Possible scam?

[lidrus0]

Hey, I sold an item on ebay earlier today to a buyer, and this buyer paid promptly afterwards. The transaction shows up on paypal and paypal says it's ok to ship, everything looks good. But I recently got an message on ebay from someone saying that they want to change the shipping address for the item I sold.

This person has a different name and location from the buyer who actually paid for the item. This person also created an ebay account a few months ago and only has one feedback, while the buyer created their account in 2011 and has almost 40 feedback.

I think the person who messaged me asking to change their shipping address is a scammer, but I'm wondering how this person knew that I had sold the item in the first place? Because I got this message after the item had already been sold and paid for by the actual buyer.

[bonjourami]

Its a popular scam, scammers look for new sellers, think they are easy pickins'...and its easy enough to see their sales if you know how.

[terrycece62]

SCAM
ONLY address u can ship 2 is the address on when buyers paid anyway

[mtgraves7984]

Ship it only to the address on the order.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Thank goodness this set off alarm bells for you. It is easy to see what a seller's sold items are on eBay. Scammers watch for new sellers with high dollar sales. Afterwards, the scammer sends a note asking for the item to be sent to an alternate address. If a seller falls for this ruse, they lose their seller protection and the fake-buyer then gets a free item, and the seller loses twice, because he has to refund the actual buyer.

[blue_ivy.ranch]

The exact same issue just fell in my lap, luckily I was able to figure out that the person with, in your case the 40 positive feedbacks (original purchaser) is the exact same person who sent the pls. mail to other location message from a different eBay user name. If you look closely at the feedback you will see it is for $3.00 purchases or some is from sellers who left good feedback too soon, as in before they realize they have been scammed out of big money & item. I found that a seller has left good feedback on a high dollar sale too soon, but they are on other sites explaining how they were scammed. In my case after some messaging communications with original purchaser, I was almost ready to send off, they said they new nothing of message I recv.'d about alternate shipping address, however they gave themselves away by adding details that only the writer of message to send to other shipping address would have none, I never included what the message said, but the original buyer included those details to me in his reply claiming to know nothing about the request. More than likely a stolen credit card was also used to purchase, I would have been responsible to credit card company for over $500.00 of money I would not have been paid by CC company and never to see my item again, as scammers would have said never received item. They did it to me with a Drone and have did it to others with that exact same item as I found out on other scam reporting sites. Selling big ticket items on eBay has become something I will think long and hard about after my close call. FYI, I listed it locally and still get east coast request to ship to them and except PayPal, uh, I don't think so. I am very concerned about seller protection.

[vkjfau-0]

There is a small chance the buyer's request is legitimate, however Ebay and Paypal policies are very clear in this regard: All items for sale must be shipped as stated otherwise the seller assumes all risk.

Specifically, sellers must ship to the address of record at time of payment or they step outside of seller protection which means that if there is a delivery problem the seller will be left without recourse.

Read that again: Failure to ship to the address of record at time of payment places the seller in a precarious position that can ultimately lead to having to refund the full purchase price (also the item is gone).

Saved ebay messages from the buyer asking to change the address of delivery are NOT sufficient to override this requirement.  You do want to be careful not to cancel orders that may in fact be legitimate such as may be the case where a scammer is perusing recently "sold" listings but the actual buyers are legitimate *or* where a legitimate buyer recently moved and forgot to make the changes however it does not matter who sent the message so long it concerns an item that must be shipped, sellers are strongly advised to never ship to any address other than the address of record at time of payment.

What could happen is the buyer can claim they never received the items and that seller would then have to issue a refund.  Unfortunately because of that sellers should not consider alternate shipping arrangements, pending further notice your only options are to ship as specified in the original sales contract (as in to the address of record at time of payment) or cancel the order (for reasons problem with buyer's address).

Contacting the buyer from the actual sales record is an option, again not all change-address-requests are necessarily from a bad buyer, the buyer may be legitimate and some scammer has noticed a SOLD item and is trying to intercept it could well be the case.

Happy Selling lol

[sin-n-dex]

Let me explain a scenario...

A hacker compromises an account, places orders, and pays with the credit card on file (which is tied to an address on file). If they want to change the address on system, they need to reinput the credit card that's on file.

So the scammer goes and buys, and pays with the account holder's card with shipping to the account holder's address, then sends a message with the real address they want it shipped to.

With my partner having become a new seller recently (and a new account and all that, plus he's buying stuff), I'm learning a lot about how the system works (he added my address to his account and had to update the credit card).

C.

[pjcdn2005]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

Let me explain a scenario...

A hacker compromises an account, places orders, and pays with the credit card on file (which is tied to an address on file). If they want to change the address on system, they need to reinput the credit card that's on file.

So the scammer goes and buys, and pays with the account holder's card with shipping to the account holder's address, then sends a message with the real address they want it shipped to.

With my partner having become a new seller recently (and a new account and all that, plus he's buying stuff), I'm learning a lot about how the system works (he added my address to his account and had to update the credit card).

C.

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Which account did he add your address to....ebay?  I've never heard of anyone adding an address on ebay having to update their credit card.

[a_c_green]

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@lidrus0 wrote:

I think the person who messaged me asking to change their shipping address is a scammer, 

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Right. As you said, their ID is not that of your buyer, so they are not your buyer. It's just a scam, and unfortunately rather common. Your real buyer probably knows nothing about this and is not involved. Once you change the shipping address to the scammer's requested location, the real buyer will eventually file an Item Not Received dispute, as their item has of course not shown up, and you will have to refund in full.

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@lidrus0 wrote:

but I'm wondering how this person knew that I had sold the item in the first place? Because I got this message after the item had already been sold and paid for by the actual buyer.

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They have a standard search set up to find all items in a given category (laptops, for example) that have recently sold. (You can search Sold items instead of current items by checking the appropriate box on the left side of your search results screen.) They have an automated script that fires off a message to every seller, such as the message you received, and hope that someone falls for it. I am guessing here that the message you received may not even identify your item by name...?