eBay luck ran out - fraudulent return

EnderW

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Sep 25, 2003
Messages
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After 10 years on eBay and a couple thousand sales I might be getting boned for the first time. I sold a 9900K CPU and got a return request today stating it “doesn’t work and just gives blank screen”.

From what I can tell, CPUs don’t have a visible serial number so there’s nothing to stop this guy (0 feedback buyer) from sending me back a broken CPU and keeping the working one. Anyone have any tips on how I can not get screwed on this deal?
 
not a 100% sure thing but you can check for manufacturing date/location

5609_image1.png


But fraud user might just have looked for what is identical with his
 
Ah that sucks, sellers on eBay always get the short end of the stick in these situations. Good luck, maybe the buyer just has no clue what they are doing.
 
They do have the 'Batch' number should you happen to know yours (did your listing have photos) and obviously if you have any proof that the CPU was functional. I'd require that the buyer provide proof and I'd cite his lack of feedback.
 
I’m hoping he’s a dumbass, just have a bad feeling on this one.

I might have some CPU-Z screenshots but I don’t know if that constitutes “proof”.

Hopefully the vast feedback and account history differences will play into their decision if it comes down to “escalate to eBay”.

I sent him a message back asking what motherboard he was using and if he had tried other CPUs in the same board.
 
I’m hoping he’s a dumbass, just have a bad feeling on this one.

I might have some CPU-Z screenshots but I don’t know if that constitutes “proof”.

Hopefully the vast feedback and account history differences will play into their decision if it comes down to “escalate to eBay”.

I sent him a message back asking what motherboard he was using and if he had tried other CPUs in the same board.

Chances are pretty high of that. Most people on there are clueless.
 
There's a partial serial number printed on the substrate. Chances are that partial number will be different if he's trying to pull something over on you (like swapping the heat spreaders with a cheap Celeron).


There's also the full serial number encoded in a 2D matrix (#6 in the image posted by SvenBent)
 
Very useful info. Thank you. I wonder if I can retrieve the serial number from my picture.
 

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There's a partial serial number printed on the substrate. Chances are that partial number will be different if he's trying to pull something over on you (like swapping the heat spreaders with a cheap Celeron).


There's also the full serial number encoded in a 2D matrix (#6 in the image posted by SvenBent)

Good poster, thank you + rep
 
The partial S/N is 01727. If you have a higher resolution image, you can probably copy and paste the matrix code on the upper right side into an online code reader and pull the full number out.
I have a higher resolution version of that image, I guess hard forum or iOS is downsizing it. I tried an online code reader just now with no luck but it’s kinda janky trying to do all this from my phone. I’ll try again tonight on a real computer.

Thank you very much for the help.
 
I have a higher resolution version of that image, I guess hard forum or iOS is downsizing it. I tried an online code reader just now with no luck but it’s kinda janky trying to do all this from my phone. I’ll try again tonight on a real computer.

Thank you very much for the help.

I opened it in a new tab and it's nice sized there.

212256_FC47F9E0-0B67-480F-9CF4-CEF8472B2AF6.jpg
 
I'd hate to drag this away from your topic but I'm genuinely curious.

Can you set your ebay auction to require the buyer have a certain amount of positive reputation before they can buy? If I were selling a $20 item I wouldn't care, but a CPU that's worth $500 shouldn't be going to a buyer on a new account with zero rep. It's too coincidental the guy started a new account and then opened a claim on his very first purchase.
 
I'd hate to drag this away from your topic but I'm genuinely curious.

Can you set your ebay auction to require the buyer have a certain amount of positive reputation before they can buy? If I were selling a $20 item I wouldn't care, but a CPU that's worth $500 shouldn't be going to a buyer on a new account with zero rep. It's too coincidental the guy started a new account and then opened a claim on his very first purchase.
Unfortunately no, the most strict you can be is to block negative feedback buyers. I agree it is suspicious.
 
