A more advanced ebay scam

[Andrew_Carr]

So apparently the mechanism of the scam is this:
Scammer lists some cheap items to get real feedback. Then they start listing expensive items to scam people on. Once those items are purchased, they don't use an ebay provided label but make their own for your shipment and ship a junk item to a different address in the same zip code. ebay for some reason will mark this is as received, you never get a package, and ebay will deny your claim because the item shows as "arrived" to them. Here's some useful info I found for getting around this scam though:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buyin...ut-I-haven-t-received-it/m-p/29896438#M289206
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archi...am-UPS-Tracking-Shows-Delivered/td-p/26206551

 

[Gillbot]

This is an old scam, just gets recycled every so often. People used to list many cheap items like a sticker and mail them in an envelope to build up feedback then list a bunch of high end items, ship junk then **poof** they were gone.

 

[Nenu]

I only buy from decent sellers, best way round nearly all scams.
Unless they've been hacked its a safe bet.

 

[harddud]

While the topic of the thread may be interesting, this thread has nothing to do HardForum and am pretty sure that it will eventually get locked. The thread violates some of the forum rules including:

(11) No linkage to sales on EBAY or other auction boards.
(15) No LINKING to other sites except for image hosting. You can host images on our site by dragging and dropping your pictures into our editor.

 

[Andrew_Carr]

Hmm.. I was going to put it in the ebay forum but I thought this was a catch-all place for stuff like this.

 

[FrgMstr]

While the topic of the thread may be interesting, this thread has nothing to do HardForum and am pretty sure that it will eventually get locked. The thread violates some of the forum rules including:

(11) No linkage to sales on EBAY or other auction boards.
(15) No LINKING to other sites except for image hosting. You can host images on our site by dragging and dropping your pictures into our editor.

Can I help you and I understand this better?

 

[SPARTAN VI]

This is called the "same zip code scam" and it's been going on for years. Kinda personally encountered it on some too good to be true 1TB Samsung 980 that were $90 or something. So my buddy and I "bought" one. Fortunately the scammer just cancelled my order, but not so lucky for my friend. The scammer shipped a box to some random residential address in my friend's neighborhood, so he called up UPS and they provided him with the full address for the delivery. He turned around and submitted it in his ebay claim. Got his money back.

 

[Gillbot]

Most of these scams rely on the scammed to give up. With PayPal and eBay you need to be persistent sometimes but eventually you can get your way if you provide them with the appropriate information.

 

[Verge]

So apparently the mechanism of the scam is this:
Scammer lists some cheap items to get real feedback. Then they start listing expensive items to scam people on. Once those items are purchased, they don't use an ebay provided label but make their own for your shipment and ship a junk item to a different address in the same zip code. ebay for some reason will mark this is as received, you never get a package, and ebay will deny your claim because the item shows as "arrived" to them. Here's some useful info I found for getting around this scam though:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buyin...ut-I-haven-t-received-it/m-p/29896438#M289206
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archi...am-UPS-Tracking-Shows-Delivered/td-p/26206551

If there's no proof of signature, i find it hard to believe eBay will side with the seller.

 

[Burticus]

Just don't buy stuff that seems too good to be true from people with low feedback scores. Easy enough. Sure some of them may be honest....

OTOH the buyer protection will cover your losses if you yell loud enough.

 

[Andrew_Carr]

If there's no proof of signature, i find it hard to believe eBay will side with the seller.

So it seem to be that this is the common pattern:
1.) File a claim that you didn't receive the item and get rejected because tracking shows it was delivered (ironically the carriers don't provide ebay or the buyer with anything more than the delivery confirmation and the zip code it was delivered to).
2.) After losing the claim (because ebay sees it as delivered), appeal to a person and upload a document from UPS stating that the address & recipient doesn't match yours
3.) Win claim, lose time and sanity

With GPUs now it's frustrating because there's a lot of scalpers realizing they're no longer making a ton of money per card, so there's lots of low feedback sellers legitimately selling GPUs for relatively decent prices compared to the others that are still acting like it's May. On the other hand, there's just as many it seems that are scammers. I think I'm done with buying on ebay for awhile though, it's too much of a headache.

