Ebay Scam.. hos does it work?

[renmure]

My wife saw items being listed for sale in her eBay account and a message that 2 part authorisation had been turned on... but the phone number wasn't hers. Four expensive iPhones were listed. She hadn't listed them and by the time she got home to contact eBay 3 of the items had sold and she was showing nearly £2k in her paypal account.

She told eBay that it looked like she had been hacked, they confirmed the listings/transactions were dodgy and changed her passwords and removed the listings. She's now had a couple of emails from "buyers" saying that they haven't had delivery or that they've been advised that there is a problem with the transaction and are contacting ebay themselves.

Obviously this will be resolved and the buyers will get their money back and she has all the access to her ebay account.... but how would the scammers have ended up with the cash?

[IanJ9375]

Normally it involves someone paying them by paypal gift or some other "no comeback" type transfer, Western Union etc
If it's too good to be true etc etc

[Initforthemoney]

Just close the ebay account.

Hateful website.

[meatballs]

Presumably if the password for PayPal hadn't been changed they would have emptied that and then any PayPal chargeback would be against your wife's account and the scammers are scot free (barring a proper investigation with the banks tracing the money).

[craig1912]

Something similiar happened to my wife’s account. It took three months to sort out and ebay and paypal were useless. Account has now been closed

[meatballs]

craig1912 said:

Something similiar happened to my wife’s account. It took three months to sort out and ebay and paypal were useless. Account has now been closed

They may not have been that useful but then it's normally a mistake by the account holder that grants access. Enable 2FA wherever you can.

[pigface1000]

Inform paypal, if your account has been used, this will save you from a charge back fee

[wack]

Initforthemoney said:

Just close the ebay account.

Hateful website.

Helpful, many people make a living from Ebay, it's also created a lot of wealth and tax by allowing people to easily dispose of their unwanted items for top money allowing them to upgrade and thus generate vat and create jobs in retail and distribution

The world would be a much less prosperous place without Ebay

[renmure]

Thanks all. To update, she contacted PayPal. That account was fine. Everyone who “bought” the items appeared to be refunded by PayPal and she wasn’t out of pocket for selling fees. I was just confused as to how the scammers could get any money and who they got it from as presumably if they had hacked the PayPal account they could simply have taken/sent money without the need to list and sell phantom items.

[sugerbear]

I guess they would Just setup a new payment method to a mules bank account or amend the existing bank details.

Gullible dimwit then takes the rap (if they are ever prosecuted).