More suspicious purchases - likely unauthorized use of buyer accounts

[somanypostcards]

Eleven days ago I reported 16 suspicious purchases.  I reported this to eBay's fraud department but never heard back.  In the past when I made similar reports eBay closed many of the accounts and/or sent me letters indicating eBay cancelled the sales due to the unauthorized use of buyers' accounts.

Today there were 11 suspicious purchases of $1.00 postcards made by 11 different buyers, all with low feedback ranging from 1 to 11, and all old accounts dating from 2012-2017.  All 11 purchases had a shipping address to ***.  There were 2 different recipients (buyer1 & buyer2), neither of which were the purchasers' names.  Buyer1 was also the recipient of 15 of the 16 suspicious purchases reported eleven days ago, so obviously eBay has taken no actions to block this suspicious recipient in ***.

I have 48 hours to decide whether to cancel these sales, which I am 99.9% certain involve fraud, or mail them since I got paid and eBay will penalize me if they are not mailed in a timely fashion.  Any suggestions?

[newtonfb19]

Did you ever get any resolution of this? I received a $300 sale last night from the same address in Oregon addressed to “Sum Bon1354” with the same phone number from your other thread. I suspected something was amiss, and when I googled the address I came across your threads.  I initially cancelled the order and reposted it, and the same user bought it again within minutes. Not sure where to go from here.

[gwzcomps]

@eburtonlab  I may know who those scammers are buying from after they verify the stolen cards 👀  The user ID may even rhyme with gwzcomps.  They may even be buying electronics like you guessed.

[gwzcomps]

@newtonfb19  The only option I am seeing at this point personally is to not sell the item or hope eBay has to foot the bill when the payment dispute happens.

[somanypostcards]

If I were you I would cancel the sale again using the reason that something was wrong with the buyer address and also block this user.  All of my suspicious sales had a recipient name different from the buyer name, and almost all of the few recipient names contained "Bon" or "BON."  I suggest you also report this suspicious purchase using a private message to eBay for Business support group on Facebook.

[gwzcomps]

The only problem is as sellers we are basically being forced to just permanently remove the items from the site.  Alternatively just keep canceling and relisting and losing money.

[somanypostcards]

6 more suspicious sales yesterday from long-time eBay accounts (2005-2012), but some with higher feedback scores (6-185), all being mailed to 6190 SW Arctic Dr (#HP694 or # or blank), BEAVERTON, OR 97005-9448 with the same bogus 11-digit phone # on all ship to address mentioned above which is different from any of the buyers' phone numbers.  All the buyers had feedback from dell. with 11 in the past month, 20 in the past 6 months, and 9 in the past year, accounting for over a third of the 116 feedbacks.  4 of the buyers had  total of 31 feedbacks from vipoutlet in the past year, accounting for half the feedbacks in the past year column.

I strongly believe ALL 6 buyer accounts have been hijacked, at least 5 of yesterday's buyer accounts for a year.  Unfortunately as a seller in Managed payments I do not even know how buyers pay, i.e. credit card and if so which one, PayPal,  or other method. and name and address of the payee.  I do not even know from the feedback what the buyer purchased or the date/time of purchase.  I do not know when looking at sellers' feedback, who bought what and when.  Only eBay is privy to all a transaction's detailed information.  eBay needs to do at least 3 things:

1. Verify that the eBay accounts have been hijacked. 

2. Track down the recipient(s) and prosecute them.

3. Notify sellers of the unauthorized use of buyers' accounts and the suspect shipping address and bogus recipient phone number.

To date I have reported 133 suspicious sales in less than a month (since 11/18/2021) and received NO additional information about their status from eBay.

[somanypostcards]

This afternoon I finally got an email from eBay titled "Unauthorized use of buyer account - Transaction(s) cancelled" for one of the 26 suspicious sales I reported on 12/6/2021.  It was obviously a form letter because the first paragraph says:  "We’re writing to let you know that we had to cancel the following transaction(s) because the item(s) were purchased without the account owner's permission:" item description.  Note:  I cancelled this transaction over a week ago, but at least eBay is confirming my suspicions and says "We're working with the account owner to prevent any additional unauthorized activity."  Hopefully eBay is also trying to track down the recipient who hijacked the account "to prevent any additional unauthorized activity."

[somanypostcards]

tyler@ebay 

Today I had 44 more suspicious purchase, all probably unauthorized use of the 44 buyers' accounts.   I have not researched all these purchases, but I did for 27 sales of the same $1.10 postcard.

7 of these 27 sales had a ship to address identical to the address on the only transaction of my previously reported 133 sales that eBay cancelled yesterday for "Unauthorized use of buyer account".

       BON694 694PhamHai, 6190 SW Arctic Dr #HP694, BEAVERTON, OR 97005-9448

The other 20 had nearly the same address (note "address" in front of street number):

       BON694 694PhamHai, address 6190 SW Arctic Dr #HP694, BEAVERTON, OR 97005-9448

And all 27 buyers showed the same 11-digit fake phone on the packing slips as mentioned in previous posts.

These 27 buyers had a total of 95 feedbacks, 70% from just 6 sellers.  15 buyers had feedback left by microsoft in the past month.  This appears to be a new target of the fraudsters.  30 feedbacks were left by dell, 4 in the past month and 26 in the past 6 months.   7 feedbacks were left by vipoutlet in the past 6 months.  9 feedbacks were left by smartresale in the past 6 months.  6 feedbacks were left be lenovo in the past 6 months.  These sellers have also left feedback for buyers of the 133 suspicious sales I previously reported.  They need to be notified of the significant number of  fraudulent purchases of their goods likely being made by the recipient(s) of the hijacked accounts.

