Scammers on Amazon

Placed a iPhone 4 up for sell on Amazon around midnight last night. Got up this morning, and had one scammer do a buy, they were based out of Doral, FL, wanted the phone sent through a dropbox, to be shipped out of the country; killed the sell and put the phone back on the list of available products.

Next one emailed me, wanting to know more about the phone. Thought okay, it is legit, so emailed them back. Got the:

"I will send you $70 more to cover the "Thanks so much for being sincere, the item is for my colleague as a gift but she's currently on vacation so i want you to help me post it to her, I'll add $70 for the postage, send me the invoice of the total cost through PayPal to timothy***** at ****com so i can transfer the money asap."

So told them they have to go through Amazon, so got this in return:

"I would have prefer completing the deal via amazon but am currently having issues with my credit card, I have more funds on my PayPal, the deal is legit, i just need someone i can trust to help me do the shipping. PayPal is more reliable and fraud free, all you need do log on to WWW PayPal com and create an account by signing up, and you get back to me with the payment invoice so that i can transfer the funds as soon as possible."

The last one was the final straw, so reported that one. Then I get within two hours of placing the iPhone back on the available for sale items, got another purchase out of Decatur, MI, from a buyer, killed that one also; since that was also obvious that it was a scam artist trying to pull one over.

There are right now over 107 32gb iPhone 4's, and you cannot tell me that it is not obvious that the scammers are hitting on first time sellers, right out of the box.

I am done with this whole Amazon seller mess, and now looking to only do private sell, local buyer only with cash in hand. No check's, no Money Order's, no half payment, then remainder later. It is all the money for the item, or no item at all.

 

Saw a story on the news last night that is a similar scam using eBay.

A scammer will either purchase a "buy it now" item or ask a seller to end an auction early because they "really need the item quickly and will pay extra for express shipping."

The scam kicks in at payment. You get an "instant payment received" e-mail (allegedly from PayPal) that looks legit but is actually a spoof.

The moral? Disregard e-mails marked from PayPal. The only way to be sure you've received your payment before shipping is to sign into your PayPal account and verify the balance due has been collected. If PayPal shows a "hold" on the buyer's payment for any reason, do not ship until the hold is fully released by PayPal and all funds due are securely deposited into your account.

If you delay a shipment due to a funds hold, the shipping clock starts when the hold is released. My understanding is buyers cannot leave bad feedback if a PayPal hold delayed the ship date/arrival date.

 

One that happened to a family member on Ebay selling a laptop IIRC.

Item was won, payment was made in full via paypal. Luckily they were slightly late shipping as after around 24 hours or so all the payment was removed from the paypal account:confused

Later found out the buyer had cancelled the purchase using the reason the purchaser 'a kid' did not have permission to use the account.

Wonder what the chances are the laptop would have been returned if it had been shipped rolleyes

I only buy from either Amazon or reputable traders on Amazon, I never, ever buy or sell used electronic goods from private sellers either, anywhere.

 

Something else to watch out for on eBay is a fraudulent statement that a manufacturers' warranty applies to the item being sold.

Toward the end of last year a new Nokia cell 'phone was announced by the specialist press many months before its release to the (European) market. The 501, a very basic 'phone characterised by its extraordinarily long battery life.

When I finally found that it was available in the U.K. and saw it being hawked on eBay, I bought one, complete, the seller said, with a manufacturer's 1 year warranty.

On the box it said that it had been destined for selling in East Africa. My suspicions being aroused, I took it to a Nokia Service Centre. They confirmed, through an internet check, that the warranty was valid only in Kenya and Uganda.

I demanded and received a full refund, including return postage, from the seller, and reported the matter to eBay.

The seller is still hawking the same 'phone.

Out of curiosity I asked other sellers of the same 'phone if they would tell me the intended market for it and whether or not the claimed warranty was valid in the U.K.

Most of them couldn't correctly put a single sentence in English together, some were difficult to understand, some evasive, all were inaccurate (lies).

Caveat emptor.