fake offers are all on exactly the same item, but different sellers. This has never occurred on any other item I browse from any other seller, ever, since 2007. All other offers I receive I can instantly review and accept or decline.
At least I was able to delete it after it expired.
kensgiftshop
·10 months agoIf you even look at a listing, Ebay will send an offer for the item if the seller has it set up.
I just let them expire.