Scammers on eBay

[jen603972]

Hello, I am a seller on the eBay app. So far all of my offers have been from scam buyers where you must purchase a gift card to send with my product. This prevents me from getting payment until after I buy the card. Please fix this, it is very irritating.

 

[kh-vince]

Hi everyone,

If you believe that you or someone you know was scammed into buying eBay Gift Cards, visit our gift card page to contact customer service and find additional information related to gift card scams.

Thank you.

[gwzcomps]

Honestly it is ridiculous eBay doesn't have a better way to deal with this.  You aren't the only one.  Either stop buyers from being able to send their phone numbers, or limit how many messages people can send.  An account that tried to scam me is still active and probably still trying to scam others.

[eburtonlab]

eBay has various methods to prevent phone numbers and email addresses from being sent through messages -- as anyone who has ever tried to send a message with a numeric part number in it has likely discovered.

The problem with most automated methods is that they deter only casual users, not scammers who are highly motivated and resourceful. For any given method to identify and filter a phone number, there are a dozen ways to get around it; and scammers eventually identify and share those methods.

It is an arms race; there is no simple solution that works every time.

One way to avoid scam bidders is to list fixed price with immediate payment required. That way, the only way a buyer can end an item listing is to complete checkout and pay.

[nocoolnamejane]

---

@jen603972 wrote:

Hello, I am a seller on the eBay app. So far all of my offers have been from scam buyers where you must purchase a gift card to send with my product. This prevents me from getting payment until after I buy the card. Please fix this, it is very irritating.

 

---

Just to clarify, even if you were to buy the gift card, you would never see the payment and would lose the item AND the gift card.

Since you're a brand new account selling moderately high priced items, I would suggest you make yourself a couple of purchases and try and sell lower value items you have laying around the house. This would help both build up your feedback score and cut your teeth on lower amount sales that would hurt less if they go bad (also, scammers aren't typically attracted to second hand board games or your old beanie babies that are just gathering dust).

I would also suggest making your listings buy it now with immediate payment required instead of auctions which don't attract many people anymore nowadays.

ETA: Your pastel abstract canvas painting shows a $10.90 cost for shipping to me in NO and your listing mentions you ship Priority Mail, I think there might be a calculation error there...

[ittybitnot]

This prevents me from getting payment until after I buy the card.

You are not going to get any payment anyway.  You may get a fake email saying you have a payment, but when you log into your account (not from an email link) there will be nothing there.  If you also send a gift card or two to this crook you will lose that money as well as your item. 

[nkmipgolf]

For one thing these scammers will never pay as they send a fake PayPal email/text payment hoping the seller falls for it. They do not care about your item, just the gift card for some fake relative that does not exist either.

Do not reply to any text, not a real phone anyways free VoIP,  ignore them and the will go away.

[antpar-2612]

I was scammed into buying a truck on fake ebay logo's I brought the gift cards and something told me that  is very fishie and I backed off. But, I still have the gift  cards is there a way to retrieve my money back or to use them beside ebay?

[gwzcomps]

The algorithms aren't very good when scammers can just send their phone number in an offer.

I even reported it to eBay and the account is still active.

[eburtonlab]

I do not send or receive many offers, so I do not know if there any filters for those messages. It is possible there are filters, but scammers have found a way around them by, say, including hidden characters between the numbers. Or perhaps there are no filters at all.

At least when an offer includes a "kindly text me" message, the seller can identify that as a giant red flag and ignore the offer.

For fixed price listings with immediate payment required, when an offer is received, rather than accepting or countering the offer, if the seller instead lowers the item price to the offer (or counteroffer) amount, the only way the buyer can complete the transaction is to go through checkout and pay. That way a scammer cannot end the listing with a bogus offer that requires the seller to file a UID and wait to list again.

[lightlily_arts]

Anyone who tells you that you have to purchase a gift card is a scammer.   These are never legitimate sales.  Unfortunately these individuals are counting on new sellers to make this mistake so they can steal from you.

[kensgiftshop]

---

@jen603972 wrote:

Please fix this, it is very irritating.

---

The best way to fix it is to do away with auctions and best offers.

List as a fixed price and require immediate payment.

[femmefan1946]

The buyer wants you to send them money?

That's not how selling works.

Do NOT ship until you see payment in your Paypal account.

Report those scammers to eBay. There is a button on the eBay Message.

If you get a sale and the scammer tries that one, after 96 hours (48 hours if you are in the USA) you can go to the bottom of this page, and most eBay pages, to the Resolution Centre, where you can open an Unpaid Item Dispute.

Then your Final Value Fees will be refunded, the scammer cannot leave FB, and he gets a Strike against his account which can lead to its restriction.

[japan-treazures]

@jen603972 

This is another one of the oldest scams here on eBay! Avoid this at all costs or it will end up costing you! So glad you didn't fall for this scam.

The buyer is hoping to get your  email address so that they can send you a dummy "invoice" that will really look like it came from eBay, asking you to add a gift card and they will pay you for it.  The buyer  will take the numbers from them and cash out and you will not be able to get you money back! Then the buyer disappears. You loose everything. 

They will send you fake Paypal invoices and paid emails, hoping that you will send without checking. 

Never agree to send to another address that isn't registered with eBay, you will loose what little protection you have if you do that. Don't ever agree to do business off of eBay. This is part of the scam!

Block the buyer, stop messaging them and run!

Here are eBay’s links to info on scams: 

https://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/stay_safe.html#recognize_scams

As for a buyer reporting your item as counterfeit and eBay taking it down just because it was reported, I am not sure what to say about that. It usually takes more than just a quick report. You may want to contact eBay on that one.

Hope this helps!