You could manually cancel any transaction from a new account but you risk the chance of a negative feedback and I have had quite a few 0 feedback, new account purchasers in the past with no problems.
 
You could manually cancel any transaction from a new account but you risk the chance of a negative feedback and I have had quite a few 0 feedback, new account purchasers in the past with no problems.

Ah thanks. I wouldn't cancel the transaction like that, suppose its best to just post more valuable stuff to reputable users here instead..

I just feel like there needs to be more vetting done on buyers, especially new ones. My brother sold a pair of rare-ish ps2 games for me for about $60 and the buyer put in a claim saying item never received. He got refunded and surely kept the games. I paid for tracking via USPS and triple checked against his address but ebay just refunded him and that's that. It also got my brother a negative on his account to add insult to injury.

Ebay just makes me nervous now.

I hope you get your i9 back...
 
Yeah I should have tried the forums here first but I had a bunch of items to sell and final value fee discount from eBay store so I just listed everything there.

In the future I plan to post more here and just discount the price to account for what I’d get after eBay fees.
 
Make sure you video yourself opening the return package. I'm sure if he is a scammer he will just say something like, "he's showing a different item than I returned".

Sorry for your bad luck, for expensive PC items I'd only trade here.
 
Unfortunately no, the most strict you can be is to block negative feedback buyers. I agree it is suspicious.

I am pretty sure that there used to be a way to block buyers with under a specific number of feedback. It may have only been in the auction settings though. I never used it though and am unable to find it.
I did see quite a few mentions that there was no option to do this.. but I know there used to be.. somewhere.

Here is the current Buyer Requirements eBay page:
eBay_Buyer_Requirements_page-5-8-2019.PNG
 
Ah thanks. I wouldn't cancel the transaction like that, suppose its best to just post more valuable stuff to reputable users here instead..

I just feel like there needs to be more vetting done on buyers, especially new ones. My brother sold a pair of rare-ish ps2 games for me for about $60 and the buyer put in a claim saying item never received. He got refunded and surely kept the games. I paid for tracking via USPS and triple checked against his address but ebay just refunded him and that's that. It also got my brother a negative on his account to add insult to injury.

Ebay just makes me nervous now.

I hope you get your i9 back...

For expensive stuff, I always add "signature required". I don't screw around with possibly getting scammed out of my item and money by a buyer who claims they never received it.

To date, I have never had a buyer claim they have never received something I sold them and I have sold to probably 500+ different buyers.
 
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I will never sell expensive PC hardware on ebay ever again. A few years ago I had a total NIGHTMARE selling a NIB GTX 1070. I had sold it once and actually shipped it, then while it was in transit I got a notification from ebay about the buyer's account being invalidated and warning me "do not send the item if you haven't yet." Gee, thanks ebay. Thankfully UPS has the option to turn a package around so I did that, but lost out on like $50 worth of shipping fees. Then I sold it again to someone who had like 8 feedback and account was about a year old, so I shipped again. This time, because my scammer senses were still tingling, I had a friend film me packaging it up, taping it, and showing the tracking #.

The guy received it then claimed the box was empty and requested a full refund, which ebay promptly processed. What happened was, despite my best efforts to avoid being scammed, I had creating the shipping label myself and guesstimated the weight. This turned out to be like 3 lbs less than the actual shipping weight, so the guy basically told ebay that the card couldn't have been in the box because the weight on the label was below what the manufacturer's listed weight for the card was.

Long story short I fought for like 3 months, including getting my local PD and the buyer's local PD involved. I also had the UPS invoice which showed the weight THEY scanned the package it, which of course was what it should be. That and having police case numbers and detectives' names helped and finally ebay settled in my favor... but holy fucking shit I will NEVER sell an item like that on ebay ever again. At the time I just couldn't absorb a $~600 loss like that and it stressed me the fuck out.

edit: Random side note, but I had fun becoming an internet sleuth and finding the guy's facebook page, cell #, etc. Pranked the shit out of him for a while, lol.
 
