Possible way to thwart the 'face mask return' scam

[gurlcat]

I've been thinking about this scam a lot, since it seems so bullet-proof (for the scammer), and I just can't accept that any given sale could go that way, with no recourse for the seller.  Finally just now an idea occurred to me, but I don't know if I'm forgetting some important factor that would make it not work. 

Say you sell a high-dollar item and notice that the "buyer" has a new account and low/no feedback -obviously NOT a guaranteed scammer but definitely a bright red flag.  If they ARE a scammer, then they are some person in China or whatever -they definitely don't live at the shipping address, which they have changed so that you'll send the item to the real buyer (who bought it much cheaper from the scammer who used a copy of your listing).  And if you ship the item, it will go to that real buyer, but then sometime later the scammer will file a return, still pretending to be "the buyer" but they'll send you a face mask, and you'll be forced to refund them for the actual item you sold.  

So, how about this?  -Before shipping, you write an email something like this:

Thank you for your purchase.  Due to recent cases involving fraudulent shipping addresses, I must ask you to send a photograph of a piece of mail you've received from a utility company or government agency, showing your address on the front.  If this isn't too much of an inconvenience, I will ship immediately after receipt.  Thanks for your understanding.  

In my view, if it's someone who really bought the item, they would have no beef with that, partly because they may think there's a risk of them not receiving the item and losing their money for nothing.  But if it's a scammer they'll either not reply or make excuses, then you would just cancel the sale, based on a (LITERAL) 'problem with shipping address.'  

[gurlcat]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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Again - the use of Signature Confirmation for sales below $750 is not necessary and does not make the package any more Delivered than if you just used the free Delivery Confirmation tracking.

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Not to mention that it angers buyers who might not be at home to sign for a package when they weren't expecting it. If a seller did that to me, I would never purchase from them again.

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My local carriers don't even bother.  I have never had to sign for anything shipped USPS (UPS a couple times, yes, and maybe FedEx too).  What really irritates me is when a company explicitly states a dollar amount fee for signature required ... and they require it .... AND it's more than what the USPS actually charges for the service .....AAAAAND I know dang well my mailman is just going to plop it in my mailbox anyway!!!   There was this one site that used to be the only place I could find the disposable coils for my vape device, which were like $7.99 + $6 First Class shipping (which I knew for a fact would be under $4 at the time) + $4 for adult signature (it was $2 right on the USPS website).  ERRRRR!!!!  

[csspecs]

So checking out the address doesn't matter at all. The person receiving the item in most of these cases doesn't know they are part of a scam.. The scam is called "triangulation fraud"

I'm aware of a scammer operating on ebay selling items from other sellers. I've reported it to ebay and they decided to do nothing because the "seller" has good feedback. The seller has to date stolen over $50,000 in products from other sellers and they currently have over 60 active listings. I reported them over three months ago, I tracked down 30 other sellers that got scammed and they all reported the scammer seller and ebay still allows them to remain.. Ebay seems to have actually told them how they got caught, so they improved their operation. I would not be surprised if the ring of scammers doesn't have people inside ebay helping them.

[monster-deals]

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@gurlcat wrote:

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I got my money on appeal the few times I have been on the recieving end of this scam.

Right now it pretty much only hurts ebay outside of me filling out an affidavit and making two phone calls.

If ebay wants to put an end to it they will. My guess is that it hasn't bit enough into the bottom line enough for them to spend resources on stopping it

[csspecs]

Their registered name is more important. It needs to match their shipping address.

Check the order details, if the names don't match then look deeper. If they match and the account has some activity, it's probably fine. If the users name is like "bob buyer" and the account is "robert buyer" or "betty buyer", it's probably fine because it's still a partial match.

[gurlcat]

Did you talk about yours here?  I feel like you were maybe one of the OP's of threads I read about this scam.  

[gurlcat]

It's not extremely rare for the buyer name to be completely different from the shipping recipient's name, for instance someone sending a gift.  But the names will definitely not match with a face mask scam order, so it's a good thing to check along with the age of account and feedback.  Thanks for pointing it out! 

[csspecs]

So normally what I do is search the item that sold on ebay and look for a listing with my photos and description in the sold list. If I find that, and I have an odd looking order, it's 100% a scam.

You can add meaningless "key text" in your description. Most of the scammers are using bots to do the listings, so they are pretty lazy. Watermarked photos are also a good idea.. Or a photo that has a background that has a specific texture, that way you can google image search for copies of your listing.

When I'm 100% sure it's a scam order, I send an empty envelope with a note that says "We suspect this order is fraudulent, if you placed an order with an ebay user other than "insert your user name" please report it to ebay" I ship the "order" (empty trackable package), upload the tracking and refund/cancel the order the morning it is supposed to arrive. The scammer doesn't have enough time to make up an excuse, and since I've canceled the order already they can't really do anything to me.. Since the buyer is really the only one who can report fraud I give them a reason to report it.

[gurlcat]

I don't understand the last part -you ship the item .... and then cancel/refund?  First of all why (isn't that defeating the purpose of avoiding losing your item or the money for it)?  Also how?  -How can you cancel an order that is already shipped with a tracking number?  And what does the scammer not have time to make an excuse for?  To whom? The buyer or ebay?  

Sorry but I'm totally confused by what you describe except the first part about the note -that makes sense. 

