18 Weird & Suspicious Sales and Counting...

[somanypcs]

On November 30 I listed 4 different floral postcards with multiple quantities each.  So far 18 of these have sold to 18 different new eBay buyers with most having 0 feedback and a few having 2 feedback.  The eBay buyer name of the payer is different from the PayPal payer name.  The same PayPal payer for 3 of the postcards shows the 3 eBay seller IDs as eBay shows in parenthesis after the PayPal name.  So in 48 hours eBay has 18 new accounts with the eBay buyer name different from the PayPal payer name.  Should eBay be worried?

While I was on the phone with eBay customer support 3 of these sales happened.  However the rep said this was "normal" and new buyers could have someone else pay for them.  Even though I almost never get a new buyer and all my previous new buyers paid on PayPal, it seems strange that I would get a large number of new buyers in 48 hours, none of whom paid for their item on PayPal but used 6 other payees.  Is this happening to any other sellers?

[eburtonlab]

I suppose there could be an innocent explanation, but it certainly sounds suspicious. Like someone building up feedback or testing something. A low cost postcard might be a cheap way to see if a transaction goes through.

I would consider bookmarking the profile or feedback page of each of those accounts and checking to see if those accounts start listing multiple quantities of common scam items, or to see if they give or receive additional feedback from common sources with similar feedback numbers, or if they suddenly are no longer registered.

There is not really a good way to report a suspicious buyer account (or a group), but if those accounts are used to sell, that can be reported.

Many of the most recent scam accounts I have been seeing lately have no feedback at all, or else only have feedback for selling multiples of a single item. Perhaps this is an attempt to branch out.

[sin-n-dex]

A postcard is not a high scam item, so I wouldn't worry about them scamming you.

However the previous poster made a good point about building up feedback to be more "trustworthy" to sell items. If they are high scam items, then this is nefarious. 

But my partner went on a shopping spree and bought 100 different items (coins and banknotes mostly, and other things we thought would be good to buy) so that when he listed my tokens on his account he wouldn't be laden with scam artists who think it's a brand new account. This actually worked and we haven't been scammed.

C.

[somanypcs]

I'm wondering if the PayPal payees (5 that I know of) are creating the 18 new eBay accounts.  For instance, one PayPal payee paid for 6 different eBay purchases, and 5 of these 6 accounts had the last name appearing before the first name on the eBay account and the Ship to: address on the invoice and on PayPal.  The 6th account had a middle initial, and the name appeared in the proper order of first name, middle initial, last name.  Hopefully these 18 new accounts are genuine.  I'll keep mailing the purchases...

[jen_768395]

It could be someone buying with guest accounts

[somanypcs]

Today, December 4, 2020, I had 4 more suspicious sales within 8 minutes of the same $1.00 postcard to 4 new users with new accounts, 2 with 0 feedback and 2 with 1 feedback.  All were paid for on PayPal by different payers but showing the eBay user IDs of the eBay buyers.  Three of the PayPal payers have paid for some of the other suspicious sales mentioned above.  The two eBay buyers with 0 feedback were NOT registered users on eBay, so I went to my mail mailbox and removed the letters.  Now I'm not sure if eBay will refund these 2 payments or if I should refund them through PayPal.  If eBay refunds to the eBay buyer, then the refund won't be going to the PayPal payer.  Is this happening to anyone else?

[sin-n-dex]

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@somanypcs wrote:

Today, December 4, 2020, I had 4 more suspicious sales within 8 minutes of the same $1.00 postcard to 4 new users with new accounts, 2 with 0 feedback and 2 with 1 feedback.  All were paid for on PayPal by different payers but showing the eBay user IDs of the eBay buyers.  Three of the PayPal payers have paid for some of the other suspicious sales mentioned above.  The two eBay buyers with 0 feedback were NOT registered users on eBay, so I went to my mail mailbox and removed the letters.  Now I'm not sure if eBay will refund these 2 payments or if I should refund them through PayPal.  If eBay refunds to the eBay buyer, then the refund won't be going to the PayPal payer.  Is this happening to anyone else?

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I think you need to contact Trust & Safety and let them investigate this.

C.

[somanypcs]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@somanypcs wrote:

Today, December 4, 2020, I had 4 more suspicious sales within 8 minutes of the same $1.00 postcard to 4 new users with new accounts, 2 with 0 feedback and 2 with 1 feedback.  All were paid for on PayPal by different payers but showing the eBay user IDs of the eBay buyers.  Three of the PayPal payers have paid for some of the other suspicious sales mentioned above.  The two eBay buyers with 0 feedback were NOT registered users on eBay, so I went to my mail mailbox and removed the letters.  Now I'm not sure if eBay will refund these 2 payments or if I should refund them through PayPal.  If eBay refunds to the eBay buyer, then the refund won't be going to the PayPal payer.  Is this happening to anyone else?

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I think you need to contact Trust & Safety and let them investigate this.

C.

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Easier said than done.  How do I contact Trust & Safety?  I was going to report the suspicious sales when some first occurred on Dec. 1st, but there was a list of reasons from which to select one, and none applied.   Today I went to the Security Center, When You're Buying or Selling, and clicked on the closest choice:  Avoiding payment problems for items you've sold.  In the section titled "How to avoid scams and fraudulent payments" it says:  We want eBay to be a safe marketplace for all our members, so if you see something unusual or suspicious, please let us know."  That takes me to Report a buyer.  I do NOT want to report a buyer.  I want to report suspicious activity.

