Are fruitcakes running rampant on eBay lately? Selling, buying, listing, feedback, etc...

[thelovemachine]

1 hour ago, locidm said:

PayPal will take weeks to review and at the end they will either side with you, or they will say they “have received notice from the buyer’s institution that the case has been decided in the buyer's favor. However, because you’re a valued customer, we’re not debiting your PayPal account for the disputed amount.” Either way you should be covered since you have proof of delivery.

Thanks for letting me know... seems like the buyer prob gets the dough and paypal seller protection pays me...

i hope ebay managed payments is simpler so we don't have to deal with this twice.

[S4J]

9 hours ago, thelovemachine said:

Thanks for letting me know... seems like the buyer prob gets the dough and paypal seller protection pays me...

i hope ebay managed payments is simpler so we don't have to deal with this twice.

I'm glad some one asked this question because recently I have been have a very similar problem but only with PayPal.  So I ask you larger volu,me seller if you have had the following  problem?

Over the last month or so I have received a relatively large number of "Unauthorized Transactions" disputes from PayPal.  Nothing from ebay but just PayPal.  In all of these cases the tracking info showed the package was delivered and like I mentioned none of them have given me poor feedback.  So far PayPal has been on my side but this is a bit of a scary situation when you have a bunch of auctions at once.  Is this a sort of "Scam" where these people are just disputing everything hoping some of them fall in their favor?  Has anyone else had this issue?  

[Serejai]

I've been selling on eBay since... I don't know. 2008? I've had more "Unauthorized Transaction" disputes in the past two months than in the previous decade. I'm not sure what the deal is; either there have been some massive data breaches recently, or a lot of people are just trying to stretch their money by scamming right now during the virus. But regardless of why this is happening there is absolutely something going on lately.

So far I've also won all of my cases, and none of the buyers have left bad feedback or anything. But I've drastically reduced my sales on there for the time being.

[KShine]

11 hours ago, thelovemachine said:

i hope ebay managed payments is simpler so we don't have to deal with this twice.

I hope it isn't as simple as "Thank you for following every guideline - but you are no longer protected, so we have taken your money away"

[KShine]

Someone just sent me an offer - stating that it was a fair price, based on the original msrp, adjusted for inflation.

[minicoopers11]

2 hours ago, KShine said:

Someone just sent me an offer - stating that it was a fair price, based on the original msrp, adjusted for inflation.

Going to try that with TSLA stock from a month ago. Wish me luck! Well, five months ago. Anyway...

Edited August 4, 2020 by minicoopers11

[Gonkalin]

So in the past 4 days I've had 4 fraudulent purchases on Ebay for high value sets ($300+). Paypal flagged the purchases in seconds and said they were investigating them. And then within minutes cancelled them. Anyone else noticing this unusual trend? I've had this happen to me maybe ten times over the past 18 years selling on Ebay so to have 4 of them happen in the past 4 days is very unusual and different.  The sets were City Docks (this one it happened to twice), Unimog and Barracuda Bay. 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Gonkalin

[Serejai]

11 minutes ago, Gonkalin said:

So in the past 4 days I've had 4 fraudulent purchases on Ebay for high value sets ($300+). Paypal flagged the purchases in seconds and said they were investigating them. And then within minutes cancelled them. Anyone else noticing this unusual trend? I've had this happen to me maybe ten times over the past 18 years selling on Ebay so to have 4 of them happen in the past 4 days is very unusual and different.  The sets were City Docks (this one it happened to twice), Unimog and Barracuda Bay. 

Yes. I have stopped selling on eBay for the time being after having literally half of my sales recently end up this way.

[exracer327]

I stopped selling on ebay when I saw the economy starting to return so like many of you the number of unauthorized buyers I have experienced over the years is very very small. 

For those who are having the issues with unauthorized buyers, what seems to be the common thread?  Are these all new buyers?  Are these buyers who have established records and are getting hacked?  Just curious what to watch for.

Edited August 7, 2020 by exracer327

[Serejai]

None of mine have been new. Always 5-10 year old accounts, recently active buying/selling, and with a decent amount of feedback.

It just seems like there has been a massive data breach recently that hasn't been reported yet or something if so many people are suddenly claiming their accounts were hacked.

[Darth_Raichu]

50 minutes ago, Serejai said:

None of mine have been new. Always 5-10 year old accounts, recently active buying/selling, and with a decent amount of feedback.

It just seems like there has been a massive data breach recently that hasn't been reported yet or something if so many people are suddenly claiming their accounts were hacked.

Those are most likely old abandoned accounts.  Another way to look at this: eBay is getting better at catching these scammers.  In the old days these scammers would be able to get away with this crap without being detected.

[minicoopers11]

19 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Those are most likely old abandoned accounts.  Another way to look at this: eBay is getting better at catching these scammers.  In the old days these scammers would be able to get away with this crap without detected.

Seriously. This is a LOT better than getting an unauthorized transaction dispute well after shipment and receipt of the item. If eBay is catching the scammers before you ship, why stop selling? There is ALWAYS a chance someone will attempt to scam you, better to sell off before scammers adjust their way around eBay's current defenses.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

24 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Those are most likely old abandoned accounts.  Another way to look at this: eBay is getting better at catching these scammers.  In the old days these scammers would be able to get away with this crap without detected.

so does Ebay crack down the account or just a slap on the wrist, but accounts still active?

If accounts still active I would encourage a thread to start listing unauthorized Purchase/scammer types

[locidm]

I was having these issues a month ago and eBay caught one of four unauthorized transaction before shipping. Sounds like they are catching them faster now.


