Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[BrickLegacy]

7 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

In fairness, Amazon was much different during the holidays than it is now, in regards to scams against sellers.

Night and day. I had zero holiday returns.  Sh!t hit the fan in Jan - Feb.

[redcell]

In fairness, Amazon was much different during the holidays than it is now, in regards to scams against sellers.

Are you talking FBA or FBM? I only do FBA and have had no issues.

[Kenxxx]

7 minutes ago, redcell said:

<Re: Problems with Amazon scam buyers>  : Are you talking FBA or FBM?...

 

This was the main gist of my question when I posted it this morning. Glad to get everyone's feedback. Based on what I see here, it looks like >90% of Amazon scam buyers prefer to snare FBM sellers.  I (and others here) have been burned in the past couple months with pricey sets shipped FBM (mine were both in mid January).  Still... as asherin warns, it is entirely possible a scammer could buy from us FBA , and then report to Amazon that the box was full of junk, or bogus bricks. Lately Amazon has been far too quick to pay the buyer, let them keep the product, and punish the seller... then it's on you to prove your innocence. I thought I had heard a recent story about this happening to someone here, selling a big exclusive FBA, but maybe I just imagined it.

But what I've read here today has been encouraging. I think I may try moving some stuff FBA again.

[BrickLegacy]

2 minutes ago, Kenxxx said:

This was the main gist of my question when I posted it this morning. Glad to get everyone's feedback. Based on what I see here, it looks like >90% of Amazon scam buyers prefer to snare FBM sellers.  I (and others here) have been burned in the past couple months with pricey sets shipped FBM (mine were both in mid January).  Still... as asherin warns, it is entirely possible a scammer could buy from us FBA , and then report to Amazon that the box was full of junk, or bogus bricks. Lately Amazon has been far too quick to pay the buyer, let them keep the product, and punish the seller... then it's on you to prove your innocence. I thought I had heard a recent story about this happening to someone here, selling a big exclusive FBA, but maybe I just imagined it.

But what I've read here today has been encouraging. I think I may try moving some stuff FBA again.

FBM leaves you open to A to Z claims.  Scammers are finding easy ways to abuse that system to commit fraud.  I suspect there are holes in the FBA system that scammers can exploit, but based on positive vibes here, they haven't found those loopholes yet.  I can't imagine Amazon enjoys paying out these refunds left and right.  Something has to give and I don't think it ends with more aggressive suspensions.

One important lesson I've learned in this game is that just because something doesn't affect me, I shouldn't ignore the headwinds.  When Kenxxx was first to report the scam activity on Amazon, I should have shut down my listings.  Lesson learned.

[Brickbuilder.g]

Trying to reconcile lost fba inventory...says I need receipt what if I don't have? Outta luck?

[Bold-Arrow]

5 minutes ago, Brickbuilder.g said:

Trying to reconcile lost fba inventory...says I need receipt what if I don't have? Outta luck?

If it is above a certain amount then yes .. you don't have any retail/online receipts or anything to show how and from whom you acquired said items ? 

[Darth_Raichu]

11 minutes ago, Brickbuilder.g said:

Trying to reconcile lost fba inventory...says I need receipt what if I don't have? Outta luck?

Let me get it straight.  They lost your inventory and you have to provide them receipts for the items???  Why do they need your receipts to investigate their screw up????

[redcell]

15 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Let me get it straight.  They lost your inventory and you have to provide them receipts for the items???  Why do they need your receipts to investigate their screw up????

To confirm that you actually had the item and aren't trying to scam them by adding it to an inbound shipment and then saying that they lost it when it is not received at the fulfillment center.  I'm sure that there were some unscrupulous sellers out there who padded their profits by adding extra units to shipments and then requesting reimbursement when they didn't show up.  

[Bold-Arrow]

18 minutes ago, redcell said:

To confirm that you actually had the item and aren't trying to scam them by adding it to an inbound shipment and then saying that they lost it when it is not received at the fulfillment center.  I'm sure that there were some unscrupulous sellers out there who padded their profits by adding extra units to shipments and then requesting reimbursement when they didn't show up.  

My understanding is that if you make a lot of these false claims and the inventory never shows up then it is the banhammer for you . 

[redcell]

4 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

My understanding is that if you make a lot of these false claims and the inventory never shows up then it is the banhammer for you . 

I think that's right, but the difficult thing for Amazon to determine is what does and does not constitute a false claim.  

[Brickbuilder.g]

Definitely don't want that...I'll dig up some receipts.

[nolanfan34]

Buyer wants a refund due to the shipping box and Lego box getting wet due to rain on their end. I looked at the weather from today and it seems legit. Do I just have to do the refund, or should I file a claim with USPS?

