eBay and Paypal Scams

[collector]

Wonder if any forum members have experienced scams through Paypal and eBay recently. I am not talking about email type scams but actual scams some people are pulling through eBay and Paypal. Please do read the third paragraph closely.

Background: My wife and I have been eBay buyers and sellers since 1998. We have completed well over 2000 (two thousand) transactions since 1998. With the exception of a couple of non-paying bidders and one item not sent by a poor seller, all of our experiences have been positive till the last couple of months. During these last two months we have had a # of non paying bidder transactions plus other issues with selling transactions. All very unusual, all items were less than $50US (nothing of big value). All were the result of "new" eBayers (less than 10 feedbacks). Examples; one non paying bidder had bid on 367, yes 367 items in ONE DAY (only on one of my auctions). Another had bid on 155 items in one day (this one bid on three of my auctions), etc etc. In a number of cases, eBay took the bidders down even before I posted non-payment reports or negative feedback. On a couple of others there were "Paypal" payment reversal issues. Others had very funny shipping names and addresses, etc, etc.

Curiousity about what was going on resulted in my visiting eBays discussion board. I must admit I had never visited this area of eBay since I had become a member in 1998.

http://pages.ebay.com/community/boards/index.html

What I read / learned from the posts, especially in the Paypal thread is that there are so many ways for buyers to EASILY scr--- sellers. I will not go through them here, but, it is totally amazing what is going on!!! Yes, I might have been both naivie and lucky over the last 9 years, but something different is going on!! FULLY, reading what is on eBays discussion boards is a real eye opener!! It's pathetic that one can scr--- a seller so easily!!!

Any comments / stories from forum members?

[collector]

Two more data points from the seller viewpoint!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0101483106

The above seller really looks like he got royally ________!!!!!!!!!!!! Also if you look at the link within the above link it appears that "some buyer we know" was deprived of of a nice watch!!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0096475861

On the above auction, if you read Usicks payment terms toward the bottom, it is apparent he has really gotten sc----- in the past also!!

[Majestyk]

Ok, I looked at your first link. I'll look it over again but at this point, nothing seems unusual about that at all. Firstly, all those bidders he has listed from p-47 (edited for this post), down all look legit to me. They have been around for awhile (some are digital watch regulars) and are not over bidding. What happened is p-47 decided he didn't want to pay that much and cancelled his bid. Then the person under him realized that he was in the lead and didn't want to pay that much either and cancelled his bid. And so forth, and so forth, like dominos falling. This has happened to my auctions as well. It is possible that the two top bidders were working together (maybe with a third) but I find, on Ebay auctions, that only 10% of the bidders really want the item. Once a cancellation takes place, it's game over and by that time, the other bidders have either bought something else, changed their minds, or didn't really want the item in the first place.

By the way, can you edit those links so they appear as:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0101483106

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0096475861

That way the formating of this thread will return to normal. :)

Jeff

[Majestyk]

As for the second link, I would take the same precautions of an item with that value. There's no way I'd take Paypal for over $2000US. I'm surprised to read he's lost that much money, however. I do know he sells a lot of computer related items as well.

That story about the folks having recent problems is unfortunate. I always check to see if my winning bidders have been over bidding before I accept payment from them...Although I had one guy not long ago buy 300 items in a month or so and it turned out he was legit. Even Ebay banned him for a few days and then he was allowed to continue after they checked him out.

The fraud is definitely out there but with that Citizen watch, I don't think it's the case.


Jeff

[Fitron]

Unfortunately as Ebay has become more popular it was always going to be a target just like microsoft or even firefox. More and more auctions are leaving paypal and going for bankers drafts - which I believe cannot be stopped like a cheque or a direct bank transfer which of course ebay says to avoid. How many people actually know that Paypal was bought by ebay a while ago and that this affects ebays policy on payments by other methods such as Western Union..... Paypal will always be useful for smaller scale purchases but as for larger ones - forget it! Usick has the right idea - also saves on paypal fees :D As for hackers - these tossers do it for kicks especially on mobile phones for some reason - giving false bids for £100's for basically junk. Sadly where humans congregate scum will be there even in cyberspace. On a positive note the numbers are very small but they affect many innocents - collector you have a large number of positive experiences and I believe that reflects on humanity in general - we're on the whole decent people - don't let the minority get to you.

[Majestyk]

Paypal, before and after Ebay ownership, has never been safe. They aren't a bank and people should never use them as such. I agree about taking small payments only, especially for new sellers.

The horror stories I read on www.nopaypal.com are very scary. :)


Jeff

[Majestyk]

By the way, for the first link, it is odd that no one has bid retractions logged. It's the only thing about that auction that I can't explain.

Jeff

[CompuChron]

All that is true ; but the opposite is even more true.
How many times have I sent money to people I don't know , even rather big amounts 200 to 300 $ outside ebay with no guarantee I'll ever received anything, and most of the times the watches come from the USA whereas I'm in France.
I've done it maybe not far from 100 times (both ways :buy and sell)
Never been screwed so far.
I think most of the time ,ebay is a place where you can trust people more than in the real life...

[CompuChron]

By the way which citizen could worth 2000$ even 500$???

