Suspicious activity from online store

[terrymc4677]

Here is one of those links of an eBay auction going right now that I believe could be fraudulent:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-Tower-Bridge-10214-Limit-1-Items-per-customer-/221180802756?pt=Building_Toys_US&hash=item337f6736c4

this is most certainly a drop ship situation. low buy it now price on an expensive and popular set, fairly low feedback total, quantity limit, and a 30 day listing. seller is going for the quick score here. will buy item online using stolen credit card, and have it drop shipped to the buyer. person who had their info ripped won't know it for days, maybe weeks.

[StarPod]

This has happened to me more times then i could count. Recently i ordered 10 GE. they were priced at 125 free shipping no tax on amazon. All 10 came directly from lego. I notified lego as well as amazon. Amazon refunded all of my money and lego did not require me to ship them back. Instead they told me to keep the sets and added 200 points to my lego account. not saying this will be the case for everyone but lego is more interested in keeping the buyer happy and not having to worry about fraud. As for amazon they dont even give a poop. they didnt suspend the persons account or anything. To be honest, amazon and ebay promote this. They do not do anything about it because they dont want to scare away profits

[Legodog]

This has happened to me more times then i could count. Recently i ordered 10 GE. they were priced at 125 free shipping no tax on amazon. All 10 came directly from lego. I notified lego as well as amazon. Amazon refunded all of my money and lego did not require me to ship them back. Instead they told me to keep the sets and added 200 points to my lego account. not saying this will be the case for everyone but lego is more interested in keeping the buyer happy and not having to worry about fraud. As for amazon they dont even give a ****. they didnt suspend the persons account or anything. To be honest, amazon and ebay promote this. They do not do anything about it because they dont want to scare away profits

Great deal for you I guess. I guess why should we all care about this when Amazon, eBay and Lego hardly seem to care.

[littlenicky]

Not sure how they are pulling it off while constantly drop shipping from big box retailers but it looks like they have been doing it for a while? http://www.google.com/products/seller?cmi=28996951080763392&q=lego+7962&ei=5dEcUI66JIr-iQTe2YD4BQ&ved=0CAcQwxIwAQ&hl=en

[Ed Mack]

Here is a related Blog Article on Dropshipping.

[redeemed763]

Funnily enough, I read about drop shipping scams in one of the blog articles here but it was in a large list of other scams and I didn't pay much attention to it. After a few weeks, I completely forgot how the scam worked and didn't piece things together initially, I just remember it was mostly an ebay thing and never thought it would be happening on a stand alone website like that. After this, I have now found a load of sites that have this same racket going.

[Ed Mack]

Funnily enough, I read about drop shipping scams in one of the blog articles here but it was in a large list of other scams and I didn't pay much attention to it. After a few weeks, I completely forgot how the scam worked and didn't piece things together initially, I just remember it was mostly an ebay thing and never thought it would be happening on a stand alone website like that. After this, I have now found a load of sites that have this same racket going.

As the old saying goes and it applies to buying LEGO sets...:"If it sounds too good to be true..." You know the rest. eBay sellers and some half baked LEGO websites that sell well below MSRP are major red flags.

[Ed Mack]

Great deal for you I guess. I guess why should we all care about this when Amazon, eBay and Lego hardly seem to care.

LEGO and eBay care a great deal, that's why they are freezing accounts. It's nice to get a good deal from a drop shipper, but it's not worth having your LEGO account frozen or the Police rolling up your driveway thinking you are the person using stolen credit cards.

[redeemed763]

Just a quick follow-up here, I emailed Google Wallet about this three times and have yet to hear any sort of response, I notified the seller and within 5 minutes, they refunded the full amount on all my purchases. I have now contacted the retailers, ToysRus ect and am waiting to hear back from them. All of the items arrived with return shipping information but I had already opened several before I caught onto this. One thing I took away from this: Google Wallet customer service sucks! I had a Paypal horror story in the past where my account was hacked by someone overseas and they charged me over $2000 and ran my bank account WAYYY past dry and I got nailed with a fortune in overdraft fees. Even with them, I had a live person to call and talk to, no such thing from Google Wallet.

[Legodog]

Great deal for you I guess. I guess why should we all care about this when Amazon, eBay and Lego hardly seem to care.

LEGO and eBay care a great deal, that's why they are freezing accounts. It's nice to get a good deal from a drop shipper, but it's not worth having your LEGO account frozen or the Police rolling up your driveway thinking you are the person using stolen credit cards.

If anything LEGO (and the police if they want to take it that far) need to understand that we are the victims and not the ones committing the crime. In some sick way I would almost love for a police officer to show up at my house so I can show them the receipt from eBay. I don't want to brag but I live in a very new upscale neighborhood with a $950k house so any police officer in their right mind would know that I'm not going to be sitting in my house committing credit card fraud and shipping the packages to my own address. Then again like you said they are going to get us where it hurts and that is by freezing our accounts. So it is definitely not worth it unless you want to be kicked out of the whole investing thing.

I practically live on eBay the last few weeks and maybe it is just my imagination but I have seen a lot less of these fraudulent listings the past week. Maybe eBay is catching more of them or someone is turning them in. Who knows. Could just be my imagination.

[Sgruschkus]

I ordered from pretendplay.com very recently and started getting suspicious immediately afterwards. I was prepared for the worst but them the FedEx guy rang the doorbell with 2 boxes both from Walmart.com. Inside were the 2 Pet Shops I had ordered- the packing slip listed some guy in New York and the combined cost (including tax and overnight shipping) on the invoices was approximately $350. I paid $125 a piece with no tax and free shipping. Not sure what to do at this point... Seems like the website has just a few unrealistically good deals mixed in with a bunch of other sets that are close to MSRP or way over-priced.