Ebay SCAMS?

[EEVblog]

What's the deal with this ebay store?
Stuff like used test gear, supposed based in Bondi Junction in Sydney with massive feedback and reputation, but a dodgy image saying that all bids wil be removed, and if interested to email some dodgy domain that doesn't exist?

I can understand these scams, but how do they get 47,000 feedback and 99.7% feedback? I can only presume these are hijacked ebay store, like Youtube channel get hijacked?

[Jackster]

Report it to @AskeBay on Twitter?. They are super responsive there unlike the website.

Definitely hijacked or bought an old store.
That image is against seller rules as well.

[EEVblog]

Report it to @AskeBay on Twitter?. They are super responsive there unlike the website.

Definitely hijacked or bought an old store.
That image is against seller rules as well.

I found another one, and even bigger store, stealing and reusing photos because they are background watermarked 
Might be a video on this warning people tomorrow.

[jpanhalt]

Searched eBay.com for that seller.  There were a lot of its listings in UK.  Almost all were very low priced.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=&_sacat=0&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=44090&_sargn=-1%26saslc%3D1&_salic=1&_fss=1&_fsradio=%26LH_SpecificSeller%3D1&_saslop=1&_sasl=topshoediscount&_sop=1&_dmd=1&_ipg=60&_fosrp=1

Restricted search to >$100 USD and got only 8 listings.  Here's just one of them:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/374213037138?hash=item5720d5cc52:g:nfMAAOSwbBphn1nq
All of those items were in Australia and the disclaimer about removingbids for Keysight MSOS254A is the same.  Listing shows $287.65, but when clicked on, it shows current bid AU$898

Suspicious.  The UK store might be legitimate.  The Australian???

[coromonadalix]

yeah  the ebay normal declaration page is a joke, it never works for me

I've seen many photo of the same items sold under many "items numbers"


pfff

[Fungus]

Hijacked store. They'll take your money and vanish.

Take a look at their sales history, usually they sold something completely different in the past. I suspect that "topshoediscount" used to sell shoes, not test gear.

[AVGresponding]

It's a recurring theme. I posted about it in TEA earlier today, an Aussie fashionware shop account hacked, and with lots of high end TE and other expensive items "for sale".

I reported a couple of the items, if enough people do likewise ebay will take the shop down.

[Grandchuck]

I found this on the Web: "Some fraudulent people set up a website with products and use a PayPal logo on their cart but the Logo goes to their personal account.
PayPal will not investigate or refund the transaction."

If so, that is scary!

[wilfred]

If you tell Ebay that it has listings directing people to complete the purchase offsite where Ebay won't get the fees they will delete it immediately. Self interest is a persuasive argument.

[Fungus]

PayPal will not investigate or refund the transaction."[/b]

If so, that is scary!

Why? How many "detectives" would Paypal have to employ? Is there any garantee that they'd get it 100% right every time?

An awful lot more people are going to get ripped off if people can simply reverse Paypal transactions with hardly any questions asked.

"Caveat Emptor" is a very old saying.

[nctnico]

What's the deal with this ebay store?
Stuff like used test gear, supposed based in Bondi Junction in Sydney with massive feedback and reputation, but a dodgy image saying that all bids wil be removed, and if interested to email some dodgy domain that doesn't exist?

I can understand these scams, but how do they get 47,000 feedback and 99.7% feedback? I can only presume these are hijacked ebay store, like Youtube channel get hijacked?

Yes, accounts get hacked to place fraudulent listings. That is always the case with these kind of scam listings that have been going on for at least a decade. A tell-tale sign is that suddenly the seller starts selling completely different items. Nothing new here really.

[richnormand]

@EEVblog
So they are back at it again....

There are a few posts back to 2020 about this same technique and, if I remember correctly, using the same "instruction" page as you presented.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/suspicious-ebay-seller/msg3397736/#msg3397736

After about a month or so they seemed to be removed quickly by ebay.

I assumed at the time they used a highjacked account with good ratings and that ebay would not detect the fraud since the "instructions" were in the photos.
There are a few other threads on eevblog about this.

[alm]

This has been a recurring scam for at least two years. Once every couple of days or weeks, another account gets hacked, filled with all kinds of auctions for expensive items, like test equipment, guitars, etc, and stating somewhere either in the description or one of the pictures that you should contact them outside eBay. Generally eBay removes them within 24h. It's been quiet for a number of months, but it happened a couple of times this week.

Checking the description and pictures carefully should make it easy to spot. Also, I doubt if anything bad will happen if you bid on eBay, since the item will be removed before the auction finishes. Worst case they send you a message asking you to send money in a way that's not traceable and without the ability to get money back. Just don't email random people you have zero information of and send them money...

[gslick]

Might be a video on this warning people tomorrow.

Next you'll be making a new video warning people not to buy speakers out of the back of a white van (in case they didn't see your first video on the subject).

[jjoonathan]

The Comic Sans Scammers have struck every Friday for years. They are sloppy as all get out -- same listings, same text, same strategy -- but eBay can't be bothered to spend a couple of intern-days giving chase. eBay takes 13% of every sale and they can't even sweep the floors. Ugh.

[andy3055]

No sooner I saw the request for email,  I smelled the rat.

[EEVblog]

Didn't have time to make a video, both seller accounts now have all listsing removed.

https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/40004/i.html?_ssn=top_formalwear-accessories&store_name=topformalwearaccessoriesonline&_dmd=2&_oac=1

[kripton2035]

Quote from: EEVblog on Today at 07:53:40

Didn't have time to make a video, both seller accounts now have all listsing removed.

>https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/40004/i.html?_ssn=top_formalwear-accessories&store_name=topformalwearaccessoriesonline&_dmd=2&_oac=1

don't worry they will soon come back with other accounts !
make an ebay alert on some high end gears and you can catch them, almost once a week.

[bd139]

These auctions appear because the accounts that were hijacked had a shit password or clicked through on a phishing link. The accounts usually get canned pretty quickly so in the end it’s removing idiots from eBay albeit indirectly.

[Fungus]

I wonder why they pick on test gear as the thing to sell? It doesn't seem like the sort of thing the average scammer would even be aware of.

[bd139]

I think they did a quick scan in each category of ebay and picked high value items out and cloned them. There'susually stuff from other categories in there from guitars to diggers. Test gear regularly scores high values in Business Office and Industrial due to all the test gear rental folk pimping out high end Keysight and Tek stuff.

[Zenith]

Expensive items sold on ebay legitimately from time to time, where people look hoping to find a bargain.

It probably applies to all sorts of other things like that, such as high end cameras, or studio equipment.

[jpanhalt]

It seems unfair that the apparently legitimate topshoediscount account was also deleted. 

I suspect that was the easiest path for eBay.

[coromonadalix]

Report it to @AskeBay on Twitter?. They are super responsive there unlike the website.

Well to my surprise,   it did work for me, the seller had to remove the duplicate links  ....

[bd139]

It seems unfair that the apparently legitimate topshoediscount account was also deleted. 

I suspect that was the easiest path for eBay.

It's probably part of the security policy of eBay. Once an account is compromised then it's a financial risk for eBay either though purchasing being made by proxy identity or seller fraud. The seller topshoediscount is probably a liability for them with bad or reused or compromised passwords.

They introduced a thing called PSD2 here in the UK which forced financial organisations to have at least a basically workable 2FA implementation. eBay should do the same. However at the same time the average user is absolutely incompetent when it comes to remembering credentials and managing 2FA effectively so eBay probably don't want to enforce it. They do offer it though.