More eBay fraudsters

[WattsThat]

Just like the dirt cheap Fluke meters. Seller registered years ago, minimal feedback. They’ve now sold 76 hot air stations for $12.89 with free shipping to the USA 

Been wondering how long it’s going to stay up there before someone figures it out... I guess they’re up to about $1000 so far, small potatoes for eBay I reckon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-in-1-853d-SMD-DC-Power-Supply-Hot-Air-Iron-Gun-Rework-Soldering-Station-700W/402242467333

[deadlylover]

eBay/PayPal literally doesn't care, it's all 'priced in' already with the fees and even if you call them and bring it up they won't do anything about it for weeks even when it looks like a glaringly obvious scam.

They even jokingly call them something like "kamikaze" accounts internally, they try and take whatever they can from PayPal and then just go dark. Buyers of course will get reimbursed eventually so there's no trouble there.

It's not uncommon for sellers to blow up their accounts for a quick 20-30 grand in the collectable market (like trading cards and stuff). Of course you do see hacked accounts every now and then too. Very fascinating isn't it?

[M0HZH]

Here's an ongoing one, looks like the guy is planning to collect on Monday:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Business-Office-Industrial/12576/m.html?item=153907899892&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_ssn=lartdesgents_84000&_sac=1

Some stuff I really want in there, would almost take the risk if it's covered by eBay 

There was another one last week but ebay took it down before he had the big payday. Same pattern, old account with a ton of feedback, inactive for a long time, recently came back with 100-200 high-value items all ending at the same time, some weird text in the description advising to get in touch. They seem to love test equipment.

[beanflying]

Here's an ongoing one, looks like the guy is planning to collect on Monday:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Business-Office-Industrial/12576/m.html?item=153907899892&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_ssn=lartdesgents_84000&_sac=1

Some stuff I really want in there, would almost take the risk if it's covered by eBay 

There was another one last week but ebay took it down before he had the big payday. Same pattern, old account with a ton of feedback, inactive for a long time, recently came back with 100-200 high-value items all ending at the same time, some weird text in the description advising to get in touch. They seem to love test equipment.

That same scam has been going on with hijacked accounts for a few months now. Report it and move on 

[fourtytwo42]

Some stuff I really want in there, would almost take the risk if it's covered by eBay 

I don't believe Ebays fake money back guarantee anymore  , there was a time you could contact them if you had a problem, now its all "sort it out with the seller" as for paypal.....nothing printable!! The only use I have for Ebay now is small parts that cost a few pounds. Another thing I encountered this morning is multiple sellers all using the same reviews on multiple items, completely meaningless 

[Electro Detective]

Guys, you're just feeding the problem and putting an unnecessary load on Ebay, by being attracted to OBVIOUS suss sellers and their shiny dud or non exist wares

Sooner or later Ebay and Paypal may have to drop support on stings like these, and you'll be back in 'Buyer Beware' land

i.e. **** these scumbag sellers, let them starve or offer 'love you long time' ass in the street, and move on 

[Gary350z]

Just like the dirt cheap Fluke meters. Seller registered years ago, minimal feedback. They’ve now sold 76 hot air stations for $12.89 with free shipping to the USA 

Been wondering how long it’s going to stay up there before someone figures it out... I guess they’re up to about $1000 so far, small potatoes for eBay I reckon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-in-1-853d-SMD-DC-Power-Supply-Hot-Air-Iron-Gun-Rework-Soldering-Station-700W/402242467333

The hot air stations listing has all positive feedback, but all the feedbacks say "(Private listing)". I've run across this with other ebay sellers.
What does "(Private listing)" mean?

[OwO]

I do wonder why they haven't implemented transaction semantics like every other ecommerce platform. Keep the money locked up until the transaction is successful (buyer clicks "item received" or timer runs out without a dispute).

[M0HZH]

They have that for the first few transactions, until they establish some seller feedback. For a serious seller it would completely kill cashflow, for a small volume seller only small items would be suitable.

Plus, you'd have the people taking advantage the opposite way, claiming they didn't get it to get both the item and the refund.

[bingo600]

They (ebay) ought to be able to detect it just from the shipping ... $32 for every Item US to EU 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Roland-Versa-UV-LEF-20-Flatbed-LED-Printer-with-Bofa-extra-filter-12-200-300/153907908632

/Bingo

[OwO]

They have that for the first few transactions, until they establish some seller feedback. For a serious seller it would completely kill cashflow, for a small volume seller only small items would be suitable.

Plus, you'd have the people taking advantage the opposite way, claiming they didn't get it to get both the item and the refund.

Are there actually serious businesses that don't keep 1-2 years worth of buffer in the bank? I've worked with a few small businesses and they all have a lot of "reserve" capital and don't mind getting paid 2 months after goods are out the door, plus they have to keep inventory as well which "ties up" more than a few months worth of cashflow. As a small business, you also don't have the level of trust with suppliers and typically have to pay them upfront, which again means months of money tied up in in-progress production runs. I don't think this is usually a problem for any properly run business.