I hope eBay is able to step in and prevent sales using an obviously faulty ship to contact phone number.  All of the 27 sales of the same item used this false phone number and the ship to address of a fraudulent sale.  They should have been blocked!

[downunder-61]

Huh, maybe the weekly chat actually achieved something for a change and you are being listened to finally.

Maybe also direct them to the link about the AZ customer who is being done for $300K fraud.

This is what I alway's wonder, if eBay does check these hi-jacked/fraudulent accounts, do they even attempt to report them any further or just sit happy that they are not on eBay anymore?

[somanypostcards]

Of the 44 suspicious purchases yesterday, I reported my research on 27 buyers yesterday.  Here are my findings on the other 17 buyers, all of whose accounts I am 99.9% sure have been hijacked.  ALL the purchases had ship to the same street address in Beaverton, OR 97005-9448 with minor variations such as:

1.  6190 SW Arctic Dr #HP695 (most common street address used)

2.  address 6190 SW Arctic Dr #HP695 (most people do NOT write address before a street number)

3.  address 6190 SW Arctic Dr #HPV  (First time I've seen HPV, usually its HP695)

4.  address 6190 SW Arctic Dr

        St. #HPV

5. address 6190 SW Arctic Dr (first time no suite or # follows street address)

14 of the packing slips had the faulty 11 digit "phone" # 50340639185.  However 3 of the packing slips had a different faulty 11 digit "phone" # 50340239335.  The other day when I used Whitepages to try to find the name and address of 1-503-406-3918 they replied:  "We have names for almost 500 million United States numbers (and we're adding more all the time), so it's impressive that you found one we don't have."

Researching the feedback of these 17 buyers, 14 buyers had feedback from dell with 10 feedbacks in the past month, 40 in the past 6 months, and 1 in the past year.  7 buyers had feedback from microsoft in the past month (a new fraudster target).  5 buyers had feedback from vipoutlet, 1 feedback in the past 6 months and 13 feedbacks in the past year.  5 buyers had feedback from lenovo, 1 in the past month, and 6 in the past 6 months.

[somanypostcards]

A new record was set today with 80 suspicious purchases on this selling ID and 4 on my other selling ID.  I haven't had time to research so many purchases, all by different buyers, but only 32 have the ship to address in BEAVERTON, OR.  Here are results of 28 sales of the identical postcard costing $1.10, all bought in less than 3 hours by 28 different buyers.  All but 1 are long term members with low feedback (0-8); one had 53 feedbacks but only 4 in the past year.  Every buyer with feedback had received feedback from dell in the past month or past 6 months.  Of the total of 95 feedbacks, 18 were from dell in the past month and 23 were from dell in the past 6 months, representing 43% of the total feedback and 60% of the 30 feedbacks in the past month.  10 feedbacks were from smartresale in the past 6 months.  If these buyer accounts have been hijacked, then dell in particular is experiencing a lot of suspicious sales.

eBay only has 3 reasons a seller can give for cancelling a sale:  Out of stock or damaged, Buyer asked to cancel, Issue with buyer's shipping address.  4 of the 28 buyers have the identical BEAVERTON, OR address with a recipient name different from the buyer name, so I have no problem selecting Issue with buyer's shipping address.  However, the other 24 buyers have names and addresses that appear real.  However the odds of these 24 different buyers ALL buying an identical item within a few hours is close to zero.  I know fraud is involved.  If my low price sale goes through the fraudster(s) then buy expensive items, such as Dell computers.  I wish eBay had a 4th reason a seller could use to cancel a sale, such as Other or Probable fraud.  I'm about to call Customer Support to see what reason I should use when I cancel today's 84 suspicious sales.

262 suspicious sales in less than a month and only 1 verified by eBay as "unauthorized use of buyer account."  This is getting expensive:  262 x $.30 transaction fee = $78.60.  eBay, do SOMETHING!

[gwzcomps]

One thing you can try is increasing the price of the items beyond their threshold. For some reason they are only willing to pay up to a certain amount, and no more.

[ittybitnot]

@somanypostcards 

The address is that of an industrial park with many businesses located within.  It is odd that your addresses  do not appear to have a suite number associated with them.  The address itself has been reported here in the forums,  and on other venues as being associated with fraudulent activity, but I only found one that was similar to what you are experiencing and the venue was not named. 

Have you tried contacting eBay by using the SEND MESSAGE button here:

https://www.facebook.com/eBayForBusiness

The people that monitor that seem to be a lot more resourceful than the regular customer service reps. I would keep it simple when trying to explain that so far you have an ongoing problem with  262 of these transactions for the same item to the same address under different names,  have contacted CS for help, and eBay has only closed one or something to that effect as the issue continues. 

I do hope you get this problem solved.  You should not have to deal with this. 



 

[founcus2014]

ebay does not care. They will allow scammers to continue to ruin their site. As long as they get their cut, scamming will continue to happen.

[somanypostcards]

Here's the reply I got from eBay for Business when I posted details about suspicious sales on Tuesday and updated with another post on Wednesday about more suspicious sales. 

We’re sorry for any delay with our reply – each new message sent will delay our response since it places you as the newest message each time. While it’s important for our team to partner with our members and each report is carefully reviewed – note that the team will not be following up with you with results or actions from the investigation to comply with strict privacy laws. If you haven’t already, please cancel the transaction under ‘problems with buyers shipping address’.

Due to their reply I did not post about the 44 suspicious sales on yesterday or the 84 suspicious sales today.