 

[Retsam]

As others said, this is an old scam. I had someone try to do it to me and provided a item delivered to some random zipcode which I dont think was even mine but just close to mine. Ebay sided with me and I got my money back.


Anyways. I try to never use Ebay anymore. Ebay doesnt actually give a crap about their customers if you actually ever talk to someone there. They will literally tell you "this is the price of doing business". Thats what they told someone I know who got scammed lol. Terrible company. They just happen to have a monopoly on online sales. I wish someone would come in a put them out of business. I started selling locally only for the most part a few years ago. Ebay is awful.

 

[Deleted member 143938]

As others said, this is an old scam. I had someone try to do it to me and provided a item delivered to some random zipcode which I dont think was even mine but just close to mine. Ebay sided with me and I got my money back.


Anyways. I try to never use Ebay anymore. Ebay doesnt actually give a crap about their customers if you actually ever talk to someone there. They will literally tell you "this is the price of doing business". Thats what they told someone I know who got scammed lol. Terrible company. They just happen to have a monopoly on online sales. I wish someone would come in a put them out of business. I started selling locally only for the most part a few years ago. Ebay is awful.

I used eBay before it went downhill and became a scammers haven, and since then if I resold I would try Craigslist. I live very close to Chicago and it's a PITA, it's very hard to get buyers/interest, even though I'm in a VERY populated area. Even selling a 3080, 6800 XT, and Ryzen 5600x when they just came out took a lot longer than I was hoping (some weeks), at fair prices (relatively speaking - def not price gouging levels). And when I try to sell normal items at normal/below market prices, if I get any interest at all, I just get ridiculously low-balled to the point I don't even want to reply back to those fuckers. I can only imagine how crappy it is for rural folks. They don't have a choice =/

My sister says FB marketplace is the place to go now but I don't use FB and refuse to use FB.

I have some things I'd like to sell but don't know where to go with them now so I just keep delaying selling things. Sucks.

 

[Andrew_Carr]

FB Marketplace is really good from what others tell me, but I'm the same way, I refuse to have anything to do with facebook. Craigslist has been pretty good for selling common items but for niche things it can be much harder to find buyers. I'm going to give mercari and some other sites a shot I guess. For buying / selling new items, I like stockx's model. They do inspections of the items before forwarding them to the buyer which cuts out a lot of the bullshit and it doesn't add that much on top of the price of the item.

 

[Gillbot]

FB Marketplace is really good from what others tell me, but I'm the same way, I refuse to have anything to do with facebook.

Same here. I have a few items I want to get rid of but at the end of the day it’s not worth the headache to even bother.

 

[blackbeasst]

Same goes for selling and returns. Had this happen to me on some AirPods years ago.

Returned “it” to me but it was a hotel down the road from my work (return address). It showed arrived to eBay and the hotel didn’t know anything cause they thought I could be a current or future guest. Ended up getting eBay, PayPal, and usps on the phone at the same time while I had the manager of the hotel film me opening up the return package. Son of a bitch returned some lame ass CD to me. Needless to say I got my money back (eBay had already refunded the buyer) within about 2 minutes.

 

[Deleted member 143938]

Same goes for selling and returns. Had this happen to me on some AirPods years ago.

Returned “it” to me but it was a hotel down the road from my work (return address). It showed arrived to eBay and the hotel didn’t know anything cause they thought I could be a current or future guest. Ended up getting eBay, PayPal, and usps on the phone at the same time while I had the manager of the hotel film me opening up the return package. Son of a bitch returned some lame ass CD to me. Needless to say I got my money back (eBay had already refunded the buyer) within about 2 minutes.

That's effiingscary, imagine selling a desired GPU or CPU this way and getting scammed this way by being sent back a brick. F that. Wow. Some people are scum. This is terrifying