[Majestyk]

It's the round Citizen calculator watch. The first LCD calculator watch if I'm not mistaken. If it's mint and someone really wanted one, I can see it getting that high. I can also see bidders remorse too. :)


Jeff

[retroleds]

Guys - I'll solve the mystery in many areas. I was the first biddder on that item and was the top bidder by a long margin. About 2 hours before it was to end the sale crashed - all bids cancelled. Then an ebay mail came saying the item was relisted - I took a look and it still only had the remianing time to go but was started at $.99 - I figured "F this shit, I know this seller and he wouldn't dick around like this". So I threw on an even higher bid - sale stopped again. I went back into ebay(I was flaming f'n mad at this point), and the sale came back up...only 40 some minutes to run - repeatedly I tried to make a bid, repeatedly I was blocked! I called ebay and reported the details - they already knew, and told me that the sellers account had been "compromised" and it appearred that MINE as well as the other two trailing bidders had been compromised. Some guy in Japan screwed all of us and thought he would get it on the cheap. I then called the seller and we talked about it a bit - I've done business with him before, so he knew it wasn't me. HE's pissed and is going to take a while to decide to ever come back to ebay. And that other Citizen Round Calc. that is up right now - WHY does he use a copy of the first seller's ad text? I also received a "second chance offer"from some a$$hole with an email at army.com, claiming he would sell me a mint one for $950.....I directed him straight to my junk account.

MAjestyk is right - no bid retractions were ever made - explain that s___!

[retroleds]

By the way which citizen could worth 2000$ even 500$???

It's a "Holy Grail" type of item...apparently more than one person thought it would be "the cat's meow" to own it. Kind of like the pop-up Benrus - I thought I had one, got smoked by a bid that was about 35% higher. Kind of funny getting ran over that bad.....reminiscent of how the coyote feels in a "Roadrunner" cartoon. Beep, Beep!! :P

[retroleds]

Few points:
(a)The link does not show the bidding order, only the cancellation order.
(b)I had the first bid, and yes, I put in a top bid of 2007.36 eventaully.
(c)you can't loose what you never had.

I had a beer and a shot of "Jack Black" and felt better about the whole stupid thing. 8)

[Majestyk]

Well, now! That's interesting! How are your accounts being hacked? You didn't use "little1up" as your password did you? hehe. I don't understand how anyone can hack mutiple bidder accounts so quickly, for the same auction.

I noticed something else odd that I didn't bother to mention and that is when you click on the "0" it doesn't show the list of cancelled bids.

Still...I stand by what I stated...One guy cancels and it just all goes to hell. HEHE. I almost always end auctions when that happens, although I've been lucky a few times.


Jeff

[retroleds]

Hacked - beats me. No, I didn't use my user name for a password. God only knows, maybe someone has hacked ebay and is selling user ID information on the black market. I sure as hell wasn't working with the trailing bidders as Majestyk suggested might have been the case. IF the trailing bidders were working together, they sure weren't much of a posse. :P

[Majestyk]

Oh I see...I think. You mean somone got access to an Ebay admin user ID. If that's the case, then that's pretty scary. One has to wonder how much other damage this guy did but given all the auctions he could have had done this to, I wonder why he picked that one? There's a lot more high ticket items out there.

[retroleds]

IT's scary to say the least. Crime, like rust, never sleeps.

[collector]

My theory on what happened on the Citizen Auction is as follows. Again, what follow is purely my theory!!!

SELLERS personal password / account information could have been obtained by someone hacking into there PC. Either spyware, keylogging software, backdoor trojan horse opening a port, older OS operating system, XP SP 2 patches not done, commercial grade antivirus, firewall, anti spyware not on the PC etc. Also, if they use a laptop they might have logged onto eBay, etc from a "phony" WIFI site (which would have captured all sorts of personal information. (Trust me I know what I speak of on this subject.)

This someone could have waited for this particular seller to list a high dollar value item for bid. (Could explain Jeff's question as to why this particular item.)

Hacker could have logged on AS THE SELLER and cancelled the bids. If you view the bid history log all bids were CANCELLED NOT RETRACTED!!!! If a buyer retracts a bid, the history log shows a bid retraction - not a cancellation. For Example:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0096097802

This also expalins why you do not see any bid retractions under the user Id's of those who did bid on the auction. There were no retractions - only cancellations!!!

While the bids were being cancelled, the hacker then could also access the sellers Blocked Bidder list and block anyone who bid on the item previously from bidding again. Very easy and quick to do - remember the hacker, since he logged on as the seller can view all of the bidders actual ID's. This might / could explain why Ed's later bids were blocked. (After the auction was over the hacker could go back in and update the blocked bidders list to cover there tracks.)

When the auction ends, one or an accomplace bidding under yet another ID could have a very valuable item cheap!!!

Again, I am not saying this scenario is what happened on this auction, but it is entirely plausible. Thoughts from others????

Ed, since you know this seller, you might want to contact him and alert him that as a percaution he might want to totally check out his PC.

[Synchroserious]

Spooky!! but great informative topic for me anyway.I was a professional tree climber/arborist for 15 years,the only down loading I did was stomping on the brush pile,felling trees or lowering dangerous limbs from over roof tops and high voltage wires.Yes I am lucky to be alive but I actually miss the physical challanges.

So if one suspects someone may have hacked their account is it as simple as changing your password?This is assuming all neeeded firewall,antivirus and OS have been updated at the time of the change.


Sounds like changing our password(s) every 30-90 days is called for.