[kateinthe26th]

Where are you shipping them to? Are they all going to the same address or same state?

[somanypcs]

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@kateinthe26th wrote:

Where are you shipping them to? Are they all going to the same address or same state?

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All the new eBay buyers have unique addresses.  The first 14 sales went to CA -2, CO, FL, GA, MI, NY, OH -2, OK, OR, PA, RI, and VA.  No feedback yet for the 6 postcards mailed on Dec. 1st.

[reallynicestamps]

Guest buyers generate a new temporary ID with each purchase.

Were all the cards paid from the same account?

Also I have been a member since 1995. I have several accounts and two different PP accounts. Heck for the 52 years we have been married DH and I have had different names.

Since you have multiples of identical cards, I presume they are unused?

Floral postcards would make cute invitations to a party or a wedding. Or as RSVP cards for a wedding.

Or an art project.

none of whom paid for their item on PayPal but used 6 other payees.

Do you mean you have a Managed Payment account and got paid by various credit cards or ApplePay or GooglePay?

[slowturtlesrun]

I would be very suspicious, seems like they are testing with purchasing from you. I agree with: "eburtonlab" response of 12-02-2020  "...but it certainly sounds suspicious. Like someone building up feedback or testing something. A low cost postcard might be a cheap way to see if a transaction goes through."  To me it seems to be a Shell-Game, building up an account that seems bonified then they scam and they know sellers are unable to do Private Investigator type work on every sale to determine if they are legit.

When I started selling and everyone starts with zero feedback,  the scammers figured I was a good naive target. They messaged me their phone number with "text me, have questions" or another offered $10 higher price. What I saw was the area code was California but the Ship address was Florida.  So "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck --it is a duck". After my experience, I decided I will not sell to a person with an account under one year.  Also, agreed that reporting scam buyers is very, very difficult, I spent days with  Agents in Chat  most didn't understand and instead thumped out contact outside of eBay is not allowed. The Agents didn't know how to cancel a fraud purchase that yet did not pay and I never found any info on eBay advising what and how to proceed in such a case, do I just re-list and eBay still counts these items as sold! 

[kateinthe26th]

First thought that came to my mind was that you were being used as a drop shipper.....someone advertises your product on their site at a higher price and when it gets sold they send the order through to you for you to ship out. That was why i was curious as to the delivery locations.

If they were doing that they wouldn't need multiple accounts though. They usually ask you to mail with NO paperwork included when they are using you to drop ship.

You mentioned 2 of the new accounts are now no longer registered on Ebay....that's not good, that's a big red flag. Keep a note of those 2 'ship to' addresses as you might get those orders duplicated again from one of the other suspicious accounts.

Have you messaged any of these 'buyers'? Did you get any replies?

[somanypcs]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Guest buyers generate a new temporary ID with each purchase.

Were all the cards paid from the same account?

Also I have been a member since 1995. I have several accounts and two different PP accounts. Heck for the 52 years we have been married DH and I have had different names.

Since you have multiples of identical cards, I presume they are unused?

Floral postcards would make cute invitations to a party or a wedding. Or as RSVP cards for a wedding.

Or an art project.

none of whom paid for their item on PayPal but used 6 other payees.

Do you mean you have a Managed Payment account and got paid by various credit cards or ApplePay or GooglePay?

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I am not in Managed Payments.  All payments were made as PayPal payments.  In all 28 postcards were sold from Dec. 1st - Dec. 4th to 27 different new eBay accounts that did not exist in November.  They were paid for by 8 different people on PayPal, and each PayPal payment had one of the 27 eBay user IDs enclosed in parenthesis after the PayPal payer's name.  For instance one of these PayPal payers paid for 8 of the eBay purchases, so this PayPal payer's 8 entries on PayPal each had a different eBay user ID following each entry. 

[somanypcs · Accepted solution]

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@kateinthe26th wrote:

First thought that came to my mind was that you were being used as a drop shipper.....someone advertises your product on their site at a higher price and when it gets sold they send the order through to you for you to ship out. That was why i was curious as to the delivery locations.

If they were doing that they wouldn't need multiple accounts though. They usually ask you to mail with NO paperwork included when they are using you to drop ship.

You mentioned 2 of the new accounts are now no longer registered on Ebay....that's not good, that's a big red flag. Keep a note of those 2 'ship to' addresses as you might get those orders duplicated again from one of the other suspicious accounts.

Have you messaged any of these 'buyers'? Did you get any replies?

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Thanks for your thoughtful and informative comments.  The drop ship idea is interesting, but I got no requests to ship with no paperwork, so all the sales included invoices.  And there were 8 payers on PayPal for the 28 sales, but I have no idea if the PayPal payers have eBay accounts. 

I just checked all 27 eBay buyers, and when I click on their user ID, 24 are listed by eBay as "No longer a registered user."  When I go to the feedback profile these 24 say:  "Not a registered user."  Below it says:  "Member since:  Dec. 03, 2020 in U.S." or similar date.  This is a tad confusing, as I would think that someone who is not a registered user would also not be a member.

I called Customer Support twice and also sent 2 emails voicing my concerns, so it does seem that eBay has taken corrective action on 90% of the suspicious buyers, though three are still register users.  The 24 that are no longer registered users made 134 purchase, many from very large sellers with feedback in the high thousands.

eBay has only sent me two Suspicious Seller emails, even though my 2nd call to Customer Support was to report two different purchases by buyers that were not register users.