August 10, 2010 - 2:06pm
Four years ago IDC published a report telling that 50% of all Microsoft software sold on eBay globally was fake, and it had become such a problem that Microsoft launched a global campaign to track down the culprits.
There is a very popular and effective eBay scam that may defraud you of a huge amount of money and even make your reputation be of a criminal.
The development of technologies has brought us to the epoch of the virtual realities and electronic commerce. And while the technologies themselves are void of any human features it is human beings who control and drive them which results in that the virtual world is also full of fraud and dishonesty. While participation in electronic commerce transactions is exciting and very convenient you should always remember about those who make money on unscrupulously exploiting popularity of some phenomena.
Being a gigantic global marketplace eBay represents a huge pool of opportunities for commerce, shopping, trading and, of course, scamming. eBay has made a serious and trusted name in the world of virtual economy and fraudsters use this fact to capitalize on luring unwitting customers into dubious schemes. In this article we will talk about the situations when you may become another victim of a cyber malefactor.
Scam No 1 is as old as the world: IDENTITY THEFT
Identity theft is not a new idea today because it is widely used by scamsters across the world. And the fact that there are tons of articles and news pieces dedicated to identity theft millions of Internet users are still being tricked into such kind of frauds.
Many eBay users today receive junk mails which purportedly come from eBay and warn you to confirm or verify either your credentials or your personal information. Such spam mails usually contain eBay logo, link to actual eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy and have would-be authentic links to the website which look like this: http://arribba.cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayISAPI.dll?UpdateInformationConfirm&bpuser=1.
The text in such mails usually say that eBay is "undertaking a period review of our member accounts," and that as a result, you have to go to their Web site and fill out the required information. Or they may say about “regular verification and update of the account.”
It should be noted that neither financial institutions nor ecommerce merchants ask their members to provide your personal information in the email after you registered on the website long ago. All the links to the reputed websites that do ask you to hand in some information start with 'https://'. The extra 's' stands for secure, which means your information will be transmitted through a secure connection.
Phishing emails usually have some of the following characteristics:
- · They will not be addressed to you, but usually start with a generic "Dear eBay member".
- · They have an urgent tone, eg "Account Suspension – Urgent Auction Required".
- · They have links to web pages that look like eBay pages but are not the real thing.
- · They ask for confidential information such as your PayPal password or credit card numbers.
In order to help users to detect whether they come to the true eBay page or to a fake destination the company offers a free tool dubbed Account Guard. The Account Guard turns green when you are on a genuine eBay or PayPal site and turns red if you are on a suspect site.
Scam No 2: FAKE ITEMS
Four years ago IDC published a report telling that 50% of all Microsoft software sold on eBay globally was fake, and it had become such a problem that Microsoft launched a global campaign to track down the culprits.Today popular brands are widely misused by criminals to lure you into buying a thing you desire for lower price than it is sold in specialized stores. Louis Vuitton, Channel, Paul Smith and other brands are usually marketed by scamsters who at best sell counterfeit goods, and at worst sell nothing.
There are a number of features peculiar to fake goods sellers. Such fraudsters may sell an expensive item as “unwanted gift” saying that it was a gift from their wealthy relative who would never buy a fake. Here is what was said by one eBay user about fake bags: “People from all walks of like buy fakes for lots of reasons. People SELDOM receive high end handbags as gifts and sell them at a loss. You will NOT buy NEW designer handbags on ebay at a loss. Vuitton NEVER goes on sale. CHANEL, GUCCI, PRADA etc. DO go on sale, but coveted, hard to find, out of stock in season bags DO NOT! If it seems "too good to be true" it is.”
Another trick is that fake brands sellers often say about wholesale sales of luxury items. It is ridiculous because only branded or authorized stores can sell wholesale. One more fraudulent scheme of would-be “top brand” sellers is Factory Seconds. Educated and aware buyers know that top brands always destroy factory seconds that do not meet the brand’s standards.
In addition to that, fake item sellers usually do not post actual photos of the goods and instead post stock images. However, many reputable sellers do post stock photos but they do it in addition to actual photos and customers can ask for real pictures of the goods.
Scam No 3: SHILL BIDDING
In eBay's own words, "Shill bidding is bidding that artificially increases an item's price or apparent desirability", and it's just as common on eBay as it is in any auction room up and down the country.
Shill bidders usually have the following common features:
- · Shill bidders may bid exclusively on items offered by one seller. If a bidder has a long history of buying from one seller, it is quite possible they are in cahoots.
- · Zero feedback. Sellers with zero feedback may be those who work with shill bidders.
- · Too quick feedback. If their feedback was left by a satisfied buyer within hours of an auction ending, before the item could possibly have been delivered, it may be a scam seller.
- · Feedback from no longer registered users. This is always something to be wary of, whether looking for shill bidders or vetting a seller before making a bid.
- · Retracted bids. If a bidder has retracted lots of bids, especially from the same seller, this could be a sign that shill bidding is a foot.
Scam No 4: FEEDBACK
It is common today that a seller can gain ten thousand positive feedbacks in less time than it takes to get a reply from eBay customer services. Whilst Feedback is a good indicators of a seller honesty, it is possible to fake feedback by having multiple IDs, and IDs can be stolen. Buying very cheap information only products is also a very quick way of building feedback, without doing any real trading.
Here is how one user describes such scam: “Let me illustrate with an example. Here is an example of an auction that is selling feedback. The value is 1p and the product is for an image for your mobile phone that is actually in the auction description. They even list in the description that positive feedback is always left. Do a search around eBay and you will discover literally thousands of auctions of this type. All effectively selling positive feedback.
