Bots winning items?

[lagarto_electronico]

In the last few months I've had experiences with old, resurrected eBay accounts winning items from me, and not communicating or paying.

These accounts feature incomplete or invalid addresses and often belong to people who are now deceased.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Anyone have any insight into what the purpose of this type of fraudulent activity is?

Could this be some type of security penetration testing by cyber-criminals?

[mam98031]

How do you know they are deceased?

Buyers often have long periods of time between purchases.  

All I can say is make sure you report each buyer.  Link below.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/resolving-buyer-issues/reporting-issue-buyer?id=4084

Also when you file the cancellation for non payment, that account gets a payment strike.  So if you have your buyer requirements under your Site Preferences set to the strictest possible, buyers with 2 or more strikes in the past 12 months, they will soon be blocked.

[lagarto_electronico]

---

@mam98031 wrote:

How do you know they are deceased?

Buyers often have long periods of time between purchases.  

Let me get this straight. Instead of answering my question with some kind of insight, you instead assume I am not intelligent enough to know whether a person is dead or alive.  Thanks!

As your goal seems to be to end the discussion here, I'll respond in kind.

(1) Do you know what an online obituary is?

(2) Do you know what a landfill is?

(3) Did you know that people don't live in landfills and cannot accept mail there?

(4) Do you know that old user accounts are available due to data breaches and password spraying incidents?

Why would you assume that I don't know how to block buyers after being on eBay for 20 years?

There is no point reporting them, there are thousands on the site.  However, I do block them.

I'm sure you were just trying to be helpful and that the purpose of your response was not aimed solely to undermine the basis of the thread and mock a total stranger. You are too intelligent for that.

[pargran3]

Sometimes trying to help will get you slammed,

I really have no experience whatsoever regarding what the op is  talking about . Dead people bidding on a 25 cent item? 

Beats me.

Radine

[itsjustasprain]

---

@lagarto_electronico wrote:
I'm sure you were just trying to be helpful and that the purpose of your response was not aimed solely to undermine the basis of the thread and mock a total stranger. You are too intelligent for that.

If you are sure of something that the rest of us already knew all along then what was the point of that whole tirade? 

If you have an unpaid item then just cancel it once the necessary time has passed. There is no point in investigating the buyer address - especially if they have not paid yet because the address you see at that time is simply the one that they signed on to Ebay with. If you have not been paid yet then you do not have the shipping address and that is the one that counts.

Similarly it does not matter what the name on the account is. Anyone at that address might be using the same account. The address is all that matters and you need to get paid first before the address will be shown to you.

There is no fraudulent activity involved in winning or buying something and not paying for it. You did not get any fake payment notifications from what you have said here. You simply had auctions won or items purchased but not paid for. That happens every day.

[chapeau-noir]

@lagarto_electronico   They may be hijacked accounts - just like email addresses, you can buy eBay accounts online.  eBay is trying to head this kind of thing off but obviously there's no way to completely accomplish this.

[reallynicestamps]

You seem to have had enough experience in selling to know what you want for your items.

You can avoid this problem by abandoning auctions entirely and, like 85% of sellers, move to Fixed Price.

Then add Immediate Payment Required.

Your listing will stay visible and live for 30 days or until someone pays for it.

And enable the automatic Block on bidders with Strikes for non-payment. 

For the good of the seller community, I hope you have been filing Unpaid Item Disputes and hitting those deadbeats with Strikes.

EBay is now doing this automatically, you opt in from the Sell Your Item form. If any transaction goes Unpaid for 96 hours, it is automatically cancelled and the deadbeat gets his Strike. He cannot leave feedback either.

Anyone have any insight into what the purpose of this type of fraudulent activity is?

Personally, I think it's stupid people.

They see  a set of speakers for 99c and try to buy it. When they don't win it immediately, they wander off and forget it.

Maybe they buy elsewhere, from a Fixed Price listing, or maybe they see a squirrel.

Or they get outbid by someone who bid $20 but instead wins at $1.00 because there was only one underbidder.

Who knows?

It's also possible that the bidder is testing that the You Tube  tips on how to get eBay items for free actually work.

If you like the thrill of haggling with customers, use Fixed Price and allow Best Offers.

At least your offers will come from living people.

[lagarto_electronico]

---

@pargran3 wrote:

Sometimes trying to help will get you slammed,

---

Except that he wasn't trying to help and he wasn't attacked. 

Neither are you being helpful or civil with your "beats me" reply to a crafty straw-man summery of my original post. Nowhere did I say actual dead people were bidding on items.

You literally just responded to say that you don't know and don't find my assertion credible on an emotional basis after assuming every item that I have ever sold on eBay for 20 years was valued at no more than 25 cents. That is not gold star detective work there.

Here's an example.

In one instance, a buyer won an auction for an $80 collectable item. The account holder was a 60+ year old woman once living at an address in Central Florida. The problem is the woman had died of cancer in hospice in Miami. Her house had been demolished a year prior and she had not lived there for four years. What used to be her address was a vacant lot.  A simple Google search turned up her obituary and the status of the property associated with the shipping address. 

I contacted eBay and was able to convince the Trust and Safety team to look at how the user was accessing the site. According to them, the user manipulating this account gave himself away by accidentally logging into eBay outside of his VPN, revealing his IP address and MAC address were located in South America. They were also able to tell he had got into many different accounts and had won and not paid for several items with all of these accounts. Normally, they don't reveal anything they find in their investigations but this was an exception. In this instance the account was removed. Now I just block these types of bidders.