I will never sell expensive PC hardware on ebay ever again. A few years ago I had a total NIGHTMARE selling a NIB GTX 1070. I had sold it once and actually shipped it, then while it was in transit I got a notification from ebay about the buyer's account being invalidated and warning me "do not send the item if you haven't yet." Gee, thanks ebay. Thankfully UPS has the option to turn a package around so I did that, but lost out on like $50 worth of shipping fees. Then I sold it again to someone who had like 8 feedback and account was about a year old, so I shipped again. This time, because my scammer senses were still tingling, I had a friend film me packaging it up, taping it, and showing the tracking #.

The guy received it then claimed the box was empty and requested a full refund, which ebay promptly processed. What happened was, despite my best efforts to avoid being scammed, I had creating the shipping label myself and guesstimated the weight. This turned out to be like 3 lbs less than the actual shipping weight, so the guy basically told ebay that the card couldn't have been in the box because the weight on the label was below what the manufacturer's listed weight for the card was.

Long story short I fought for like 3 months, including getting my local PD and the buyer's local PD involved. I also had the UPS invoice which showed the weight THEY scanned the package it, which of course was what it should be. That and having police case numbers and detectives' names helped and finally ebay settled in my favor... but holy fucking shit I will NEVER sell an item like that on ebay ever again. At the time I just couldn't absorb a $~600 loss like that and it stressed me the fuck out.

edit: Random side note, but I had fun becoming an internet sleuth and finding the guy's facebook page, cell #, etc. Pranked the shit out of him for a while, lol.

That sounds terrible.

I've done a few returns/refund requests as a buyer. And, I always worry about how it'll be taken by the seller. I collect boardgames, and I inventory them when they arrive. So, I will go through the whole process by pulling up a list and seeing if it's actually complete. I'll then find the replacement parts and I'll send the link/receipt of my purchase to the seller and simply request that difference be deducted from the game I purchased from them.

I got a "complete" copy of Hero Quest from a seller and they didn't list the board being split in half. So, I returned that. Then, I bought another and certain tiles were missing. That's when I did the replacement order and just asked the seller to refund the difference. Which, was like $11.

Typically, I try to resolve the issue as painless as possible. I think communication is key. I kinda know I'm getting scammed if it takes WAY too long to get a response to a reasonable request.
 
its a scammers world on ebay. within the past 6-8 months i sold a pair of brand new, still sealed from apple, airpods. buyer claimed they didn't work about an hour after receiving them. long story short he said he wanted a refund since the item was "not as described". i couldn't do anything but accept it. here's were it got interesting......

he didn't ship it back to me, he found a local hotel close to me and shipped it there from a fake name to a fake name. why a hotel you ask? because it would show delivered and thats all ebay cares about with returns. hotels accept packages for people that are/will be staying there so they are none the less wiser if its accurate.

the scammers hope is that the seller will chase his tail to find the delivered package and by that time the hotel will have sent it back. in the off chance they do track it down its under a fake name and the hotel won't release it to the seller. i basically had to get ebay, paypal, the hotel, and local usps on a 5 way call to get it all straightened out.

the hotel manager agreed to release the package to me after talking to ebay, paypal, local usps. right when he pulled the package out i knew it wasn't the airpods. the nigerian scammer sent back a fuckin cd. i recorded it all and sent it to ebay/paypal and got the case reversed in my favor and my monies release.

its fucked up out there man.
 
its a scammers world on ebay. within the past 6-8 months i sold a pair of brand new, still sealed from apple, airpods. buyer claimed they didn't work about an hour after receiving them. long story short he said he wanted a refund since the item was "not as described". i couldn't do anything but accept it. here's were it got interesting......

he didn't ship it back to me, he found a local hotel close to me and shipped it there from a fake name to a fake name. why a hotel you ask? because it would show delivered and thats all ebay cares about with returns. hotels accept packages for people that are/will be staying there so they are none the less wiser if its accurate.

