eBay

johfische-98 · ‎10-10-2022

I have a buyer in St Thomas, Virgin Islands who has over bid by twenty dollars on a sixty dollar item. He also wants me to ship to his son in Missouri as a birthday gift. What I'm concerned about is that he also wants me to include a $300 Visa gift card in the package and he will add another fifty dollars for my inconvenience. He would be working through my Pay pal account. I'm just very dubious. Anyone had this happen? Can't get an eBay person on the phone.

squinkercat59 · ‎10-10-2022

Any time they want to involve a Visa gift card, it's a scam.

ittybitnot · ‎10-10-2022

@johfische-98

It is not "money laundering". What you have there is the typical "text me" scammer that plays their "cards" post sale. Newbie sellers are their prime target. If they are your winning bidder of record you can report them on site now in the dropdown for "trying to take the transaction off eBay" or something along those lines.

You are not going to get any money. You will get a fake payment notification saying you are paid and the funds will be released as soon as you forward a photo of the back of the visa gift card.

Sometime they "make offers" that you accept, sometimes they just send an eBay message to you, but the results are the same. These are criminals, not buyers. If eBay does not give them the boot due to your report, then on day 5 the option will appear to cancel due to non-payment.

You can search the board (all content) to get more detailed information and an idea of how widespread this problem actually is.

ckimodog · ‎10-10-2022

@johfische-98

One word...SCAM!!

We see this here on these boards daily. Ignore this person. Obviously they're not going to pay you through the Ebay platform. They'll send you a fake invoice from Paypal. Do not reply to this. You will be out the item and your cash as well.

Report this person as well.

house*of*paws · ‎10-10-2022

Hi @johfische-98

The ‘buyer’ is NOT a money launderer … but merely a scammer who has no intention of paying you anything.

They likely will send you a fake notification from PayPal that pretends you’ve been paid.

Stop communication with the scammer immediately. Cancel the order on Day 5 using ‘Buyer hasn’t paid’ as the reason.

I’m sorry you had to deal with this, but glad you came here to ask. 🙂

janet9988 · ‎10-10-2022

@johfische-98 wrote:
I have a buyer in St Thomas, Virgin Islands who has over bid by twenty dollars on a sixty dollar item. He also wants me to ship to his son in Missouri as a birthday gift. What I'm concerned about is that he also wants me to include a $300 Visa gift card in the package and he will add another fifty dollars for my inconvenience. He would be working through my Pay pal account. I'm just very dubious. Anyone had this happen? Can't get an eBay person on the phone.

Ebay has policies in place for a reason.

First is the outside ebay personal contact information sharing. That protects both buyers and sellers from scam..so never communicate outside of ebay until the item has been paid for ON ebay.

Secondly, It is a huge policy violation to sell ADDITIONAL items out side of ebay using contact information such as paypal. You can get permanently banned for attempting to sell that gift card.

Also, sellers can NOT accept payments for items via Paypal.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/ebay-fee-avoidance-poli...

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behavior-policies/membertomember-contact-policy?id=4262&st...

Lift your left leg at midnight to start off on the right foot. Happy new Year!

mike_jayroe · ‎10-10-2022

I HAD A SIMIAR EXPERIENCE THE FIRST WEEK ON E-BAY. I have only one comment..

FRAUD.

This jerk claimed he was a Marine and could pay now. Wanted to ship it to a cousin in Georgia and asked to include a $400.00 dollar gift card. I reported him to E-bay and they kicked him off the site.