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Best way to deal with buyers fake addresses?
I am trying to figure out the best way to deal with buyers purchasing small dollar items using fake names and addresses. I assume the reason for purchase is credit card fraud or building feedback for CC fraud. I get several a day now, and they are easy to identify based on patterns.
I’ve tried:
canceling due to address problems
reporting to Ebay
shipping and waiting for it to come back
Purchasing an eBay envelope (which is paid at time of use) and never sending
Marking it shipped and never sending
and nothing seems to reduce the problem.
I could turn off automatic feedback so there would be no benefit to them but I ship 30 packages a day and that would be a time drag.
Any other suggestions?
22 comments
kh-stanley1
·2 years agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
inhawaii
·3 years agoI think it's very odd that any seller feels the need to "investigate" every buyer on every sale.
I never investigate any of my buyers/sales and I've never had any problems.
The buyer buys and I ship to the address ebay provides.
Worst case scenario the item comes back undeliverable.
The buyer is not entitled a refund and the seller gets the item back.
How is that a scam?
But hey, it's your business, you run it as you see fit.
aeparts1
·3 years agoI'm just amazed that people are able to find it worth their while to sell items that are $1.20 or less to buy. I just couldn't spend the time to make $.50. Especially if so many that buy those items somehow don't exist & the items are returned.
fastshippingalways99
OP3 years agoThanks for all the new replies. Nothing has changed since my last post. The fake accounts are easy to spot, and I just “purchase†an EBay envelope for 60 cents (which doesn’t get charged until the item is shipped), and I don’t ship the item. No one has ever complained.
mam98031
·3 years agoYou may want to re-read some of the posts. You are ASSUMING that they are fake addresses. But if you want to cost yourself sales you likely don't need to, cancel the transactions for a problem with the address. You will be fine until a buyer complains to Ebay that you are cancelling transactions without a real need to.
Your method you describe above is a bit unhanded and NOT how any seller should be handling this. If you aren't going to ship an item, refund the buyer completely. You have no right to keep the money.
chapetones
·3 years agoI am a high-volume, low cost seller too, and I've been experiencing the same thing for years. The frequency of it comes in waves. Your post is the first I've been able to find that accurately explains both the issue and my concerns with it.
At this point I can identify a fake order pretty quickly. Its a buyer name that doesn't match the shipping address name. It's a single item that hardly anyone picks, and the first item listed on a long pulldown. It's an account with few feedback scores. The items come back undeliverable, and no one asks about them...even when I reach out (I used to).
Yes, I can take their payment and restock the item when it comes back to me, but I too have been wondering what kind of scam I'm possibly participating in. Plus, like you say it is it a waste of time. It's also a waste of shipping materials.
Have you figured anything out since posting this?
fastshippingalways99
OP3 years agoYes I have had some success in reducing the problem, which got even more out of control since I posted this. The fake buyers are very easy to spot, it’s any buyer purchasing a 99 cent item who joined EBay in the last several days and has 5 or less feedback. What I do is immediately “purchase†an EBay envelope for 60 cents, which is not charged until it’s shipped. I then don’t ship the item. If it’s an international reshipper address then I cancel for bad address. I have done this (“purchase†envelope but don’t send) over 300 times and never received a complaint. I reduced the problem by turning off automatic feedback at purchase and changing it to at the time of buyer feedback. When I get the occasional “leave feedback immediately†message, I respond “Not at this time. Please let any affiliated buyers know that I have turned off automatic feedback. Let me know if you want me to cancel the orderâ€. I never received a response back from this note. This has definitely reduced but not eliminated the problem.
djvp53
·3 years agoIt sounds like it might be a fake delivery or fake return scam. If the buyer was a scammer, they might either be a seller who needs to provide tracking for a package to a particular Zip code. Whatever number you provide is good enough. Or, if they are a scam buyer, they might need to provide tracking for their fake return. Yours will fill the bill.