“So now that you have bought yourself a good eBay feedback, how can you now lure trusting buyers? Again, let us look at an example. How does a job lot of new PS/3 sound to you? Too good to be true you think. Of course it is. But look at the guys feedback, he even draws attention to it in his description. But look at the feedback and you will see none of it as a seller and its all for 1p items. Hopefully the more savy eBay user will steer well clear.”
Here is some features that can help you detect scam feedback:
- · Look at Feedback Comments: If your seller has a lot of overly positive comments, or just a lot of similar feedback comments, they may be involved in feedback exchanges or leaving feedback for themselves. Most scammers don’t leave original feedback every time when leaving themselves hundreds of feedback.
- · Look at Who the Buyer and Seller Were: The first reason for this is that a person can buy 10,000 items on eBay, get 10,000 positive feedback, yet never sell ever sell one thing. If an eBayer has lots of positive feedback, but it’s all for buying and none is for selling, be just as wary when dealing with them as you would a seller with zero feedback. After all, they are just as new to selling as a zero feedbacker. Secondly, if the seller has a lot of buyers, but all the buyers have only 1 or 2 positive feedback, there is a large chance that the seller is selling to him or herself. Be especially careful if your seller’s buyers only have 1 positive feedback, and that just so happens to be from the seller him/herself.
Scam No 5: WESTERN UNION
As you know eBay bans money transfer services as a way of payment on its website. The only secure online payment option for both buyers and sellers is PayPal because it offers you the vest protection if you buy any item. Money transfer services such as Western Union are designed for people who trust each other to transfer money from one place to and are not intended to carry out transactions between strangers. Once a transaction has been made the money is untraceable.
For this reason, many scammers require a money order or Western Union transfer.
Scam No 6: SECOND CHANCE
Second Chance Offer emails are sent, via eBay, by sellers to unsuccessful bidders if they have additional items to sell or the winner fails to pay. Fraudsters use bogus Second Chance Offer to get people to send payments to them as opposed to the legitimate seller for items that do not exist, or as a way to get hold of personal data.
You may identify the true second chance offer this way: it should come via your eBay page. Those offers that are made via email are scams. If the offer did not come from your console but comes via the "MESSAGE FROM EBAY" console or your email, then it is fraudulent.
It has become such a problem that many experienced sellers take control of the situation by highlighting in their listings the fact that no second chance offers are made, and that the bidder should report any offer received to eBay.
Scam No 7: TRIANGULATION
There is a very popular and effective eBay scam that may defraud you of a huge amount of money and even make your reputation be of a criminal.One expert descries this scam: “Scammers will place listings on eBay for very popular items that usually sell for higher prices. This could be anything from a popular name brand of clothing to appliances and electronic items. These will always be items that are readily available from online retailers.
“Once a bidder wins the auction, the scammer will simply order the product from an online retailer using a stolen credit card number. They give the store the address of the winning bidder, which keeps their own identity and address completely invisible. They keep the money that the bidder sends them through Paypal.
“What happens next? The online retailer ships the item directly to the winning eBay bidder and later on when the owner of the stolen credit card realizes the card was used illegally it is all traced back to the eBay winner, not the real criminal.”
Scam No 8: THE ONE DAY AUCTION
Today eBay uses a system under which a customer can report a fraudulent auction to the company and the report may be forwarded to the copyright owners like Vuitton. The copyright owner may then ask eBay to remove the fraudulent auction. But! As long as this system takes time many fraudsters are heavily practicing One Day Auctions because it would be more difficult for eBay to trace such schemes.
Yes, many One Day Auctions are not scams, but in most cases they are.
Scam No 9: CHARGEBACKS
It is not only sellers that may turn out scammers, buyers may also behave unscrupulously and in many cases commit fraud. Thus, some buyers may regret that they have purchased an item from you when they find similar thing at a lower price. In this case, they may claim that they never received the item or that it was received in bad condition or broken. In order to save your feedback rating, you might refund their money to avoid negative remarks being left.
The seller is only protected if they have shipped to a confirmed address using a trackable service. Canny buyers will target sellers who just ship via untracked services. Ever received a parcel that you unexpectedly had to sign for? Well, it's highly likely that the seller paid the extra for recorded delivery simply because they were worried about being scammed by a buyer who claims not to have received their parcel.
Scam No 10: SHIELD SCAM
One scam that may turn dear to sellers is eBay Shield Scam.
An expert describes this scam the following way: “This is a scam where a con-artist will have two fake accounts, and they will simply prey on victims selling high dollar items with no reserve. Here is a hypothetical situation. Let's say you are selling some expensive wheels on eBay for 2,000 dollars. Well, a scammer will bid on your item for $25 and then immediately prior to that bid they will bid from a separate account for 4,000 dollars. At the last second the big bid, the 4,000 dollar one will be retracted by the buyer and thus the winning bid is $25. Since you had no reserve you are liable to sell your expensive rims for a low price.
“They simply use two different accounts and scare others away with the second bid. People are looking for a deal and will immediately look the other way if something is way too high. Anyone caught trying to get do this will more than likely have their accounts suspended and banned from eBay forever.”
Conclusion
It is sure thing that we cannot insure our life against all the troubles, problems and misadventures. Still, we should do our best to stay on the alert and be careful if we really do not want to get into trouble. Certainly, it is not about those people who don’t care for troubles and who are indifferent to problems.
eBay offers many ways to stay protected against frauds. Be attentive and diligent reading the company policies and forums where users post their recommendations on how to avoid being scammed on the popular online marketplace.
One source recommends “Don’t assume that eBay is the cheapest” adding: “eBay is not always the cheapest place to make a purchase. Sometimes sellers are trying their luck and so always check prices first on a shopping comparison engine like Kelkoo, Shopping.com and Pricerunner.”
And of course you should remember good warning of our Lord: “guard against every sort of covetousness” and find the courage to refuse offerings that are “too good to be true”.