For all those who sell things on eBay, there is a new scam that is quickly growing. I sell on eBay and hang around on some of the seller discussion boards and more and more sellers are reporting this new scam. When an auction successfully ends, but for some reason the seller backs out of the deal, or the bidder is located in a country where the seller will not ship, eBay has a deal called the "Second Chance Offer" where the seller fills out a form and the item is relisted, but ebay also generates a special email to the 2nd bidder in the auction letting them know that they have a "Second Chance" to bid on the auction. Well, the scammers are now going to successfully completed auctions and using the "Ask ebay user a question" internal email system are getting the email adresses of the second, third, fourth, and sometimes other underbidders (by getting their ebay ID's from the bid history of the auction) by asking some innocuous question. If the bidder responds the scammers then have their real email adress and they send an email that "looks" like it comes from ebay, explaining that as the underbidder they have a "Second Chance" to buy the item at the price they bid, and that they should immediately do a Western Union electronic funds transfer to some name that is supposed to be the real sellers (the place the funds are to be transferred to is probably located outside the US). A couple of pretty knowledgeable ebay sellers I know, had some antique items that sold, but had gotten legitimate questions from bidders about the items while the auction was underway, and they responded to those questions. After the auction ended some of those bidders emailed and asked if they had sent them a "Second Chance Offer" and why was the email adress different on the new emails. The sellers then ebay emailed ALL of the underbidders and found that most had been sent a bogus "Second Chance Offer" from the scammers. So, be aware that this is going on, and if you start to get emails about "Second Chance Offers" from underbidders after an auction of yours successfully ends, it's time to report what is going on to ebay and to warn those underbidders that they are being scammed. And if you get some email about an auction you bid on (but were not the high bidder) asking you to send funds or do a wire / electronic funds transfer, be aware that ebay's "Second Chance Offer" only gives you notice that the item has been relisted and that you have an opprtunity to bid on it again. They will soon have to rename ebay and call it scambay, if they don't do something about the flood of scammers.
Thanks for the tip. I'm starting to think there's a building full of people somewhere outside of USA, and all they do is come up with eBay scams. I must have gotten 20 e-mails that sounded "fishy" from people in the Netherlands wanting my '30 Tudor Sedan when it was on there earlier in the year.
The crooks are always two steps ahead of the good guys. The best thing you can do is Paypal only and block out any bids from outside the US. I know there are ways around this. But this is all you can do. There also is a way where you have to give the bidders permission to bid on you items. I think this might be the best way for hig dollar items.
that email trick is a common hacker trick called s****ing. I have done some network security stuff in the past. It is really easy to do and perfectly legal as long as you "don't use the information you receive or use it with permission from the company you are trying to secure or find holes in their server." Hell you can easily download these progams from any network security site. For a security point freeware is a great thing. For the common user it is really dangerous. Any "script kiddy" can use these tools on the average user to do what they want. Go figure.
</font><blockquote><font cl***="small">Svar till:</font><hr /> ...block out any bids from outside the US. [/ QUOTE ] Before giving that suggestion remember that the crooks can be everywere, it can be your neighbour as well as mine, and it can also be a fellow HAMBer. I´ve been buying alot of parts at E-bay, parts that are impossible to find over here (even if the price at E-bay sometimes turned way too high...).
