How can I catch out this eBay scammer?

[Aquarius909]

A few weeks ago we received an order online for one of our more expensive items (£3k) from a small town in Canada. There were a few markers on it that made us think it might be fraud so we made a phone call to the guy and having spoken to him we took the view that, on balance, it probably wasn't fraud so we dispatched the item.

Today I've logged on to eBay and I see someone in that same small town in Canada offering our exact item for sale as "new" (even though we have a No Quibble 14 day return policy anyway). Dang it, we've been defrauded and I expect the chargeback request through any day now. Indeed, looking through the guy's listings it looks like we're not the only firm defrauded as he is selling a lot of "new" niche items using the retailer's own imagery as his photos.

How should I proceed from here? There are a number of options that I can think of at varying degrees of effort/restitution:

1) Breathe, exhale and move on. Yes this is easiest but as was once said, "All that it takes for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing"

2) Report him to eBay as soon as we get the chargeback notice through

3) Buy the item back from him, the report it to eBay and get our purchase price back (we've actually done this one before albeit for a lower value item and in a more roundabout way)


Any thoughts?

Edited by Aquarius909 on Thursday 14th November 13:25

[Mr Overheads]

Is he selling it for more than he bought it from you for?

Is it a product that's hard to source in Canada, but opens up a whole other line of business for the seller?

[coldel]

If you are expecting a chargeback then assume they are doing so under the premise that the item didnt arrive. Did you not post it securely, signature on receipt of item etc?

[Aquarius909]

Mr Overheads said:

Is he selling it for more than he bought it from you for?

Is it a product that's hard to source in Canada, but opens up a whole other line of business for the seller?

No, he's selling it at about the same price but with the option to make him an offer. It is a niche item but I don't think the seller is seeking to open up any new line of business, he's just flipping a fraudulently purchased item at whatever he can get for it. The first offer he receives will get this item.

coldel said:

If you are expecting a chargeback then assume they are doing so under the premise that the item didnt arrive. Did you not post it securely, signature on receipt of item etc?

The item was sent with FedEx fully tracked but the issue will be that the buyer didn't use his own credit card. As I say, there were markers in the original order that made us suspect it might be fraudulent use of a credit card but having spoken with the chap we took a calculated risk it was legit. It now seems we got that wrong.

[coldel]

I would say report the whole thing to ebay now with evidence etc. I get its tough as most ebay stories on here from genuine sellers always puts the weight of support on the buyer from paypal/ebay etc. gives scammers like this too much protection.

[i4got]

It may not be a scam. He may have bought and received it then realised it didn’t fit/ wasn’t suitable/surplus to requirements etc. So he’s selling it on. I wouldn’t necessarily assume a chargeback will appear yet. But I would screenshot his advert just in case,

[deggles]

Why would you be liable for the chargeback, does PayPal seller protection not apply?

[coldel]

I assumed as OP mentioned the buyer paid via credit card not paypal?

I am not an expert but if the credit card company attempts the charge back and the seller queries it then the buyer has to prove the product didnt arrive, was broken, not as described?

[Simpo Two]

There's nothing wrong about buying a product for X and reselling it for X. Once he's bought it he can do what he likes with it.

If he's selling it he can hardly ask for his money back on the grounds it didn't arrive (and you have tracking info).

Aquarius909 said:

but the issue will be that the buyer didn't use his own credit card...

That is the hole in the ship. You're only supposed to send things to the address the card is registered to.

Hopefully all will be well but if I was in your position I might talk to the CC company and get the first punch in, as it were.

[Buzz84]

I read the original post and can see that he has got the item which you an confirm with tracking (and the fact hes listed it for sale.)

He hasn't contacted you, filed a complaint or issued a charge back? so nothing fraudulent has actually happened yet that i can see.

Sounds like hes just acting as an unofficial importer/re-seller.

[coldel]

Buzz84 said:

Sounds like hes just acting as an unofficial importer/re-seller.

As I read it the OP is saying its for sale at the same price they bought it at, which would indicate they are making no money on it? As I read it.

