Ebay Fake Tracking Scam

General
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1

I just wanted to share what has been my literal hell since the 18th of august.

So here i go.

At almost midnight on the 18th of august, i spied a good deal on a munch pikachu.

I checked the cert, it all checked out, and with that i promptly ordered and paid for the card.

It wasnt until after i bought it that i realised the massive red flags (i have picked up things cheap in the past that have been listed lower than market)

Seller had zero feedback, and up actually look up recent solds, i found the exact same card listed and sold a month earlier.

I promptly requested to cancel the transaction, which was rejected 3 days later with a tracking number uploaded.

I checked the tracking number, and it showed delivered to my suburb.

It wasnt until later that day that i realised that the tracking listed was for my suburb, but in another state.

Upon seeing this, i contacted ebay via phone,

and spoke to them regarding all of this, at which point they put an item not received case in.

Fast forward to the last day of the item not received case, and the seller puts the following comments in

Dear eBay Customer Support, I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to address a recent case, ID ********* , where the buyer has made a false claim regarding the delivery of their purchase, tracking number ********* via FedEx. I kindly request that you review this case thoroughly and consider the provided evidence when making a decision. I believe that a fair resolution would be to close this case in my favor, as I have met all the requirements of the transaction and the buyer has received the item in question. Thank you for your assistance in resolving this matter fairly and efficiently. Sincerely

So, case is escalated, i speak to the trading card section of ebay, who are well aware of these scams.

fast forward to the day the case is reviewed, and ebay close it in favour of the seller.

Well, im now at a point where i am screwed, cause ebay has failed me.

In this case, i rung them again and appealed it.

Luckily, ebay sees the error of their ways and refunds me.

My next course of action would have been paypal, then bank account.

TLDR

be very careful what you buy on ebay. As these scams are common, and often result in ebay and paypal siding with the sellers. Google fake tracking scam ebay for more info.

and remember, if its too good to be true, it probably is

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Really sorry to hear that you went through this, @launcestoneeveeman. I’m glad that eBay finally refunded you.

So it sounds like the scammer:

  1. Sells a card for lower than market price to entice buyers, despite having no/low feedback.
  2. Sends a package (presumably with nothing in it) to the same address in a different state/zip code.
  3. Prays that eBay will look at the first line of the address and side with them.

Sounds like a foolproof plan until eBay takes 30 seconds to check the state/zip code on the tracking. Shocking that an automated system didn’t check that the first time around. Hopefully your case (as well as others) will bring some attention to eBay so that policies/trainings can improve. :person_shrugging:

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My mom ran into this scam recently! She bought a phone on eBay for a lot of money, and eBay refuses to help her even though they just need to look at the pictures she has been sending to see that the seller is a scammer. It’s been about two months now, and they still haven’t refunded her. Very upsetting.

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4

This is exactly what they do.
There is apparently a “black market” for fraudulent tracking numbers, where as they buy a tracking number that is around the date specified to the correct suburb.
Someone at fedex needs to be fired imo…

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it is really crap that they have managed to work out a way to bypass the ebay money back guarantee

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This happened to me before on eBay, seller sent via UPS to same zip code, but it was a dfifferent mailing address. Luckily by the time my item was “delivered” the seller already had -7 feedback from doing the same scam so I threatened the selller and got refunded

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I figured if i let people know, then they will hopefully not get caught out by it also, cause apparently PayPal is notorious for knocking it back also on the same grounds

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I also just got hit by this recently. Waiting for the case to resolve itself but the ebay rep on the phone assured me it would be decided in my favor since the tracking provided did not require a signature on an item over $750.

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heres hoping mate, its a terrible feeling getting the you will not get a refund email…

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…If eBay’s system worked as it should (does the address match in actuality, and not the first line) the reviewer should KNOW the address was not correct and seller is at fault. However, people are the most vulnerable part of a system, and also the most necessary part. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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An easy solution to this is eBay makes it mandatory for sellers to purchase the label through them. You can’t edit the shipment address, or else you lose your seller protection.

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From what I understand, ebay actually cannot see where items are actually delivered to based on tracking. I think that’s a privacy thing where usps/fedex/ups etc doesn’t provide that info.

So therefore the system only checks the info available to them which is city and zip code

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USPS won’t tell you the address for a tracking number, but they will confirm if an address you say should be tied to it is correct or not.

So for this, eBay would need the buyer to get a letter/email from USPS confirming the tracking number address does not match your address

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I honestly wonder why USPS and eBay don’t make this happen. I mean, it’s cheaper for USPS because they have fewer mis-labels. It’s cheaper for sellers ALL THE TIME. Why sellers don’t use ebay for shipping more than a PWE (or scams) is beyond me…

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This is true for us normal people, but any large organization that uses eBay as a platform probably has their own private shipping account set up with their shipper of choice, likely with a deeper discount than you’re getting on eBay. They may even have their own shipping software depending on the organization. Other companies may be using software that centrally manages their eBay, Shopify, Etsy, etc and ship through that.

It would be nice for something like this to exist since it would help eBay verify situations like this, but it’s way too rigid to apply to everything. It’s pretty unlikely eBay would force this on people due to how many customers they would alienate in the process.

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Most of the fake tracking scams are from new accounts. Ebay could make it mandatory for sellers with less than 10 successful sales to use eBay shipping.
So for legit sellers who are big enough to have their own shipping rates/account, it doesn’t affect them.

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i read a blog from someone who got scammed by this a week or so ago (i have read a good portion of them, as i was researching for my case) and they were saying that the seller that scammed them had like over 100 feedback, and the negative feedback was starting to build up, but by the time they lost their case, the seller was back up to 100% as ebay auto removed any negative feedback when the case is ruled in favor of the seller…

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A lot of scammers will also leverage hacked accounts with a lot of feedback for things like this and other scams, to make people more trusting of the account.

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oh yeah i get that, i was more talking about fleabay deleting legit feedback

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Took longer than it should have but got a call from eBay on saturday that they closed the case in my favor. It was basically decided in my favor over a week ago but the dollar amount caused it to need higher level approval which lagged until I reached out to them.

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