SCAMMED - Delaware shipment

[cheswick2112]

Hi There

I know it is my fault, so I don't need to get a ton of posts, stating that...  I am posting to make other people aware - so they won't be scammed.

I was selling Dr Dre Headphones, someone bought them, then I received an email stating they won the bid and...

"i have one problem here...the day after tomorrow i'm going on my training courses in delaware state for about 3 or 4 months. can you change the address if you haven't shipped yet looking forward to hearing from you as soon as possible."

It was late, I didn't think and wanted to get the postage done as I had another thing to ship, so I changed the ship to (This is were I hit my head with a hammer)

Their account was located: West Helena AR, United States (now removed)

and they wanted me to send them to: 

New Castle, Delaware, 19726

I am not sure if that is his real name or not but I would love to bust this guy, as I am now out $200 worth of headphones.

Any ideas on how to bust them?

Much Thanks

[vintagecraze50]

Try to recall the package. Intercept fees will be charged, about 20 bucks, better than loosing the item and 200 bucks.

[jojitsusensei]

I can remember when everybody thought buying and selling on eBay and paying through PayPal with safe.

[datemike1]

Because, it's not necessarily a scam.  eBay can't be putting sellers on blast every time a buyer wants to change the address.  I've had several well meaning buyers over the years make a mistake on the address and ask me to change it.  I don't.  I cancel the sale and have them update their addresses and repurchase.  But eBay warning you that changing the address voids your seller protection, i'm not sure how much more of a warning you want.  Maybe some blinking lights?  a solid red warning screen?  

"If you need it clearer, you probably shouldn't be on the internet and certainly should not be performing any transactions that have to do with money "

It's not really harsh, but it's 100% true.  If you're looking for eBay to now think for you as well, well you probably shouldn't be selling on eBay...

[mr_lincoln]

@cheswick2112   This is NOT criticism but encouragement that I agree with other posters to try and head that package off before it is delivered.  We have sold successfully to freight forwarders who ship to Russia but never one who messaged with a change of address ...

Hope you can stop that package ...

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi, thank you for wanting to warn fellow sellers. You have a great heart. Just wanted to give you a warning as well, that it is against the board rules to name names here. Even when it is in other's interests, the mods will redact the info or pull the post. Sorry about that!

The other poster is likely right, this request didn't come from your buyer, but a scammer hoping to scam some free merch at your expense. Now you will have to give a refund to your real buyer when the item doesn't show up. Check the user names to determine if it was your buyer or not. Also, there is no reason to think your buyer was involved in any way with this scam, and is likely innocent. This has become a well used fraudulent activity here on eBay. Very sad.

[dsha3764]

The freight forwarding scammers are NEVER from the Real Buyer. 

The people / group(s) who conduct this scam are likely foreigners from Eastern Europe. 

They've likely stolen millions in products over the years.  Personally, they've stolen over $10K+ from items that we have bought. By the time you check the tracking # and see it's in DE it's already too late. The company who receives these packages picks them up in the AM in bulk. 

USPS website does not provide destination zip code like FedEx or UPS. As a buyer the best you can do is warn a seller of the scam after purchase by saying "only ship to our address on file". 

[inhawaii]

What are the chances that this was a legit buyer who made a legit request and everything will be just fine?

Buyers ask to change shipping address all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a scam.

[jmakwakwa2012]

 Sorry to hear about your scam . I am a buyer not a seller but i am also worried about people conducting such crime on eBay , and destroy all the trust sellers have on us in general. I used to divert my orders to a friend of mine in the UK  while i am based in South Africa without any problem. Some people are just heartless.

[mesodude]

"Because, it's not necessarily a scam.  eBay can't be putting sellers on blast every time a buyer wants to change the address.  I've had several well meaning buyers over the years make a mistake on the address and ask me to change it.  I don't.  I cancel the sale and have them update their addresses and repurchase.  But eBay warning you that changing the address voids your seller protection, i'm not sure how much more of a warning you want.  Maybe some blinking lights?  a solid red warning screen?"

I literally don't know what point you're making here. All I said is that there's a difference between displaying a

popup message warning sellers during the transaction  and warning sellers of scams in general. IMO, people who believe they are omniscient and couldn't possibly be fooled by any scam ever are not living in the real world.

"It's not really harsh, but it's 100% true."

No offense but repeating something emphatically doesn't make it a fact. It's probably best for us to agree to disagree.

"If you're looking for eBay to now think for you as well, well you probably shouldn't be selling on eBay..."

That's your interpretation. If eBay can constantly beat it into sellers' heads that the buyer is always right and that it's always the seller's responsibility to bend over backwards to make the buyer happy, I don't see why it's unreasonable to expect the company to also make an effort to keep sellers abreast of new scams. And apparently eBay agrees--because there's actually a whole section of the site devoted to this.  It has nothing to do with expecting eBay to be "thinking for you as well".

[ittybitnot]

Buyers ask to change shipping address all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a scam.

When the person "asking" through ebay messages  is not even the buyer, I would say it is a really good indication that it is a scam. 

Sellers are often mislead due to the fact ebay stated in the past that a seller who had documentation of an eBay message requesting the address changewould be protected against a claim (only in ebay) for INR. 

As we can surmise, ebay recently discontinued that once the scam became more prevalent. 

[a_c_green]

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@inhawaii wrote:

What are the chances that this was a legit buyer who made a legit request and everything will be just fine?

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None, if the change-of-address request did not come from the actual buyer, but from a different account.

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@inhawaii wrote:

Buyers ask to change shipping address all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a scam.

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True, but for there to be any chance that it is not a scam, the request at least has to come from the same account that was used to purchase the item in the first place.

[datemike1]

“because there's actually a whole section of the site devoted to this”

So I’ll ask you again, aside from eBay warning you that changing the address voids seller protection and a “whole section of the site” devoted to protecting yourself from scams (https://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/stay_safe.html), what else should eBay be doing that they’re not doing to protect sellers from scam buyers?  You literally proved my point for me...

[datemike1]

Im not suggesting scammers don’t exist, nor am I suggesting that particular scam doesn’t exist.  I’m simply trying to point out that eBay does have a lot of information regarding scam buyers and warns you effectively as well as not every person who emails you to change the address is a scammer.  I’m asking what else is eBay supposed to do to warn you of a scam?  

[datemike1]

“True, but for there to be any chance that it is not a scam, the request at least has to come from the same account that was used to purchase the item in the first place.”

Correct.  I’m not disputing that, or suggesting this wasn’t a scam.  If I get an email from a buyer asking to change the address, I search my sold listings for the user name from the email to find the sale.  If I don’t find that username, I reply “I don’t have a sale from this username.”  Like I said, if you want eBay to now think for you, no you probably shouldn’t be selling on eBay...

[dsha3764]

@datemike1 

If the scammers are targeting thousands of users, inevitably they're going to find some people who will ship the items to them. If no one shipped items to them, then they wouldn't be sending messages in the first place!

If you think it's acceptable to have this going on and is not a major security threat to user's than that is one thing. But I can assure you this is a massive issue and in my opinion eBay needs to more to protect sellers.