Item I bought, still own, posted for sale

[stevescho]

I won a fairly active auction for an expensive artistic fly fishing reel. 6 weeks later,  a new seller with no sales listed it with the same pictures and description. He didn't respond to my message, I reported it as fraudulent, and it was removed and seller deregistered the next day. But how can this be? Is it really so easy to copy and list items you don't have? What could possibly be delivered except an empty box?

[lakefor94]

Ebayers can pull up sold listings and copy those listings.

Seller was probably previously booted off the site at an earlier date, then created a new account but the eBay bots caught it and deleted the account.

And new sellers come to boards here daily wondering how in the world eBay can justify payment holds for new and infrequent sellers.

[buyselljack2016]

 What could possibly be delivered except an empty box?

-------------------------------------------------

Almost anything, or nothing.

A scammer could send something else, or nothing.

They could send something to another address at the same zip.

They hope to "get the money and run" before the buyer can figure out what to do.

[ittybitnot]

Is it really so easy to copy and list items you don't have? 

@stevescho 

Yes.  Anyone can lift photos from the net.  Any photos or description posted to eBay are free for anyone to use to make a listing on eBay as well. It used to be against policy, but no longer is a violation to snag eBay photos.  

 What could possibly be delivered except an empty box?

Typically the most effective plan for a seller of VAPOR (nothing) is to send a cheap parcel to the buyer's ziipcode.  Not shipped to the buyer's address of course, but to a local gas station, library, etc. instead. 

For example, a box of paper clips shipped to the local Walgreens instead of the laptop the buyer purchased is pretty easy to pull off.    That ploy works pretty well, since there is a record of "delivery" that satisfies eBay that the product was delivered ( aka fake tracking scam).  The eBay Money Back Guarantee does not work for a fake tracking scam very much at all, and it allows a protracted time frame for the scammer to get away with the subterfuge. 

There are plenty of posts about this just about every day here.   You will also find some that explain what to look for before you spend your money.  The first on he list is just about ALWAYS a price too good to be true.  

[mudshark61369]

@stevescho,

 "I reported it as fraudulent, and it was removed and seller deregistered the next day. But how can this be? Is it really so easy to copy and list items you don't have? What could possibly be delivered except an empty box"?

With millions of new listings being posted daily and new sellers joining every day, eBay has no way to vet each new listing or seller. That is why new sellers have a hold placed on their first few payments and a limit on how many items they can list at one time.

Usually, there are indications for scam listings, The price is either low for the item or sometimes too good to be true.  There may be a photo that has the seller's contact info in it.  An auction description may say bids will not be accepted, but the buy it now price is $X, and also outside ebay contact info.