There are a lot of other things wrong with aliexpress, but their dispute system I think is pretty well thought out. Usually you'd first try to get the seller to resolve the problem, and on aliexpress this is formalized by the dispute-reply system. You don't worry about purchase protection running out because it gives both sides a set time to "reply" and hand the voice to the other side. Only if the issue isn't resolved do you "escalate" the dispute, at which point the full log of conversation and attached evidence is there for the arbiter to see. If I was a seller this is much preferable to the chargeback-like mechanism of paypal, where it tends to become a he-said she-said situation. Also because paypal fails to adequately protect the funds, the only way they deal with potential fraudsters is to freeze their entire account including all past (cleared) earnings, which also happens randomly to plenty of legitimate sellers. All around ebay/paypal is a shit experience for both buyers and sellers, and most businesses I've worked with try to avoid it whenever possible. I think this can explain the lesser variety of electronic parts on ebay compared to aliexpress.

[SiliconWizard]

A buffer of 1 or 2 years is sometimes difficult, but at least a few weeks.

Of course the problem is amplified for international sellers, especially the free shipping options, that frequently encounter several weeks of delay just for the shipping. But if they get into this business, they know what they're getting into.

[M0HZH]

The eBay dispute system is quite good, similar to Aliexpress but possibly more refined (I didn't have to dispute anything on Aliexpress so far). I've had quite a few disputes on eBay and it was always fair, at some point they even took a £50 loss out of their own pocket because of an item that got lost in the post. I hope I never get to experience why people complain about  .

Paypal has a separate dispute system of their own, normally if it's an eBay transaction they would have you dispute it though eBay.

As for businesses selling on eBay you are partly right, some businesses do have enough in the bank to afford that but most don't, or at least not the eBay-type businesses we have now. Those that do afford it have most of their revenue from other channels and eBay is just a nice add-on.

Keep in mind there's also 10% eBay fees, 3-4% payment fees, 4-7% advertising fees, some listing fees, it all adds up. Locking a month's revenue is basically another 8.3% cost across the year and not many businesses can say they can afford to give away 8.3%. My employer luckily can afford that and we do some eBay business, but if they'd introduce that rule tomorrow we'd take down all the ebay listings and put the budget towards Google Ads bringing people to our website instead.

[m3vuv]

the thing i find shitty is chinese conmen saying its uk stock,then arrives on a slow boat from china!

[M0HZH]

I think most of those "UK stock" chinese sellers use some sort of forwarding service, they post from China via Airmail (most probably subsidised by their government) and a local UK company / person takes it to Royal Mail. You get a RM tracking number but that shows no movement for about a week or so. eBay should find a way to fight that, but I guess it's good money for them so they just ignore it.

[beanflying]

I think most of those "UK stock" chinese sellers use some sort of forwarding service, they post from China via Airmail (most probably subsidised by their government) and a local UK company / person takes it to Royal Mail. You get a RM tracking number but that shows no movement for about a week or so. eBay should find a way to fight that, but I guess it's good money for them so they just ignore it.

As distinct from what the Royal Mail has done in the past with Government Subsidies and parcel rates below cost China just took an idea from the West and 'improved it'.

As to the rest of it very common in Oz to get rapid Airfreight ex China into Oz but also in the case of larger or heavier items local Warehouse and logistics firms are used.

[VK3DRB]

I think most of those "UK stock" chinese sellers use some sort of forwarding service, they post from China via Airmail (most probably subsidised by their government) and a local UK company / person takes it to Royal Mail. You get a RM tracking number but that shows no movement for about a week or so. eBay should find a way to fight that, but I guess it's good money for them so they just ignore it.

I got caught out. The advert said Australian stock shipped from Sydney, but the seller shipped it from China. I needed it pretty quickly. Due to the corona virus, it arrived 2 months later - posted from from China. Prior to it arriving, I got the seller to give me a full refund but I never returned the product or the refund when the product finally arrived. I would have happily met them half way if the coronavirus caused a shipping delay, but they lied and that is why the gloves came off . I gave them negative feedback as well and their account disappeared a couple of days later. They also used fake western names to try to fool customers. No-one with a Christian name of Alfred is going to write "We sory product late with slow post. we hope understand from COVID virus."

[SilverSolder]

It seems shipping from China to USA takes about a month these days, given CV19 and all.  -  prices have gone up as well, so it is less attractive to wait.

[tom66]

Are there actually serious businesses that don't keep 1-2 years worth of buffer in the bank? I've worked with a few small businesses and they all have a lot of "reserve" capital and don't mind getting paid 2 months after goods are out the door, plus they have to keep inventory as well which "ties up" more than a few months worth of cashflow. As a small business, you also don't have the level of trust with suppliers and typically have to pay them upfront, which again means months of money tied up in in-progress production runs. I don't think this is usually a problem for any properly run business.

1-2 years?  Maybe for a big giant like Amazon.  But even our bigger retailers in this country are make-and-break over Christmas sales.  The name "Black Friday" is not just a myth. For some retailers they only have a month or two of cashflow at any one time, and it's difficult to stay competitive while building a huge buffer up.

[engrguy42]

It seems shipping from China to USA takes about a month these days, given CV19 and all.  -  prices have gone up as well, so it is less attractive to wait.

I ordered some PCB's from China on Monday and just received them in US yesterday. 1 day to manufacture, 4 days shipping. So it depends.