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] ...block out any bids from outside the US. [/ QUOTE ] Before giving that suggestion remember that the crooks can be everywere, it can be your neighbour as well as mine, and it can also be a fellow HAMBer. I´ve been buying alot of parts at E-bay, parts that are impossible to find over here (even if the price at E-bay sometimes turned way too high...). [/ QUOTE ] exactly, would be sad to se more us shipping only and sellers turning down requests to ship to sweden just because of all the scams, i just cant find most of the stuff i want and need over here either.. or if someone has something its way to expensive you know for instance if one wants to buy like a caddy 331 engine with trans that needs total restoration you could expect to pay around 1500 us dollars and then you need all the machine work etc, heck its cheaper for me to buy an engine and ship it over here then to buy one here... not all the time but if you want something rare
[ QUOTE ] The crooks are always two steps ahead of the good guys. The best thing you can do is Paypal only and block out any bids from outside the US. I know there are ways around this. But this is all you can do. There also is a way where you have to give the bidders permission to bid on you items. I think this might be the best way for hig dollar items. [/ QUOTE ] All those auctions requiring a bidder to register just smack of a scam tho. With some common sense most scams can be avoided. Using paypal is one of the best ways to filter out the rif. If you list a car you can have a deposit required on paypal for them to use the buy it now function. It won't even end the auction until they have made the deposit, up to $2000. If buyers don't have paypal they need to get with the program. When I was dealing in vintage tools I had a lot of sellers that wouldn't take paypal because they were too cheap to pay the fees. Personally I wish all my buyers would use it. I think it is a bargain. It makes my bookkeeping and tracking much simpler plus I have my money in my hand to re-invest much sooner. My biggest problem right now isn't scammers but new ebayers. I get lots of legitimate buyers with 1 feedback, New and ignorant. They don't realize how ebay works or think winning the item gives them the option to pay liesurely or just decide they really don't want the item. I have had a few that immediatly paypal the amount of the sale without waiting for the invoice that includes shipping charges. They see what they want to see and even though you list an item and say you aren't sure what it fits and to ask questions if it doesn't look like what they need, they still buy it and then when they get it it isn't what they wanted and want a refund. I recently sold what was supposed to be a 40 Ford sedan trunklid on consignment. I stated that I was selling it for another party and that was the information I was given but had no way to verify it. I also stated that if you had a 40 Ford you would know if it was what you needed and to ask questions if there was any doubt. A newby bought it and then when he got it, it didn't fit his car and now I am loosing my *** on it to take it back even though I put hid nothing nor did I misrepresent it.
Another thought about possibly ensuring you are dealing with legit buyers/sellers is to check out what they have bought or sold before. If I saw a guy from overseas or here had bought/sold hot rod stuff before then I would be inclined to say he's legit. If a seller has been selling knitting supplies for a long time and all of the sudden selling a 32 coupe for 5000 buy it know, kinda raises a red flag. Problem is sometimes people see $$$ and forget to think. Steve
I was the only bidder on an auction for some Edmunds equipment a few weeks back, Reserve was not met & I recieved a second chance E-mail and I accepted. The sellers Email was also his Ebay handle, so I checked his feedback and went through with the deal through PayPal. I was on eggshells until the package arrived...
Paypal is usually pretty good, but there have been problems for some users. A seller who I know from ebay discussion boards posted his story about a rather large problem he had with Paypal. He bought an expensive vintage electric guitar from an ebay seller who had been selling for a while and had good feedback. The bid was $2,000.00 and he sent that amount by Paypal to the seller. After hearing nothing from the seller for 5 days he emailed the seller asking if the guitar had been shipped. The seller said that he had not received any payment yet. The bidder then started emailing Paypal to find out what happened to his 2 grand. Well, after a lot of emails and phone calls to Paypal he found that a few months prior to his winning the bid on the guitar, the seller of the guitar had a "charge back" against his Paypal account for a $2,400.00 item that a bidder had paid with a credit card by Paypal, and had told the credit card company that the item was not as represented. The seller had transferred the $2400 out of his Paypal account soon after it arrived (most savvy seller do not leave much of a balance in the bank acoount they have set up for Paypal use only). The person who initiated the charge back had not responded to emails from the seller asking them to return the item and had actually blocked the sellers emails. Paypal was not offering much ***itance to the bidder saying it was problem between "him and the bidder" to work out. So what the guy who had won the bid on the guitar found out was this: the seller had continued to sell items using Paypal for a few months after the charge back, but they were small sales in the $10 to $30 range and Paypal left him alone, But when the $2000.00 payment for the guitar got deposited in the sellers account, Paypal swooped in and confi****ed it to help pay for the charge back. The bidder complained to ebay, paypal and the seller of the guitar and was getting no where so he went to a lawyer. The lawyer told him that the seller of the guitar did NOT have to send him the guitar as he actually never had posession of the payment and the only thing he could do was to sue Paypal/eBay. To do that he would need to hire a lawyer in California where Paypal is located and sue Paypal, but he warned that Paypal has a LOT of lawyers and that they have a reputation for asking for continuation after continuation in cases where they are sued, and that tactic would ensure that his legal fees would most probably quickly go over $2,000.00, and that he may just have to write it off, as the cost of doing business with ebay/payal. So, he gave up on his lawsuit and DOES NOT use paypal anymore. Use paypal at your own peril. A number of long time ebay sellers I know who used to think Paypal was the greatest thing ever, have stopped accepting it as a method of payment after getting screwed on some charge back scam. You may have seen some auctions where the sellers will state that they will not accept paypal paid with credit cards. There are a number of scams used against mostly new ebay sellers, using charge backs as the vehicle to run the scam.