I'm just curious as to why someone would hack into old accounts then just spam random auctions.
Instead of offering insights, people are chiming in to rudely imply that I'm mistaken and don't know how to use eBay. 

These are not extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof. These are basic claims that can be taken at face value.  Asking me how I know if someone is dead? Seriously?

[lagarto_electronico]

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

@lagarto_electronico   They may be hijacked accounts - just like email addresses, you can buy eBay accounts online.  eBay is trying to head this kind of thing off but obviously there's no way to completely accomplish this.

---

Right. I appreciate that you acknowledge these realities.

What I don't understand is why anyone would do this.  It almost looks like someone has a bot farm that is getting into user accounts and then just randomly winning items. It is really weird.

Not saying that is what is going on. Just saying it almost looks that way.

The troubling thing is that when they win these items they may then get the information from the seller that could enable them to impersonate the seller. I'm not sure if they get the seller's details without paying though.

[itsjustasprain]

---

@lagarto_electronico wrote:
In one instance, a buyer won an auction for an $80 collectable item. The account holder was a 60+ year old woman once living at an address in Central Florida. The problem is the woman had died of cancer in hospice in Miami. Her house had been demolished a year prior and she had not lived there for four years. What used to be her address was a vacant lot.  A simple Google search turned up her obituary and the status of the property associated with the shipping address. 

If you were not paid then that was not the shipping address. That was the address given to Ebay when the account was created years ago. If someone is using the account it is most likely someone else in the family.

All that theorizing does not matter if the purchase is not paid for as you will only be shipping to the address you receive with the payment when you get paid - if you are not paid then of course you will not be shipping anywhere.

THAT address received with the payment will most likely be valid because the person paying you for it does of course want to receive it. If the item is not paid for in 4 days then just cancel and move on.

[itsjustasprain]

---

@lagarto_electronico wrote:
The troubling thing is that when they win these items they may then get the information from the seller that could enable them to impersonate the seller. I'm not sure if they get the seller's details without paying though.

---

The only extra detail a buyer gets about a seller by winning an item is the return address on the package.

[mam98031]

---

@lagarto_electronico wrote:

---

@mam98031 wrote:

How do you know they are deceased?

Buyers often have long periods of time between purchases.  

Let me get this straight. Instead of answering my question with some kind of insight, you instead assume I am not intelligent enough to know whether a person is dead or alive.  Thanks!

As your goal seems to be to end the discussion here, I'll respond in kind.

(1) Do you know what an online obituary is?

(2) Do you know what a landfill is?

(3) Did you know that people don't live in landfills and cannot accept mail there?

(4) Do you know that old user accounts are available due to data breaches and password spraying incidents?

Why would you assume that I don't know how to block buyers after being on eBay for 20 years?

There is no point reporting them, there are thousands on the site.  However, I do block them.

I'm sure you were just trying to be helpful and that the purpose of your response was not aimed solely to undermine the basis of the thread and mock a total stranger. You are too intelligent for that.

---

Boy talk about reading between the lines !!!  You turn a simple question into something like an declaration of war or an assault.

Clearly you are one that does not like to answer questions.  You prefer to attack instead.  You ASSUME WAY TOO MUCH!!  That may be how you lead your life, it isn't how I lead mine.  

[mam98031]

---

@lagarto_electronico wrote:

---

@pargran3 wrote:

Sometimes trying to help will get you slammed,

---

Except that he wasn't trying to help and he wasn't attacked. 

Neither are you being helpful or civil with your "beats me" reply to a crafty straw-man summery of my original post. Nowhere did I say actual dead people were bidding on items.

You literally just responded to say that you don't know and don't find my assertion credible on an emotional basis after assuming every item that I have ever sold on eBay for 20 years was valued at no more than 25 cents. That is not gold star detective work there.

Here's an example.

In one instance, a buyer won an auction for an $80 collectable item. The account holder was a 60+ year old woman once living at an address in Central Florida. The problem is the woman had died of cancer in hospice in Miami. Her house had been demolished a year prior and she had not lived there for four years. What used to be her address was a vacant lot.  A simple Google search turned up her obituary and the status of the property associated with the shipping address. 

I contacted eBay and was able to convince the Trust and Safety team to look at how the user was accessing the site. According to them, the user manipulating this account gave himself away by accidentally logging into eBay outside of his VPN, revealing his IP address and MAC address were located in South America. They were also able to tell he had got into many different accounts and had won and not paid for several items with all of these accounts. Normally, they don't reveal anything they find in their investigations but this was an exception. In this instance the account was removed. Now I just block these types of bidders.

I'm just curious as to why someone would hack into old accounts then just spam random auctions.
Instead of offering insights, people are chiming in to rudely imply that I'm mistaken and don't know how to use eBay. 

These are not extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof. These are basic claims that can be taken at face value.  Asking me how I know if someone is dead? Seriously?

---

Except you don't know that as a fact.  You ASSUMED that because you didn't like the question or don't like to be questioned, whichever it may be.  And yes you attacked because I asked a question.  I was willing to try and help if I can, but you chose to make my post something it was not.

[slippinjimmy]

I have that deja vu feeling........

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Buyer-is-using-account-of-dead-person-and-sold-house/td-p/3174...

[mam98031]

---

@slippinjimmy wrote:

I have that deja vu feeling........

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Buyer-is-using-account-of-dead-person-and-sold-house/td-p/3174...

---

@slippinjimmy 

Oh that is interesting.  His posting choices are about the same too.