One more thing -when you say you check listings for copies of the one of yours that sold -maybe some scammers have their copy listings right on eBay but some (most?) have them on other websites,  both legitimate and fake.  Really it's stupid to put them on the same platform as the listing being copied.  So in a lot of cases, the buyer won't have any reason to contact eBay, because they ordered on Amazon, Etsy, Mercari, or some weird fake website created just for these scams. 

[csspecs]

So I've had this happen about 10 times now and it's always been on Ebay. The person who got me twice is still here. I've got them shut down a few times, but ebay lets them back on after a month.

I said when I'm 100% sure it's a scam I send an envelope that is EMPTY (well normally I put cardboard in it), no product inside but with tracking, costs about $4, it does contain a letter explaining that we suspect this was part of a scam, if you purchased from a different seller please contact ebay and report the fraud.

The scammer gets tracking and relays it to their buyer. I send the tracking to my phone and when I see it's out for delivery I refund the order and cancel it. That way they can't do a return. Their buyer then leaves them scathing feedback and complains to ebay or whichever platform they are.. Which is worth $4 to me.

[csspecs]

Here, if you don't think someone would be so brazen as to list their fraudulent listings on ebay.

Scammer listing

395076454198

My listing

202791685599

I reported it to ebay. Several of their customers have reported them to ebay. And ebay will do nothing.

[zamo-zuan]

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@gurlcat wrote:

But doesn't the buyer need to report the cancellation to eBay for it to come to their attention?   And even if they do, what is the punishment for doing it once?   

I want to re-emphasize that I am talking about a very rare stopgap scenario, probably as likely as you will ever have to use a fire extinguisher. 

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I think reporting them triggers it, but I believe there's certain automated triggers as well, because there was several instances where it happened when the same address got cancelled more than 2 or 3 times.

When it happens, they send over an email, which I can't find a copy of atm, but paraphrasing it basically says you have potentially abused the cancellation policy by choosing the wrong reasons if you don't respond with a valid explanation, action will be taken against your account. 

We even had it happen in several instances when customers had either ordered and tried to message you to send it to a different address than their order.

And the most suspicious one I could think of to indicate it was automated, was in a situation where the customer asked to cancel so he can update address and reorder. He was in communication with us and was a good communicator and agreeable, and we handled things same day. Wouldn't have made any sense in that context for him to have reported it.

If we tried an idea like this, there would be quite a few situations in Motors that would trigger it, not always becuase of scamming. There's quite a few eBay accounts that are obviously people dropshipping to customers (we get orders from them every few days with different addresses) whom often make new accounts with similar names, and/or there's a lot of people who have family members ship out of the country. It's hard to distinguish which is legit and which is scammy. There's also some 3rd party websites that basically copy eBay listings with higher prices, and when customers order from them, they just place an eBay order. We found our items selling on there before, lol. 

eBay has never been good at thwarting scammers, mostly because of how their metrics work. We had better luck when PayPal was the provider and eBay didn't get involved. 

[csspecs]

Canceling an order after a message is triggering that because they think you are doing an "outside of ebay transaction".. Used to be super common especially with high value items like auto parts.

People would contact and offer a 5% discount to cancel on Ebay.

I suspect the auto section of ebay has more triggers for order cancelation than other areas.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

That is why a little coin spent for signature will squash that. 

How do you know this person has stolen over $50,000? If you have the proof and eBay is not doing anything, contact the FBI. 

Maybe you missed reading part of my other post:

Examples:

1. Home that is very overgrown and not maintained or business that looks empty.

2. buyer just signed up on same day of purchase over $150+

3. New buyer with an apartment address. I don't know what type of mail delivery is done. Does the office accept packages that don't fit in the renter's mail lock box? Do the packages just get dropped at the apartment door for everyone to see and possibly take? 

I'm sure others can easily add on to this list. 

Here is the odd thing! I have received some packages back and never hear a word from the buyer. I had at least two buyers play the USPS reschedule delivery game. My guess was in hope the carrier would mess up and just drop off without signature. 

What is really going on is the big question. Are these scammers using stolen C.C. cards, using stolen gift card numbers, or hoping that they can open a case with eBay or C.C.?

[csspecs]

I know all their items are stolen. And I did a quick average of the items in their sold list multiplied by the number of sold items. It was about $65K and I rounded down a little for accuracy.

The "facemask return scam" is called "triangulation fraud", the person registered in China and there is nothing that can be done as far as I can tell.

I was able to find every transaction in a two week period. I very easily found the real sellers and contacted them so they could cancel their orders.

The appearance of the dwelling at the address is 100% meaningless with triangulation fraud.

[gurlcat]

Okay, I think I understand now.  And I see you edited one of my main confusions (where before you said you ship "the item").  And it sounds like a good tactic overall, but I had no idea it was even possible to cancel an order that already has tracking (especially with movement scans).  I've never had reason to check before, but I'll take your word for it that 'cancel order' is still a menu option after there are movement scans.  I do find that pretty surprising, seems like an oversight in the programming, because bad sellers could abuse it. 

As for whether scammers are putting these fake listings on eBay, I believe you.   But the thing is, your plan would only work WHEN you can find the fake identical listing on eBay, because that's the only way you could be certain that the angry buyer report/feedback would get made about the scammer who deserves it.   If they had posted the fake listing elsewhere, you could only have a strong suspicion, not a certainty.  So I guess what your experiences do is modify my idea somewhat.  -Before writing to the buyer, first check to see if your listing had a doppleganger imposter on eBay.  But wait, where do you find it?  In Sold listings?