Attempted scam - how do I report?

[trme_3326]

I posted a high value item today and within minutes was contacted by a buyer asking to pay the pay now price and even a tad more for rushed shipping. He also asked if PayPal was ok and essentially wanted to take the item off eBay. No go. Anyway, since it is not an actual transaction and won’t be, can I still alert eBay? I did also do some googling and it looks like the same “buyer” has been using very similar email addresses for years on here and almost identical messaging to others. 

[ebooksdiva]

It’s good you knew not to take the transaction off eBay.To  protect yourself from scammy buyers, I would only list the camera with a Buy It Now price you’d be happy with and Immediate Payment Required. Auctions for items of that value are like an open invitation for scammers. 
Make sure to add that buyers eBay ID to your blocked buyer list. 
Block Buyers  

[slippinjimmy]

Scammers have scripts just like customer service, the scripts that work get circulated so similar don't necessarily mean the same person.

In any event there is no way to report a userr until they actually become a buyer.

You should decide on a firm price for the camera, list as Fixed price with Immediate Payment Required. This will eliminate  most (not all) scam attempts. The scammers love Auctions and/or Best Offer.

[trme_3326]

Thank you! New to eBay so I had no idea you can list just buy it now only. That is incredibly helpful! Does eBay care about attempted fraudulent transactions or only if it goes through?

[slippinjimmy]

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@trme_3326 wrote:

Thank you! New to eBay so I had no idea you can list just buy it now only. That is incredibly helpful! Does eBay care about attempted fraudulent transactions or only if it goes through?

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They care absolutely, the problem is that when eBay was allowing random user (including sellers) to report other users without a transaction some users would willy nilly report people for imagined slights, to harass competitors or just for kicks.

[slippinjimmy]

Forgot to add.....if you have received any emails from these people you can forward them to spoof@ebay.com

[ebooksdiva]

Read this Abusive Buyer Policy  

You can find a quite a bit of good info in Help & contact top of any page in eBay.

Good luck.

[janet9988]

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@trme_3326 wrote:

Thank you! New to eBay so I had no idea you can list just buy it now only. That is incredibly helpful! Does eBay care about attempted fraudulent transactions or only if it goes through?

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Technically, they only care if ebay does not get the fees from the sale.

If ebay really cared they would have an easy way to report those messages and we could get fast results.

  If that scammer were to actually win the item you would still have to wait 4 full days before you could report them as a non payer. A Ebay has no way to report the buyer as a scammer .

[caldreamer]

Scammers target new sellers or anyone selling "high value items".    Also be aware that anyone can "reverse payment" after they receive your item.

[rugerskick]

Yes, alert ebay.  Make sure they know who they are.  If anything was said in ebay messages they can review it.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Please forgive my bluntness: I say this out of concern, the same thing i tell loved ones who want to sell here.—As you did not know one of the basic facts, that one can list at a fixed price, then you need more preparation before you sell here. My advice is to remove your high dollar listing for the time being, and instead list a few less expensive items to get a feel for the platform. Have you ever purchased anything on eBay before? If not, i urge you to do that as well.

The learning curve for sellers on eBay is steep, with numerous policies and procedures to know. In addition, there are a dozen ways for a new seller (with a quite expensive item in a high-fraud category) to get scammed. If you do not know the numerous rules here, then you are not prepared to weather the storms yet. You need to know as much about eBay as the scammers do, or you can easily lose both the camera and the funds from the sale of it.

Not trying to dissuade you from selling here—i love being a seller on eBay. Have found some success, even at higher price points. In over a decade, have never been scammed as a seller, or had a case opened against me. But i was a buyer for 5 years before listing my first item, and have been a cautious seller since.

Let me emphasize that the place is not made up solely of scammers, despite what some may read here in the forums. But scammers are a fact of life, shrinkage is a retailing expense, and one needs to be prepared for such. So save your camera for when you have some experience selling on eBay, and some feedback built up, so you are not as enticing  a target.

Good luck to you, and wish you much success. Please come to the forum with any questions or concerns, anytime.

[albertabrightalberta]

@trme_3326 

If and when you relist the camera with a BIN/IPR, please take lots of your own clear and definitive pictures of the actual item and write a detailed description. 

This is helpful to both you and your buyers. 

For your buyers: It shows them that you have the item in your possession and they can see exactly what they're getting. 

For you: It shows credibility and that you care enough to take the time to prepare a good listing.

Although buyers can file NAD (not as described) disputes any time and get refunds, if the buyer claims that the item received is not what is shown in the listing, you have no way to prove otherwise since you aren't showing the actual item.

[rosachs]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

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@trme_3326 wrote:

Thank you! New to eBay so I had no idea you can list just buy it now only. That is incredibly helpful! Does eBay care about attempted fraudulent transactions or only if it goes through?

---

They care absolutely, the problem is that when eBay was allowing random user (including sellers) to report other users without a transaction some users would willy nilly report people for imagined slights, to harass competitors or just for kicks.

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There is a method to report scams of this nature.  I've seen it on the "report a buyer" page (they really need to make that process easier and more inclusive, but that's another topic), but I normally report these kinds of buyers via the Chat option for Customer Service.  It's usually a short chat - I let the CSR know that I received a request to take a purchase off-site, give them the memberID, and they take care of it.  Don't know what they do, not sure I really care.  I've already got that ID on my BBL by that time, so once I let eBay know the buyer needs educating, I'm on to the next real customer.  🙂

I've also used this to report "members" who want to send me info and sign me up to sell their carp.... and they'll even ship it for me!!  Yeah... right.  I may have been born at night, but not last night.  Don't see them much anymore... except in my direct email.  Even the spam filtering at my ISP can't catch them all I guess.

-Bob.

[rosachs]

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

Let me emphasize that the place is not made up solely of scammers, despite what some may read here in the forums. But scammers are a fact of life, shrinkage is a retailing expense, and one needs to be prepared for such. So save your camera for when you have some experience selling on eBay, and some feedback built up, so you are not as enticing  a target.

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In general, the forums are used for two basic things:  to converse with like-minded/like-interested people, or to complain about some perceived/actual wrong that was done to them.

I've been on discussion boards for a very long time - even wrote (programmed) one as a class project in college in 1976-77 freshman year.  People either get together in groups to share common interests and likes, or they are complaining about something.

One other interesting fact about discussion boards that I didn't realize until 2004 in New Orleans (eBay Live! event) -- there are a LOT more readers than there are posters.  I had people repeatedly commenting that they had read a lot of my posts on the boards (which, I think, tends to indicate masochistic tendencies) and how I'd helped them with this or that.  Very interesting and somewhat embarrassing, depending on how effusive they were with their comments.  🙂

-Bob.

[reallynicestamps]

—As you did not know one of the basic facts, that one can list at a fixed price, then you need more preparation before you sell here.

Exactly.

Tough love  is sometimes hard to hear but good to have.

My Tough Love would be --Have you registered for a Managed Payments account? If not, don't try to sell without it because eBay has no way of transferring payment to your bank without the account.

You need to give eBay your SSN and access to a checking account in your own country. You may also be asked for secondary identification. I used my passport and DH used his driving license.

It is very very dumb of eBay to allow listings to upload before the seller has set up a way to get paid.

You should also know that all new sellers have customer payments Held for 30 days as a  Buyer Protection.

And that you can buy shipping labels from those Held funds.

And that buying the label is a pretty good way of confirming that there really  is a Pending payment being Held and you are safe to ship.