Vendor Naroote showed up on Amazon--$18.49 JDS2032E

[edavid]

Is this what you get when you select the cheapest (and apparently reasonable) offer on Aliexpress?

It seems totally random 

Should I open a dispute or wait, in light of the post above stating that some vendors issue unreal tracking numbers just to gain time to have the actual item shipped?

I have had the best results by waiting until the last delivery date before opening the dispute.  Do not contact the seller, or they are likely to extend the date.

[wnorcott]

It is fraud because as soon as an item is marked as shipped, Amazon releases the payment to the third party seller.  Amazon only holds onto the cash until the seller 'ships' the item.  Most people don't bother to check if the tracking number from the seller is going to them or not.  By the time the packing is marked Delivered and you did not get it, the seller could be long gone with the cash.   In that case Amazon is now on the hook to refund your money.  Fraud has been committed against Amazon to make good on deal for the customer.

It is against Amazon policy to put a tracking number on an order, that is not addressed to the customer.

Sure a seller like 'Naroote' is kicked off of Amazon.  Who knows how many fake orders Naroote took and pocketed the money?

Or a seller like Rosvola can refund the money so you cannot file an A to z Guarantee claim, lay low for a while and possibly avoid getting banned for now, and pull off an even bigger scam later.   

There are probably a number of people who could say well screw Bezos he just deserves whatever he gets.  It is still fraud though.

[gnavigator1007]

Sure a seller like 'Naroote' is kicked off of Amazon.  Who knows how many fake orders Naroote took and pocketed the money?

Naroote and Rosvola were trying to get me to cancel my order so they could refund me before they ever posted a tracking number or marked anything as shipped. Unlike us, I don't think they're trying to get something for nothing. I think they're only making a somewhat feeble attempt to stay in good standing with Amazon after a pretty major mistake. Some people actually did receive items from Rosvola last time.

[cliffyk]

Well, the package/tracking #they gave me was delivered today--to Florence, MA; about 1300 miles North of here. I still do not understand what their scam was, but it WAS some sort of scam...

[Gregg]

The Naroote scams don’t seem to be much if any concern to Amazon; they are too busy trying to lure business away from fleaBay. 
My tracking number showed something delivered across the country.
I tried to send an email to seller-performance@ebay.com per the post #110 by wnorcott with a short description of what transpired and how I thought Naroote was scamming; but I only received a computer generated email to the effect that I wasn’t an Amazon seller.  There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to warn Amazon about scams; they prefer to get the seller to refund rather than have anybody look into scams; hiring people to look into fraud must cost more than they figure it is worth to them.  The only party out anything if the seller refunds is the customer for any interest the funds may have accrued in the interim.  For Amazon, the process is entirely automated and once set up, no human time is needed --- unless customers call and complain; but then the call goes to some poor underpaid person in a call center in India or the Philippines.   
My easy (for me) option was to send a request to the seller to either send or refund and I know they won’t send what I ordered for the price I (already) paid.  If I don’t hear back, I’ll call and try to waste some of Bezos’ money.

[gnavigator1007]

Well, the package/tracking #they gave me was delivered today--to Florence, MA; about 1300 miles North of here. I still do not understand what their scam was, but it WAS some sort of scam...

The only possible scam I can see here is if for some reason Amazon/Ebay/AliExpress type services are transferring the money to the "seller" and then refund money comes from Amazon/Ebay/AliExpress to the purchaser with zero monetary or other consequences to the "seller". Doesn't seem that likely to me, but all are big enough operations that I could kinda see something dumb slipping thru like this. Problem is with all these $0 transactions after coupons and the same "sellers" trying to convince "purchasers" to cancel the orders. tv84 previously mentioned possible gain for the seller in that some buyers may not request a refund at all. The only problem is that they seem to initiate contact with the buyer to cancel/refund except in cases where they actually end up forwarding the item that was ordered. Such cases that someone neglects to request a refund would appear to be a simple buyer error on top of a previous seller error. Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm trying to reach out to the sellers that I dealt with, one of whom has not been mentioned yet in this thread and may very well be a scam. I'm more interested in how all of this works than actually receiving stuff that I didn't really pay for. Figure they've already violated various Amazon policies in their messages, so why not ask them straight the hell up how it works. Probably still more likely that I'll get something sent to me rather than a truthful explanation, but I'll try to keep everybody updated however it plays out.

