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?

[coolections]

It sounds very strange a scammer would target someone for eleven $1 items.

[somanypostcards]

I believe low cost suspicious purchases are made to see if transactions of hijacked accounts go through.  If they do, then high priced items are bought using the hijacked accounts.  I checked the feedback of the 11 suspicious purchases made today, and EVERY purchaser showed purchases made in the past six months from Dell, ranging from 1 to 4 items per buyer.  I'm guessing they will be making additional purchases from Dell in the near future...

[eburtonlab]

The scammer is testing whether the purchases will actually go through in each account.

If the $1 purchases do go through, next the scammer will start purchasing high value electronics from major dealer accounts, and have those items forwarded out of the country.

[downunder-61]

Just a thought:

Scammer I would say, but I doubt you  @somanypostcards  will be burned, they are looking to get positive feedback from a few sellers before hitting newbies with scams.

As @coolections  said, no scammer wastes time or resources for a buck (unless they have a plan in mind)

[somanypostcards]

I just called customer support and reported these suspicious transactions (SR 1-409052565949 service report number).  This report was sent to the "report number" department which investigates by item numbers submitted.  Worst case, eBay only looks at the low cost purchases and does not even check with buyers to see if they made the purchases, not only from me but from Dell in the past 6 months. 

My conclusion is that eBay is no longer handling fraud in a viable manner.  I was told eBay had NO fraud department, so I was unable to speak with anyone specializing in fraud.  Instead I was told the accounts of the purchasers would be "monitored."   I asked to speak with a supervisor.  After a long wait, I was told a supervisor was not available, but that a supervisor would call me back within 24 hours.

This is exactly what happened less than 2 weeks ago when I reported 16 suspicious transactions, some to an identical recipient in Beaverton, Oregon as yesterday's sales.  eBay did nothing and still has not informed me of any actions taken. 

eBay needs to do the following at a minimum:

1.  Contact the buyers to see if they actually made the purchase from me and the purchases reflected feedback received within the past 6 months.

2.  If these purchases were "unauthorized use of buyers' accounts," then eBay needs to cancel the transactions and notify the sellers.  Earlier this year they did this, but lately that is NOT the case.  They also need track down and prosecute the recipient(s) for illegally using eBay buyer accounts and using the mail to perpetrate fraud.

Finally, eBay needs to provide a means of reporting this type of fraud online.  Currently one can report a seller, a buyer, or an item, but none of these apply.  eBay need to add additional options:  Fraud and possibly Other.  I have requested this before to be met with eBay's wall of silence and inaction.

eBay profits by doing nothing, as do the sellers and the shippers.  It is eBay buyers who bear the burden of this fraud.

[somanypostcards]

In addition to the 11 suspicious purchases made on this account, I had 7 suspicious purchases made on my other account on the same day.  Within 50 minutes 7 different buyers bought the same $1 postcard all shipping to the identical  address.  5 of these buyers with low feedback scores of 2 to 3 had received 13 feedbacks all from Dell purchases made in the past 6 months. 

Here's the current status.  I never got the call back from a supervisor within 24 hours.  A few of the 26 suspicious purchases previously reported on 11/18/2021 have buyers who are no longer registered users.  

I tried to cancel the 18 suspicious purchases made on 11/29/2021 and get an error message:

Well, that didn't go as planned

Please go back and try again

When I called CS about this, I was asked to refund the amount paid.  When I tried to refund I got:

We ran into a problem. Please try again later.

[somanypostcards]

And the saga continues.  This afternoon within 50 minutes nine more suspicious purchases were made by 9 different long term eBay buyers with low feedback (3-10 feedback scores for accounts created from 2014-2019) of the same $1.00 postcard (item ID 183770399030).   The send to address was identical on all these purchases and the same address used in the 18 suspicious purchases that occurred on 11/29/2021.  All the packing slips show the same faulty telephone number appearing under the address and UNITED STATES.  The false number has an extra digit; this is the phone number.  The recipient on the packing slip is not the name of any of these 9 buyers;  

To make matters worse, an eBay glitch is preventing me from cancelling and/or refunding the money paid.  
At midnight tonight I'll get 11 strikes for not mailing on time on this account and 7 strikes for not mailing on time on my other account.  Then in 2 more days I'll get 9 more strikes for not mailing on time on this account.  I will NOT mail items when I am 99.9% certain that the buyer accounts have been hi-jacked.   

