to be a seller on eBay these days you need to develop a six sense or an extra skill. ebay's new Policys for buyers are attracting lots of unsavory characters. the buying as a guest does not require certain people to have an account setup like the old days, which in return it attracts shady transactions. stolen credit cards or false return claims and hackers. in the old days, members were required to have a paypal account or a bank account attached to ebay's account. for the most part kept everyone honest, and it would leave ebay something to trace back too.
not to mention, sellers emails and addresses and businesses information is now for grabs to any fraudulent organization looking to scam. you see, it takes very little for these people to get in. the horror stories I've experience and read and been told from friends in this field are so crazy!!.
we as a business are in the manufacturing field, for year now we been battleling a losing battle with counterfeiters from China and India. which copy our product and under value so harsh, which makes its very difficult to compete (but that's a whole other story). that being said, we been selling on ebay for many years now "have seen all types of scams", from false returns and receiving a box of rocks, broken lawn equipment or the scammers broken auto parts. we file claims and report and take pictures and video evidence, yet ebay does nothing to help the sellers. is like the refund department is being run by some type of bot (A.I) and as long as the return item shows a tracking number, the scammers get an automatic refund. just this week alone we had a buyer's claimed "item not received" and doing everything under sun to stop payment, yet, the address provided by the buyer is a empty field in the middle of nowhere lol, in this case there's a good chance we are getting payment or our item back, because we put a direct signature on the package (scammers hate signature packages), but it is not a full proof, there's a good chance ebay will rule in favor of the buyer.
we recently came across a group of international hackers scammers "yes, hackers", well you would say, how do you know they are hackers scammers?, the hacker wants to interact with you, making friendly messaging, asking questions about your items, but yet making unusual comments ( nothing strange there). the goal is to gain your trust. at some point in the transaction something strange will happen. address not deliverable to get you to click a link to see address, sends a video link or get you to send one back. whatever it is, they are trying to get some type of information on your computers. the scammer is the opposite, they don't want to interact with you, they rather deal with the ebay algorithm.. but there are strange things happening in the overall look of things, like multiple transactions for high dollar value from different accounts going to the same address. the international hacker scammer likes to use third party shipping company based in the US, then claim "item not received", the package is gone for months and probably sitting on a boat to god knows where. item shows deliver, but no proof of delivery.
at this point, they want ebay to step in, and mostly will be in favor of the buyer "is like a craps table" lol.
after seen the multiple transactions and doing some quick research, words like hacking ring start popping up,
sellers being ripped off in connection. it kind of gives you something to think about "go for it or don't"
the point of this post. is , be proactive. ebay is the best market place to sell goods. they spend a significant amount of effort$$ to reach a wider audience. but learning how to spot a scammer is a requirement for ebay sellers these days. scammers love small businesses and work from home accounts, and you would be Suprise how hand in hand counterfeiters and hackers are. everything is for grabs in this new generation.
