Possible Scammer Targeting Sold Listings

[atomicupcycle]

Hello,

I sold 3 expensive items to a person with over 1k possitive feedback, who buys items like the ones he purchased. All is good there. However, a brand new account made today, zero feedback, emailed me about one of the items sold, and gave me an overseas address to ship the item too. 

" I just bought xxxxxxxx from you I hope all is great with that item.. p.s I wanna change shipping address coz my dad got sick and I have to move out of town to hospital to take care, sorry for bothering and here is the shipping u have to send it:
First Name: 
Last Name: 
Address: 
Address 2: 
City: Newark
State/Province: DE "

What the person doesn't realize, is that the actual buyer purchased 3 items from me. Not just one and they were different items 🙂 

Please be aware of this scam and i'm waiting for ebay to call me back.   Always ship to a verifide address through ebay. 

[gkyn29]

Thanks but obviously this is the most bottom of the barrel, primitive form of scam. Obviously the buyer id and the person's id who sent you the message are different.

Seriously, if someone actually falls for this, they have no business selling on ebay.

[dougsue123b]

Thanks, that is a new one for me. Although I would never change the address unless it was on paypal.

[kim_y_buran]

I always advise my buyers to use the tracking link from their transaction page and make the change in delivery address themselves.

[jonathankirkland]

This is at least the 3rd thread I've seen now about who I believe to be the exact same scammer, since the ship to city matches and so does the lame "my dad is in the hospital so I have to move" excuse.

This guy must be a really pathetic low-life, and while I don't wish any harm on anyone, I just hope karma catches up to this bottom feeder.

[cherry*fizz]

Yep, I've seen several of these too. Same excuse. So lame. But like with everything else if it didn't work even one time it wouldn't be worth it for them. They count on people being naive and sympathetic to scam them. I hope they catch this person/these people and get rid of them. 

[emerald40]

Old scam where scammers surf ebay looking for sold listings hoping you will mail it to them at the new address.

That is why you never send anything to an address other than what is on the paypal account.

[duggmills]

This is the best laugh I've had all day.

This amateur scammer really doesn't even know what he's trying to do.   He is telling you (and us) he doesn't have any idea how eBay works..... LOL 

I might be tempted to have some fun with the amateur by asking some esoteric yet irrelevant product questions to keep a fun dialog going.

Sometimes you meet the nicest people on forums....

[alcoforever]

I too have seen several threads on this scam, at least one of which reported that the scam worked.

It relies on the seller not noticing that the buyer's ID and the scammer's ID are different.

[gkyn29]

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@alcoforever wrote:

It relies on the seller not noticing that the buyer's ID and the scammer's ID are different.

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Even if they were the same, the bottom line is it's a complete failure of common sense and due diligence.

[luckythewinner]

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@duggmills wrote:

I might be tempted to have some fun with the amateur by asking some esoteric yet irrelevant product questions to keep a fun dialog going.

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I doubt he even reads responses to that email address. Fraud like this is a numbers game; if he sends 1,000 of those emails and 1% of sellers fall for it, he gets 10 free items. 

Even if his methods are laughably amateur, all he has to be is a little smarter than one of the sellers he contacts. And from the posts I've seen on this board, there are plenty of gullible sellers around. 

[d-k_treasures]

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@kim_y_buran wrote:

I always advise my buyers to use the tracking link from their transaction page and make the change in delivery address themselves.

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And if they do that, and it gets delivered to another zip code, you lose.

You shouldn't advise your buyers to change their delivery address.

[gkyn29]

it's ALWAYS cleanest to ask the buyer to cancel the order and redo it than it is to change addresses, etc.

thus, you avoid this kind of trash.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@duggmills wrote:

This is the best laugh I've had all day.

This amateur scammer really doesn't even know what he's trying to do.   He is telling you (and us) he doesn't have any idea how eBay works..... LOL 

I might be tempted to have some fun with the amateur by asking some esoteric yet irrelevant product questions to keep a fun dialog going.

Sometimes you meet the nicest people on forums....

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Well, that would be being sociable!

[jonathankirkland]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@duggmills wrote:

I might be tempted to have some fun with the amateur by asking some esoteric yet irrelevant product questions to keep a fun dialog going.

---

I doubt he even reads responses to that email address. Fraud like this is a numbers game; if he sends 1,000 of those emails and 1% of sellers fall for it, he gets 10 free items. 

Even if his methods are laughably amateur, all he has to be is a little smarter than one of the sellers he contacts. And from the posts I've seen on this board, there are plenty of gullible sellers around. 

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What I don't undertand is this:

If you copy/paste the same message within the ebay messaging system over and over again, you get a restriction which temporarily suspends your privileges to even send messages. I forget how long the temporary suspension is, I want to say it was quite harsh actually like maybe even 24 hours. I know it happened to me one time though when I was trying to inform 4-5 different people about the same issue (I forgot what it even was now).