Since then I stopped listing high value items >$300 and haven’t had problems.

It sucks not only because of stress from fear of loosing money and having to spend time to refund and follow up, but also because of knowing the sets are contributing to scammers’ illegitimate profit instead of going to a home where the Lego is being built and enjoyed.

This is completely separate and different from the set of scammers with the forwarding company and buyer opening cases 5.5 months after.

Just too many scammers these days.

[Darth_Raichu]

4 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

so does Ebay crack down the account or just a slap on the wrist, but accounts still active?

If accounts still active I would encourage a thread to start listing unauthorized Purchase/scammer types

Ultimately all of these unauthorized transactions cost eBay money.  eBay would be stupid not to put all of these accounts under some kind of bad buyers list. 

In my case, they deactivated the scam accounts as well, but I have not researched if this is true for the majority of cases

[$20 on joe vs dan]

I just added this disclaimer to my $200+ listings

[Due to the high price, please expect messaging through the Ebay system to clarify and confirm sale details; set will not be shipped until confirmed messaging by the buyer]

I know this won't protect me from all scammers...but it's an additional filter

Edited August 7, 2020 by $20 on joe vs dan

[Serejai]

24 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

Seriously. This is a LOT better than getting an unauthorized transaction dispute well after shipment and receipt of the item. If eBay is catching the scammers before you ship, why stop selling? There is ALWAYS a chance someone will attempt to scam you, better to sell off before scammers adjust their way around eBay's current defenses.

In my cases they aren't catching them until after the item ships. What happens is Paypal will immediately "review" the transaction and place the funds on hold for 24 hours. After 24 hours Paypal will email me saying the transaction is legit and that I need to ship the item. So, I ship the item. The next day I will get a case opened against me claiming unauthorized transaction.

The end result is that Paypal sides with me via Seller Protection, so I get to keep the money. But the buyer also opens a case with eBay and wins that one, resulting in the transaction being outright deleted/removed from my sales history. It makes me really uneasy when Paypal keeps basically telling me "Hey, this looks sketchy. Give us a while to check it out" followed by "We checked out the transaction and the account has not been compromised", only to immediately have a case opened against me like clockwork once I ship the item.

[minicoopers11]

3 minutes ago, Serejai said:

In my cases they aren't catching them until after the item ships. What happens is Paypal will immediately "review" the transaction and place the funds on hold for 24 hours. After 24 hours Paypal will email me saying the transaction is legit and that I need to ship the item. So, I ship the item. The next day I will get a case opened against me claiming unauthorized transaction.

The end result is that Paypal sides with me via Seller Protection, so I get to keep the money. But the buyer also opens a case with eBay and wins that one, resulting in the transaction being outright deleted/removed from my sales history. It makes me really uneasy when Paypal keeps basically telling me "Hey, this looks sketchy. Give us a while to check it out" followed by "We checked out the transaction and the account has not been compromised", only to immediately have a case opened against me like clockwork once I ship the item.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. 

[Gonkalin]

9 hours ago, minicoopers11 said:

Seriously. This is a LOT better than getting an unauthorized transaction dispute well after shipment and receipt of the item. If eBay is catching the scammers before you ship, why stop selling? There is ALWAYS a chance someone will attempt to scam you, better to sell off before scammers adjust their way around eBay's current defenses.

I agree 100% with your comment. They have stopped them immediately so really no problem to me. I just got another fraud one tonight for barracuda bay a second time. I do all my sales through eBay so I want them to maintain a good reputation with other buyers and sellers. 

[Gonkalin]

I normally ship within 12-18 hours. Items go in mail the morning after transaction. So if it sells at 9pm. It’s in the mail by 9am next morning. I think I will start waiting 24-48 hours to ship until things calm down. 

[Shortbus311]

My bread and butter this year has been sets that sell in the $100-$200 price range and used sets and I haven't had a single issue yet. It seems all of these fraudulent transactions are on the very high $ sets

I still have 4 days handling time set on all my Ebay listings, but I have been boxing up and printing shipping labels a day or two after the buyer purchases and just holding it before dropping off another couple days. The buyer gets a notice that it is shipped as soon as you print the label. I have only had 1 buyer question why the status said shipped but it wasn't received by any pist office yet... I just told them that I I get all my orders prepped ahead of time but only go to the post office once a week because of coronavirus. They seemed fine with that explanation.

[KShine]

Upon authorized payment, I am required to ship it out by the next day (in order to not get dinged) - If they are authorizing, and requiring immediate shipment - it is on them.

[Shortbus311]

Upon authorized payment, I am required to ship it out by the next day (in order to not get dinged) - If they are authorizing, and requiring immediate shipment - it is on them.

You have the ability to add handling time on Ebay. You do not have to ship it out the next day.

[BillyBricks]

47 minutes ago, Shortbus311 said:

6 hours ago, KShine said:

Upon authorized payment, I am required to ship it out by the next day (in order to not get dinged) - If they are authorizing, and requiring immediate shipment - it is on them.

You have the ability to add handling time on Ebay. You do not have to ship it out the next day.

If he accepted Top-Rated Seller status and gets the 1% discount in fees, he has to ship within one day. That's my guess as to what he is talking about. 

[Shortbus311]

If he accepted Top-Rated Seller status and gets the 1% discount in fees, he has to ship within one day. That's my guess as to what he is talking about. 

Yeah, that is one of the two reasons why I never accepted the Top-Rated + Seller badge. I like my handling time, and I really don't want to offer free 30 day returns. Just doesn't seem worth it for 1% to me. 1 return on a large set that I try to QFLL once it goes OOS (for me, small seller), would pretty much eat up that fee discount.