Reporting account takeover

[lilyflowertulip]

I am a very regular watcher of estate jewelry auctions on Ebay, and in the last year I have witnessed what I believe are fraudulent account takeovers at least a couple dozen times. It's always from different established ebay sellers, and at first the listings seem legit, but in the item pictures there's always a screen offering to sell the item off the ebay website (including screenshot below. The content is always the same, though the email sometimes changes). After a few hours the listings disappear. After I'd seen these listings a few times I got curious and emailed these people, acting like an interested buyer. Indeed, they are scammers. They want you to send them money and send you a fake ebay invoice (that actually looks pretty authentic, to the unwary.) This is infuriating to me that I'm witnessing the destruction of these seller's hard earned reputations, not to mention the poor people who obviously fall for this. I do what I can and report the listings, but what I really need to be able to do is report to Ebay that there has been an account takeover. Is that something that I can do, when it isn't my account?

[alcoforever]

That particular seller, and another being used by the same scammer, are the subject of another thread here that was started a few hours ago.   Several of us have reported individual listings but, as far as I know, nobody has reported the sellers.   You would have to contact CS, preferably Trust & Safety, to report the sellers.

[alcoforever]

I was able to get thru to CS and reported both sellers.   We shall see what happens now.

Two of the items are:  124561493330  and 184651996529 

[lilyflowertulip]

Well at least I'm not the only one reporting these listings, I guess. I went ahead and messaged the seller, letting them know their account had been hacked, just in case they were still able to get Ebay messages. Probably not, though. I'll look into customer service. I'll admit I was hoping there might be a way to report without the lengthy customer service route, because unfortunately I'm seeing these scum on a regular basis. 😞

[lilyflowertulip]

Oh, that was pretty quick. Did you have to contact them over the phone or were you able to send a message? 

[alcoforever · Accepted solution]

I got a call back from CS within a minute, gave him the info, but then he wanted me to use the report a seller function.

Finding that function is not obvious.   Click on Help & Contact, then in the search bar type "report"; do not press enter or click on anything.  A blue button will pop up that says Report a seller.  Click on that and follow the prompts.

[alcoforever]

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@lilyflowertulip wrote:

Oh, that was pretty quick. Did you have to contact them over the phone or were you able to send a message? 

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It was over the phone.

[lilyflowertulip]

Oh excellent, thank you!  I'm saving that and will use it from now on. What a relief that I'll be able to do something, at least! 

[mudshark61369]

@lilyflowertulip, @alcoforever ,

I just replied to another member who wanted to know how to report a listing with info to buy off ebay with the same username on the 2nd item number you posted.  The listing I had them report was Item # 184651990540. on page 2 of the 10K + listings they have up.  I used both the Report Item and Report Seller.

As alco wrote,

Start by clicking on Help and Contact

Use the search bar at the top of the page and type in Report.

Click on the Report a Seller blue button.

Next Page; check The seller has violated one of ebay's policies

Enter seller's Username only, do not add their feedback # in (  )

In the add additional details box;

Type in the policy being violated.

In this case offers to sell outside of ebay. 

Auctions have a Buy It Now list of prices and a link.  In the link personal info is requested Name,  email address, Streets address etc.

[releasethekraken_1]

This hijacker/scammer pops up once or twice a week. They list tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras, in addition to the other categories. At this point, I don't even have to open the listing to know it's them, but eBay can't or won't use a simple filter to catch and review the listings.

[youkyouno-0]

I would like to contact the seller on ebay. Current sellers do not provide labels for returns. The seller gave me the first reply saying that it is not necessary to return the item. No answer since then.