the scammers hope is that the seller will chase his tail to find the delivered package and by that time the hotel will have sent it back. in the off chance they do track it down its under a fake name and the hotel won't release it to the seller. i basically had to get ebay, paypal, the hotel, and local usps on a 5 way call to get it all straightened out.

the hotel manager agreed to release the package to me after talking to ebay, paypal, local usps. right when he pulled the package out i knew it wasn't the airpods. the nigerian scammer sent back a fuckin cd. i recorded it all and sent it to ebay/paypal and got the case reversed in my favor and my monies release.

its fucked up out there man.
What a nightmare for $100 of goods. Good on you for standing up for whats yours. People are lame.
 
What a nightmare for $100 of goods. Good on you for standing up for whats yours. People are lame.

Seriously holy shit, lol. I do not offer returns on any NIB stuff, but that's the great part about ebay, you never, EVER can really not have an item returned.
 
Everybody, including OP needs to just wait until he gets the CPU back, this is all just speculation right now.

IMHO you are overreacting on a return request from the buyer. Calm down until you have the returned CPU in hand.

btw I stopped buying and selling on ebay years ago, too many idiots on there now.
 
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Seriously holy shit, lol. I do not offer returns on any NIB stuff, but that's the great part about ebay, you never, EVER can really not have an item returned.
I know right. I always say no returns on Ebay, no matter what it is. But I know that choice doesn't really even matter. Always such a gamble to sell stuff over there.
 
Hopefully the vast feedback and account history differences will play into their decision if it comes down to “escalate to eBay”.
.

I hate to break it to you, but from lots of experience, if you choose "escalate to eBay" they won't even bother reading anything you put in. They will just simply automatically side with the buyer, and then for extra fun give you a bad mark on your seller ratings for having bothered them with asking not to be scammed.

eBay doesn't seem to care about being "fair" or "transparent", it could be argued that they prefer to be on the buyers/scammers side because well they get their cut from it and you get all the loss. They would prefer there are lots of buyers even if they are frauds because they still make money off the frauds by screwing the sellers over.
 
I hate to break it to you, but from lots of experience, if you choose "escalate to eBay" they won't even bother reading anything you put in. They will just simply automatically side with the buyer, and then for extra fun give you a bad mark on your seller ratings for having bothered them with asking not to be scammed.

eBay doesn't seem to care about being "fair" or "transparent", it could be argued that they prefer to be on the buyers/scammers side because well they get their cut from it and you get all the loss. They would prefer there are lots of buyers even if they are frauds because they still make money off the frauds by screwing the sellers over.

Exactly. It's not far from the poor attitude/griefers in games. They don't want to get rid of them and alienate a customer but they miss the bigger picture of pissing off lots of people and alienating some of their core customers. That and lets be honest they want to have as few customer service reps as possible to cut costs.
 
Just FYI, they have been scamming Amazon on "New" returns of intel processors also. Apparently the scammer is sanding off the laser etching on core 2 processors and re-etching them to show as brand new high end units. If this is the case the numbers on the PCB of the chip shouldn't match up and you may be able to argue that he didn't return the same unit.
 
Just FYI, they have been scamming Amazon on "New" returns of intel processors also. Apparently the scammer is sanding off the laser etching on core 2 processors and re-etching them to show as brand new high end units. If this is the case the numbers on the PCB of the chip shouldn't match up and you may be able to argue that he didn't return the same unit.

Wouldn't under the CPU be also a lot different ? I mean if under doesn't even match that socket...
 
Wouldn't under the CPU be also a lot different ? I mean if under doesn't even match that socket...

Yeah.. but what is seen through the little Window in the box is apparently all that matters for Amazon returns.
 
The thing is even if you have a picture of what you sent him, it's still your word against theirs. Taking a picture really doesn't prove anything.

If you must use eBay I would stay away from selling expensive items and only allow buyers with 100+ feedback as well.
 
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