The Return of the Barcode Tracking Scam
Had the exact same scam happen about 9 months ago, this time with a better outcome.
Sold a brand new $200 GPS system. Buyer had 0 feedback, account was just over a year old.
Buyer opened remorse return saying they "changed my mind".
Buyer shipped the GPS system back.
Arrived "delivered at mailbox". We don't have a mail box.
This sounded similar to what happened last year, so instead of waiting a bit to see if the package turned up, we immediately called eBay (anchor support) to request a 5 day hold on the return refund.
They put the case on hold, something they wouldn't do for us last time we asked.
I went to the post office to inquire about the tracking and the return address label.
They pulled up a picture of the label, and the same thing as last time- not our name and not our address. They keep our barcode open and photoshop out our address for a made up person in our zip code, and we get all the tracking updates for our address. The buyer sent the return from a different state than the delivery address as well.... genius. Last time the post office said they didn't know what to do and that was the end of it... we asked for some sort of letter or communication stating that the package was not addressed to us nor was it delivered to our address. They seemed stunned then and had never heard of this scam before. For privacy reasons they could not gives us the picture, the GPS location or a document. We had nothing to hand to eBay.
Last year eBay gave the scammer a courtesy refund and we got to keep our money, but nothing happened further than that.
This time we got lucky and were contacted from the post office by someone we were already on a first name basis with. They were kind enough to email me a statement saying that the order with our tracking number was "Delivered As Addressed" aka to the fake name and fake address, and explicitly wrote that the name and address did not match our store's name nor address. I'm not going to lie, the only thing official looking was the usps.gov handle in their email. In an even more amazing stroke of luck, they later sent us a photo of the actual label on the physical package they sent out- not our name and not our address right below the name and address they used to buy the GPS at checkout. The post office did not release this image to us last time, again because of privacy reasons.
Anchor support got another call and we used the document uploader to upload the email correspondence with the post office and the image of the label the buyer used. A couple hours went by, and we got another call from eBay saying that the buyer was permanently suspended and we got to keep the funds on hold.
I feel that we got this outcome by luck because someone at the post office broke the rules, and worry that the same successful outcome may not happen on the third scam around (knock on wood...).
albertabrightalberta
·2 years agoGood for you! I love hearing these stories and it's too bad we don't hear the good stuff often.