[Bold-Arrow]

8 minutes ago, nolanfan34 said:

Buyer wants a refund due to the shipping box and Lego box getting wet due to rain on their end. I looked at the weather from today and it seems legit. Do I just have to do the refund, or should I file a claim with USPS?

technically u need to refund and open a claim . do they want partial or full ?

[nolanfan34]

Just now, Bold-Arrow said:

technically u need to refund and open a claim . do they want partial or full ?

Good question, I have emailed them. They asked for a full refund. I wanted to find out first if they think the inside (manuals) were damaged.

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, nolanfan34 said:

Good question, I have emailed them. They asked for a full refund. I wanted to find out first if they think the inside (manuals) were damaged.

they would need to return it first before u refunded otherwise you might be SOL. still open claim with pics and what not 

[micbelt]

Not Lego, but sold a pretty high ticket funko pop via fbm today and wondering if there is anything I should do before shipping to proactively counteract any potential scamming? I sell almost exclusively fba but did not want to risk it getting damaged.

[cardkid]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:51 PM, brickelements said:

My take while probably wrong interprets this term different:

Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.

You may not use your Prime membership for the purpose of resale (my twisted mind says as long as you are not buying it with prime and shipping it to a person not at your address)

 

If they are shipping any item to your location there is no difference on what  you do with it in the future....but if you buy it and have them ship it somewhere else (drop-shipping) that is frowned upon. 

Opinions?

I think this makes sense.

You can't use Prime to drop ship items another customer bought from your amazon store.

so does that mean this scenario is ok?

You can buy stuff on amazon have it shipped to your house and then at a later point re-sell the item using FBM/FBA.

[redcell]

I think this makes sense.
You can't use Prime to drop ship items another customer bought from your amazon store.
so does that mean this scenario is ok?
You can buy stuff on amazon have it shipped to your house and then at a later point re-sell the item using FBM/FBA.

Why is this a concern? If you're going to sell it later, why do you need two day shipping versus standard shipping?

[pete411]

1 hour ago, micbelt said:

Not Lego, but sold a pretty high ticket funko pop via fbm today and wondering if there is anything I should do before shipping to proactively counteract any potential scamming? I sell almost exclusively fba but did not want to risk it getting damaged.

Send it and pray. If you get scammed, you get scammed. You can get delivery confirmation, take a video of you packing the box and driving it to the post office and take a selfie with the postal employee accepting the package and the customer will still win the A to Z claim against you. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by pete411

[Phil B]

On 4/3/2017 at 3:55 PM, Bold-Arrow said:

I signed up for the two step verification about a month ago . I woke up today to find 2 requests for pins which I didn't not request . Someone attempted to gain access to my account so def a must have for everyone 

So I did 2-step verification on Tuesday after BA's confirmation of Asharerin's advice. Got my first unrequested PIN code this morning. Guess it was just on time. Do I just ignore these or is there follow-up I need to do with Amazon?

[gregpj]

So I did 2-step verification on Tuesday after BA's confirmation of Asharerin's advice. Got my first unrequested PIN code this morning. Guess it was just on time. Do I just ignore these or is there follow-up I need to do with Amazon?

It would be impractical for Amazon to try and track these requests so I would say you do nothing but ignore it and make sure your password is ultra strong.

[cissi]

Hope none of you are victims.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-coms-third-party-sellers-hit-by-hackers-1491816600

Quote

In recent weeks, attackers have changed the bank-deposit information on Amazon accounts of active sellers to steal tens of thousands of dollars from each, according to several sellers and advisers. Attackers also have hacked into the Amazon accounts of sellers who haven’t used them recently to post nonexistent merchandise for sale at steep discounts in an attempt to pocket the cash, those people say.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by cissi

[Phil B]

27 minutes ago, cissi said:

Hope none of you are victims.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-coms-third-party-sellers-hit-by-hackers-1491816600

 

Since activating TFA, I'm getting 2-3 pin requests per day on my cellphone.

[redcell]

3 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Since activating TFA, I'm getting 2-3 pin requests per day on my cellphone.

I posed this to BA in the other Amazon thread:

I'm curious...is the password that you use for your Amazon account one that you use for other accounts or is it unique?  I've got two-step authentication in place, but haven't received any queries from someone trying to access my account.  The password that I use for Amazon is not one that I use or have used anywhere else so it could not have been compromised through another breach where my information was obtained.

[Phil B]

3 minutes ago, redcell said:

I posed this to BA in the other Amazon thread:

I'm curious...is the password that you use for your Amazon account one that you use for other accounts or is it unique?  I've got two-step authentication in place, but haven't received any queries from someone trying to access my account.  The password that I use for Amazon is not one that I use or have used anywhere else so it could not have been compromised through another breach where my information was obtained.

Great point. I don't use this password anywhere else, but it might have at some point been my yahoo! password and since they had some hacks, this might be why. Time to get a random string of characters as my pwd.