For anybody that ordered more than one item from the same seller, do you have the option to leave seller feedback for each individual item even if you used the cart for checkout? Did you receive a single message from the seller for all items ordered or multiple identical messages for each purchase?

[Kosmic]

Found another seller on amazon with crazy cheap oscilloscope (10$). So first I decided to look at the other offering he had on amazon. And like the others it was bunch of misc stuff. Price were a bit weird but not completely off. For example, everything was not at 10$ 

Now I bought 2 scopes at 10$ each and I'm still waiting for them to be shipped.

- Just after my purchase, nothing happens really. It was still possible to buy the same product.
- Couple of hours later, the price went way up. Exceeding the real price.
- Again later. All oscilloscope from that seller were removed from amazon. Seller was still listing bunch of misc stuff.
- A day later, 1 oscilloscope listing came back but this time with a normal price (not 10$ anymore). Also, the prices of all the other items seem pretty well balanced now.

So right now, there is probably a poor little seller in china trying to source an 500$ oscilloscope for 10$. Can't wait until he realizes that it's not doable and I wonder what he will actually do.

So, like I said before, I think the whole thing is pricing errors. Those seller list so many different products that it's probably impossible to do that by hands. So, my guess is they are all using the same script / software to automate the process on amazon. And obviously there is some bugs in their application or configuration problems. This time the seller quickly realised the problem and quickly removed the listing and readjusted the price of everything else he was offering.

The question is now, will he send me a fake tracking number ? 

[cliffyk]

My shipment, per the tracking # they gave me, was delivered yesterday--to Florence, MA; some 1300 miles North of here...

[Kosmic]

Found another seller on amazon with crazy cheap oscilloscope (10$). So first I decided to look at the other offering he had on amazon. And like the others it was bunch of misc stuff. Price were a bit weird but not completely off. For example, everything was not at 10$ 

Now I bought 2 scopes at 10$ each and I'm still waiting for them to be shipped.

- Just after my purchase, nothing happens really. It was still possible to buy the same product.
- Couple of hours later, the price went way up. Exceeding the real price.
- Again later. All oscilloscope from that seller were removed from amazon. Seller was still listing bunch of misc stuff.
- A day later, 1 oscilloscope listing came back but this time with a normal price (not 10$ anymore). Also, the prices of all the other items seem pretty well balanced now.

So right now, there is probably a poor little seller in china trying to source an 500$ oscilloscope for 10$. Can't wait until he realizes that it's not doable and I wonder what he will actually do.

So, like I said before, I think the whole thing is pricing errors. Those seller list so many different products that it's probably impossible to do that by hands. So, my guess is they are all using the same script / software to automate the process on amazon. And obviously there is some bugs in their application or configuration problems. This time the seller quickly realised the problem and quickly removed the listing and readjusted the price of everything else he was offering.

The question is now, will he send me a fake tracking number ? 

Received a message from the seller they want to cancel the order  Which is the right thing to do.

Dear buyer,

Thank you for your purchase from us.

Unfortunately, I have to inform you that we do not have the right logistics provider to send you.

We would like to offer you a refund.

What is your opinion?

Could you please send us an email with the topic Order Cancellation Request?

Please leave us a message. Otherwise, your order will be canceled in about 24 hours for technical reasons and of course you will get your original purchase value refunded.

I ask for your feedback and for further questions I am at your disposal.

Best Regards

[gnavigator1007]

I just received a couple watches in the mail today Return address was to a "Jon" in Auburn, Alabama. Address is a gas station. USPS tracking number shows it was shipped by Newgistics. Still waiting on a refund from 1 other seller. Pretty damn funny to me that Rosvola was the only one that actually sent me something in the end. They appear to actually care about their reputation as a seller. Of the various sellers I ordered from, they were the only one that my total was $0 after the coupons were applied. Might call the gas station and inquire about "Jon" and how often they get packages returned 

[AJ3G]

Wow, I wonder if that was at the booth next to where these mystery scopes were selling.  I think the complexity of the movement of this fine timepiece exceeds the complexity of the scope design. 

Rich