If scammers are buying on eBay to get fake tracking info provided by legitimate eBay sellers to use in scams on eBay, it should be possible for eBay to see when the same tracking numbers are used to fulfill unrelated requirements (like a sale by one seller being a return to another seller) and flag that as fraudulent. I don't know if eBay does this but I doubt is based on the fact that their system doesn't seem to automatically link the seller's tracking information to a claim for Item Not Received.
fastshippingalways99
OP3 years agoInteresting. All of the items purchased from me use EBay envelopes which is a very specific use on EBay and is only for items less than $20 and tracking is pretty bad on these. I’m my case, best I can tell is they are just either trying to build feedback for nefarious selling purposes or possibly using stolen credit cards. I have reported over 30 of these accounts and as best I can tell no action was taken. So I stopped reporting them.
djvp53
·3 years agoGetting feedback to use as a seller also seems plausible. My idea was just a theory. It might be wrong. I'm not a scammer and although I try to keep up with their methods to protect myself, I'm sure they are doing things I don't understand.
jlbitsolutions
·2 years agoI’ve found this post because I also have noticed this pattern recently of people ordering my £0.99 sample items and then the item being returned as undeliverable. They usually come in a small cluster which is what initially caught my eye.
I was trying to work out what anyone gains from this, I for one lose out because the samples are sold at a loss given the postage costs and eBay fees etc.
I think I’ll start cancelling the order when they come through now I’m satisfied this isn’t me being paranoid but is genuinely a “thingâ€.
fastshippingalways99
OP2 years agoThe update is that this is still a problem. The fake accounts are usually easy to identify because most use the same address or another obvious fake address. All have either 0 or 1 feedback score. What I do now is cancel the order for 99 cent orders with 0 or 1 feedback score. If they buy a more expensive item I will just mark it as shipped. I'm still getting 5-10 a day every single day.
rosszonebricks
·3 years agoI don't think I've ever 'Googled an address to see if the name matches'.
A buyer pays, I ship. If, at the time of purchasing the label, I get an error with the address, that's when I will cancel with Problem with Address.
lagarto_electronico
·3 years ago"I don't think I've ever 'Googled an address to see if the name matches
(1) Searches and public records are never immediately updated when people move;
(2) This just feels like a time waste."
No one said they were immediately updated, but around 95% of the time they are accurate.
Making decisions based on "how things feel" is often not the greatest standard for rational decision making. If one has adequate critical thinking abilities, the time wasted is usually about 30 seconds.
dhbookds
·3 years agohow do you know they are fake names/addresses?
fastshippingalways99
OP3 years agoI google them and there is no one with that name that lives at that address. Or the address is not a real address based on Google search.
mam98031
·3 years agoDo you ask your buyer if they are at an address of a new built house? Google isn't always right. It took Google 2 or 3 years before they showed our address. GPS wouldn't pull up our address either.
I believe you said these are low $$ sales. If that is the case, why are you spending extra time on them by looking up their address? Seems a waste to me.
AS long as you ship to the address on the payment, you are protected as a seller.
How could this possibly benefit the buyer other than maybe feedback if the seller was quick about it.
lagarto_electronico
·3 years ago"How do you know they are fake names/addresses?"
(1) Address is a land fill.
(2) Address is a condemned building.
(3) Address is a freight-forwarding business.
(4) Address is repossessed home of a dead person.
(5) Address is a residential address operating as a freight-forwarding business.
(6) Address is incomplete.
(7) Buyer does not live at address and residents have never heard of buyer.
(8) Address burned down.
(9) Address is a nursing home.
(10) Address is a Burger King, McDonalds, etc.
Do I need to go on?
As to why someone would do it.
Let us say a guy in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, France, etc bought a US eBay account in good standing off the dark web. He has his VPN set up so that it displays the location of the account. First, he wants to test that it is working with a little bit of activity. After he's satisfied he can use the account, he will then be involved in any number of fraudulent activities and abuses. Probably best if I don't explain exactly how he would do those things, but you should get the picture.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoIf I buy something from you, and pay, but give you a "fake" shipping address, what's the advantage in this for me?
And BTW, feedback is optional, feel free to not leave any for your buyers.
fastshippingalways99
OP3 years agoI guess if you are involved in stolen credit cards and you purchase a 99 cent item to see if the card works? That’s the only idea that makes sense to me.
mam98031
·3 years agoThe Money Processing system is highly likely to catch that.
rugerskick
·3 years agoThe fake address is a friends address (ie someone else is in on the scam) but that address is not associated with the "buyers" payment process, so they claim fraud. Seller ships item. Scammer buyer "has nothing to return" because it won't come to their address. They claim fraudulent use of their payment process, so they don't pay. Get the item for free.