[menguin]

coldel said:

Buzz84 said:

Sounds like hes just acting as an unofficial importer/re-seller.

As I read it the OP is saying its for sale at the same price they bought it at, which would indicate they are making no money on it? As I read it.

Guys - the person that bought it on ebay used a stolen card. They did not use their money. The person re-selling will make 100% profit and run. A chargeback will be initiated by the real CC owner, which will then go through PayPal to recover from the seller.

[coldel]

menguin said:

coldel said:

Buzz84 said:

Sounds like hes just acting as an unofficial importer/re-seller.

As I read it the OP is saying its for sale at the same price they bought it at, which would indicate they are making no money on it? As I read it.

Guys - the person that bought it on ebay used a stolen card. They did not use their money. The person re-selling will make 100% profit and run. A chargeback will be initiated by the real CC owner, which will then go through PayPal to recover from the seller.

Wont the product have been posted to the potential scammer, fully tracked and signed for? Who signed for it? Wont there be transaction links between the now seller and next buyer? All links together quite easily as fraud if purchased with a stolen credit card.

Edited by coldel on Thursday 14th November 13:18

[NDA]

Buy it back and don't pay him.

[S100HP]

NDA said:

Buy it back and don't pay him.

Pay, claim it didn't arrive, claim payment back.

[coldel]

S100HP said:

NDA said:

Buy it back and don't pay him.

Pay, claim it didn't arrive, claim payment back.

That would be brilliant, scam the scammer

[Aquarius909]

NDA said:

Buy it back and don't pay him.

This is sort of what I'm thinking about doing. But if I buy on eBay I'll have to pay him and would then need to rely on eBay upholding a subsequent complaint that it was stolen goods for sale and invalidate the transaction. This actually happened us once before but it was a third party buyer that ended up with the "stolen" goods and this chap agreed to pay us the fee he'd purchased it on eBay for one he got his money back from eBay/Paypal - what a decent chap!

And thank you to all others that have commented here but to clarify some of the issues that seem to be confusing people, the guy bought on our website (not eBay or any other platform) using a credit card that wasn't his so issues about being able to prove delivery, seller protection etc just don't come in to it.

To the poster who suggested the chap was importing and selling (@Buzz84), much as I'd like to think this is the case, I've been doing this too long and am 100% comfortable to say this is not what he is doing. He will never file a complaint with the credit card company because it's not his card. Once the card holder finds the charge for this item on their statement, then the chargeback process will begin.

[Sheepshanks]

Aquarius909 said:

.... the buyer didn't use his own credit card.

Is that as insane as it sounds, or am I missing something? Especially bearing in mind it's a pretty expensive item and it was shipped abroad.

[Fonzey]

coldel said:

S100HP said:

NDA said:

Buy it back and don't pay him.

Pay, claim it didn't arrive, claim payment back.

That would be brilliant, scam the scammer

Brilliant

[Aquarius909]

Sheepshanks said:

Is that as insane as it sounds, or am I missing something? Especially bearing in mind it's a pretty expensive item and it was shipped abroad.

We use Sagepay and First Data to process credit card payments. You can set this up with a number of levels of security and the top level is 3D Secure which is well-known in the UK but, in my experience, not overseas and not in America. We made a decision not to use 3D secure because it confuses American customers and though we have lost on this order, I'd like to thunk we gained far more business by having an easy checkout process.

In the absence of 3D Secure we rely on Sagepay who have payment history data and can tell us if they have seen history of a certain card being used to send to a different address (as frequently happens for legitimate reasons) or if an address is known for fraud. However, outside of the UK they don't have much data and so we're largely on our own. They can tell us things like if the customer's card was issued in a different country to the one they are in or if the IP address of the user was in a different customers but it can happen that a person from country A, is travelling in country B and wants to send an item to his friend/family in country C so you have to make a judgement call each time. It was one of these judgement calls that went wrong for us this time.

For what it's worth, we're about to switch from Sagepay/First Data to Stripe and I'm told they are better at spotting and stopping credit card fraud. If anyone can offer a comment on that, I'd be very grateful to hear it.