I hate that whole 2nd chane offer ********....Its another way of Ebay getting more fees from you..I can just email them off ebay and ask them if they want to buy it!! How lame........
Marcus, I tried their "Second Chance offer" a while back for an auction where the winning bidder had flaked, but did not realize it was just a relist of the item where ebay send the second bidder an email letting them know they could bid again. I ended up getting a lot less of a bid than the original auction ended at. For auctions where the bidder flakes, now I just do the NPB/FVF (Unpaid Item dispute, is what they call it now) and then relist the item. I had good luck a few years ago emailing second bidders and offering them the item at what their top bid was, but eventually it seemed most of them wanted to play "lets make a deal" by email to see how little they could pay for the item. By the way, here's a couple of recent postings about Paypal problems from a Studebaker discussion board: I like JP had a non shipping auction that I won, and reported to PayPal and > eBay within the 30 day period. I had no hopes of any sort of positive > resolution. However....... I received this note from Paypal: > > "Transaction Date: Oct. 2, 2004 > Transaction Amount: -$101.58 USD > Case Number: PP-053-414-171 > Seller's Name: lawrence Ruziecki (eBay name blueskittles83) > Seller's Email: ************@aol.com > > > We have determined that the seller is at fault, and as a result, we have > attempted to recover your funds. > The maximum amount we were able to recover was $79.95 USD. This amount has > been credited to your account. Please allow up to 5 days for this > adjustment to be reflected in your account. > > If you are due any additional amount from the seller, please be ***ured > that we will make our best effort to recover the balance from the seller on > your behalf. > > You can also be ***ured that we will take appropriate action against the > seller in this case. Actions may include issuing a warning, a temporary > limitation, or terminating their account. PayPal uses a number of factors > to determine what type of action to take, including member complaints. Due > to privacy laws, we are unable to discuss the details of any action. We > hope you understand our policy, and that it ensures you are safe when using > PayPal. > > > We appreciate your business, and regret this experience." > > It wasn't all the money, but better than nothing and he screwed two others > as well. > bs Here's another: Glad you had some luck with them. I filed a complaint with PayPal on a Seller because what he advertised for sale on eBay wasn't what he delivered. He used what is termed "Bait and Switch" where he subs***uted something of a lesser value/quality than he advertised he was selling and what he had pictured on his eBay ad. PayPal sent me a message that they would not pursue the matter if what was delivered was of lower quality than what was paid for (or something to that wording). Anyway...I paid $380 for something and received something else that was actually worth about $100. EBay wasn't any help either. Loy
I think what it all boils down to is there is just no way to ever totally eliminate all possibilitys of dishonesty when it involves semding money to someone you don't know to pay for something you never actually saw and rust them to send it. Ebay is a great market place and an opportunity to get a much higher price than you could selling locally, and to find items to buy that you may never run across any other way. But it comes with risks that just can't completely be avoided. As a seller you can demand payment only in money orders but that will limit bidders to some degree. I for one mostly like to use paypal to purchase because I don't have time to go get money orders and get them mailed off. As a buyer, you still have to send the money off and hope the item arrives. With paypal you have some hope of resolution and also some degree of protection if the seller is covered by the buyer protection policy.
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