08-03-2020 07:36 PM
There are a ton of fake sellers in the sort of stuff I tend to bid on but fortunately they're easy to spot by simply checking their histories.
To start with a history of twenty or less feedbacks is always a warning sign for me as, at least for the stuff I tend to buy, experienced sellers are the norm while new ones are the exception.
So I click on it and check out the history and since fake sellers are often lazy, I'll find that the feedback has been made by two to five accounts, each purchasing the same number of items and often the same actual item, usually within a very short time of each other and often leaving the same feedback or very short feedback - good seller, great deal or something else fast and easy to type.
That's definitely a fake seller.
Another thing to do is to check out the seller's entire inventory as many fake sellers will create an account and pad their reputation by selling cheap jewelry and stuffed animals for a few months to get legit feedback and then once they've got a few hundred real positive feedbacks, they add the very expensive stuff.
They do this because they are counting on the several hundred positive feedbacks to keep their seller rating high enough to survive the inevitable flood of negative hits they're going to get - if you have 1000 positive hits and then get 50 negative ones, that will keep you at 95% positive.
So look at the seller's inventory and if they're offering a $100 item but the rest of their stuff is $5 or less, then check their feedback and odds are that unless you're unlucky enough to be one of their first victims that you'll see several fake seller warnings.
Another fake seller trick is the mailing time - something shipped from your own country shouldn't take more than a week, maybe two if it is bulky or heavy, while something shipped from overseas normally takes no more than a month. If the seller is listing an estimated delivery date which is double the expected normal shipping time or longer then odds also are that you're dealing with a fake seller.
Even if none of these warning signs are present, make sure to check their feedback anyway as people will sometimes buy previously legit accounts and then use the good rating in the same way the ones selling the cheap stuff use a high rating to fool you - if you notice several complaints about items never being shipped/received then you're likely dealing with a fake seller.
So what do you do if you become the victim of one?
Always make sure to provide negative feedback the second it becomes obvious that you've been scammed, usually due to the seller refusing to provide a tracking number, the tracking number not showing any movement or the tracking number coming up as not being valid when you manually plug it into a tracking number program.
This not only helps to protect other buyers but when a seller gets too much negative feedback eBay will often times shut the seller down and getting a refund becomes far faster and easier.
Next, file a complaint with eBay or Paypal - I prefer Paypal as I've come to find that they are far faster about doing refunds.
Some scammers will try to provide the fake tracking number to eBay/Paypal so as soon as you see that they have, make sure to CALL customer service and have the person you talk to run the tracking number so they can see that it is fake.
Hold times are a bit long these days thanks to the quarantine but trust me, it is worth it to not only get your money back, but to ensure there's a black mark against this fake seller so as to help out future victims when they try to get a refund.
08-23-2020 06:36 AM
You see quite a few complaints from people who have been scammed by fake sellers. It seems that a lot of them buy without ever checking the seller's feedback profile or look at their other inventory. They need to look for more recent feedback as well because accounts can be hijacked. Then they don't check the tracking numbers or watch the status either if one is available. Prices too good to be true are another red flag. You can't buy a $200 item with free shipping for $25 either.
I saw several listings a few years back for Stained Glass Grinder kits that were normally in the $200 plus range. These enterprising fake sellers had stolen the complete listing information and pictures from the actual seller here on eBay. There were about 5 different listings all with different sellers with 5 items available in each. I knew when I saw those listings they were fake as I had purchased from that seller and alerted her to the ads. We reported them and eBay still didn't take those listings down
With eBay pulling sellers into their Managed Payments program I'm wondering if that will at least reduce the numbers of fake sellers as a verified bank account is required. They aren't making the international sellers (meaning Chinese) part of MP, but at least buyers still have the protections of using PayPal for their purchases.
08-23-2020 07:11 AM
When you buy a lot from China, you can expect problems. And FYI, Ebay accounts cannot be sold, and sellers are not required to furnish tracking,that doesnt make the seller a 'fake seller'.
08-23-2020 11:09 AM
@bonjourami wrote:When you buy a lot from China, you can expect problems. And FYI, Ebay accounts cannot be sold, and sellers are not required to furnish tracking,that doesnt make the seller a 'fake seller'.
Ebay doesn't allow them to be sold, but that doesn't mean they're not sold. There are forums where you can buy active Ebay accounts complete with stealth Paypal and bank accounts, it only takes a second to find them by searching online.
08-23-2020 01:23 PM
I'm not quite sure I follow what you mean by a Fake Seller. I would probably consider someone listing an item for sale but not having the item or intending to deliver the item purchased to be Fake Sellers. However, upon reviewing your past feedback left for others, I don't get the feeling that that is what you mean by the term. From some of the comments you left I get the impression that you use the term Fake for any seller that you deem a bad seller.
I noticed that some that you have deemed to be Fake Sellers have actually delivered the goods but that they were damaged when they arrived. Frankly, in my opinion, that doesn't indicate someone who is pretending to be a seller but is not one as the term Fake Seller implies.
08-24-2020 09:24 AM
Even though eBay doesn't allow eBay accounts to be sold it does happen. It's under their radar. Just curious what do you mean by a stealth PayPal and bank account?
08-24-2020 09:31 AM
The poster may have gone overboard with a few, however for the most part they were accurate in their labeling of fake sellers as most of them are no longer registered on eBay. The feedback associated with those accounts demonstrate they were scamming buyers.