[dogchow747]

Hi @somanypostcards 

I know you, you are a solid seller.

Probably hijacked accounts trying to build feedback or otherwise manipulate the system. (As you suggested)

Sounds like a possible address for a drop shipper being in Beaverton with that #.

I think eBay has to support you on this.

[twneae0]

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@somanypostcards wrote:

To make matters worse, an eBay glitch is preventing me from cancelling and/or refunding the money paid.  

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It may not be a glitch, most often if you're the only user experiencing the malfunction out of millions of registered users, there's a chance it's not a glitch at all.  I suspect you are being prevented from using the cancel function, perhaps past buyers have reported you for this?

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@somanypostcards wrote:

At midnight tonight I'll get 11 strikes for not mailing on time on this account and 7 strikes for not mailing on time on my other account.  Then in 2 more days I'll get 9 more strikes for not mailing on time on this account.  I will NOT mail items when I am 99.9% certain that the buyer accounts have been hi-jacked. 

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You'll lose your selling privileges if you don't think this through.
The buyers paid for their items.

If I were the seller I would ship them.

It's not my job as a seller to police this web site.

Your choice.

[moondogblues]

If this is fraud then the seller will be culpable if they stay involved.  OP, is there anyone, maybe the police, who could help with this?  It seems that eBay is dragging their feet.

[fun.in.the.sun]

I wonder if just SHUTTING your store down for a week would be an idea?  I hope you get this figured out.  It is very weird.  Ebay hasn't been helpful lately.  I think lots of people quit and they hired people who can only read scripts.  Some are competent but many make you want to tear your hair out!

[somanypostcards]

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@fun.in.the.sun wrote:

I wonder if just SHUTTING your store down for a week would be an idea?  I hope you get this figured out.  It is very weird.  Ebay hasn't been helpful lately.  I think lots of people quit and they hired people who can only read scripts.  Some are competent but many make you want to tear your hair out!

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When the 16 suspicious purchases occurred on 11/18/2021 I put my store on 24 hour shutdown.  Eleven days later this store had 11 new suspicious purchases and my other store had 7 suspicious purchases, all to the same Beaverton, OR address.  And yesterday there were 9 more suspicious sales.

Latest update.  Yesterday eBay did attempt a call back, but my phone battery was dead due to a long session with customer service.  Today I was able to cancel ALL the suspicious sales.  11 sales on this ID and 7 sales on my other ID were overdue on shipping, but so far the statistics show 100% shipped on time.  Hopefully I will not get "dinged" for late shipment.

[somanypostcards]

7 more suspicious sales today to 4 long time eBay customers with low feedback (4-9 feedback and members since 1916-1918).  All bought the same $1 postcard within less than 40 minutes of each other.  All were being shipped to the Beaverton, Oregon address of the 43 previous suspicious sales (16 on 11/18/2021, 18 on 11/29/2021, and 9 on 12/3/2021).  All had the same faulty (i.e. extra digit) phone number listed below the address.  eBay should be able to use this faulty phone number to find other suspicious sales.  When I check the buyer's feedback I see that of a total of  13 purchases made this month receiving feedback, 12 are from Dell.  eBay should be able to see the time, date, and amount of these purchases.  I'm guessing they were made after the people hijacking eBay user accounts saw that their low priced purchases of my postcards went thorough.  I am 99.9% positive that the purchases of my items are all unauthorized use of buyer accounts.

So far since 11/18/2021 I've had a total of 51 suspicious sales, made by 47 different buyers.  Though I am cancelling them using the reason of "Issue with buyer's shipping address," the transaction fee of $.30 is starting to add up:  51 x $.30 = $15.30.  Plus I am loosing a lot of time contacting eBay to report so many fraudulent purchases.  They need to BLOCK all purchases with a faulty phone number.

[jitterbug2003]

You could tell them you don't do orders with under 10 sales or a account being so old or you can call Beaverton, Or   post office and ask for the person in charge of mail fraud and relay the info to them and they will deal with it.