NEW BUYER RETURN SCAM - Ebay Knows About ( I Got Burned Once)

[lemonragstees]

Here's the scam...Buyer asks for a return, as a top rated seller ebay automatically send them a return label at my cost.  Buyer manually changes the address on the label back to their address and drops it in the mail.  Post Office scans it upon delivery but is shows as delivered to me (because of the barcode) which prompts ebay to send me a message to refund buyer as the package has been returned.

First time around I thought the post office lost the return or messed up.  I refunded buyer.  Second time around I looked at the tracking and it showed it was indeed delivered but back to the buyer.

I called ebay and they said they are aware of people doing this and to report buyer.  They closed the case in my favor but buyer is still active.

BEWARE!!!

[stuff4divas]

Well, for any scammer that didn't know about this, they know now, BEWARE!

[sextons-sweet-deals]

you are correct! I was burned by the same issue! Buyer even refused to provide photos of damage!

The problem is eBay refuses to provide the seller the tracking number. 

Wake up eBay! I have a bad feeling things are just going to worse and there will be another CEO change. Seems to be a revolving door in the past 3+ years.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

the issue is that eBay does not act! They know about the issue! 

They rely on us true sellers to post the issues and then they decide which issues to address or ignore.

The true fix is that the buyers ships back at their cost and tracking is provided to seller to track. That will cut down on the fraud / theft.

Their is more to the return process that can clean things up, but I'm not going to comment. 

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@lemonragstees 

So if I'm reading this right, the buyer takes your return label and physically changes only the address back to his crib, right? Then buyer takes this package with the doctored up Addy  and drops it in the mail, but the barcode still scans your ( seller) address, right? How is it going back to the buyer when it scans the correct address? The postal workers scan everything with a barcode, they don't have time to look at every label or am I mistaken and they do?

[simba6]

That is why eBay will never be more than a flea-market.  High value items involve far too much risk to buy or sell here.

[lemonragstees]

YES!!! I did this once as a seller.  I printed a label and buyer asked to change the address after I printed so I printed up the address only, taped it over the other address and shipped.  It took forever to get to the buyer but it did eventually get there.

It's shady AF.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

WAKE UP PEOPLE AND EBAY!

THE USPS IS ONLY GOING TO SCAN THE BAR CODE ON THE RETURN LABEL WHEN DELIVERED, BUT THEY ARE STILL ONLY PROCESSING THE PACKAGE BY ADDRESS. 

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@lemonragstees 

Thank you for clarification, pretty scary stuff to think anyone can do this. Wow!

[caldreamer]

Scammers will stop at nothing!   Professional scammers in USA got busted by Feds for multi million dollar Amazon scam.  They would abuse returns by claiming defective or lost (get free stuff) and resell it on EBAY.   Wouldn't be surprised if people on EBAY are doing the same thing (and reselling on Amazon).

[newlifeforoldstuff2]

The worst part is that the buyer is still active. 

[crazystuff4sale]

The criminals call this scam FTID or Fake Tracking ID.

They literally photoshop a different address onto the return label before printing.

The scam could quickly be put into extinction if the USPS offered a service where they would snap a photo of the package as it was being delivered.

If I was dealing with high value items I would pay an extra dollar for that service on an expensive item's return label.

[lemonragstees]

They said if he gets more complaints they will take action.  Funny thing is that the buyer never contacted me after the case was closed.  If he was "innocent" he would ask me what happened to his refund?

I almost thought about getting the post office involved because that is mail fraud but whatever, I got my money back.

[ncprog87]

Just curious - were there any tracking scans prior to the delivery scan?

[lemonragstees]

Yes.  The person was in San Diego. It showed USPS in possession of item, in transit, out for delivery and delivered.  All in San Diego and I am in Los Angeles.