- Joined
- Jun 29, 2014
- Messages
- 4,058
I'd like to share our experience in what we learned to be a fairly common eBay scam. My concern is that this will turn people off to eBay and PayPal. Good news is, PayPal is very much aligned with buyer protection and if you have the facts to support your claim - you will get reimbursed. Now, whether the perpetrator gets caught and prosecuted...that remains to be seen.
OK stay with me...
We needed to buy some Vactra way oil, 5gal. Maintenance supervisor saw a deal on eBay for about $115. Trying to save a few bucks as we are looking to cut costs whenever we can during the pandemic, he orders the 5 gal. from eBay seller (ichael_18) <---- do not buy from this seller.
This eBay seller has 10 positive feedback, has a verified PayPal email address and name. I'll resist doxxing the SOB here, since we have already handed over the information to the authorities.
The seller then goes onto a tool distributor website, orders the Vactra way oil with stolen credit card information and enters our ship to address and the CC victims bill to address. Takes the UPS tracking number from his legit order made with a stolen credit card and enters the tracking info into the eBay tracking info.
A few days later, we get our 5 gallons of way oil delivered. All is good in the world except our money was stolen, the CC victim had her money and potential identity stolen, and the distributor had their oil stolen.
After a long discussion with the tool distributor we were able to figure out what happened. Our clue was that we had two different receipts but with the same tracking number info.
The perp madeup a fake email address for us and used a fake phone number as well. Another interesting thing that occurred is that the victim is down the road from us and the IP address on the legit transaction is coming from a local business - which will remain unnamed for the time being. I will be turning over the information to the authorities later today to see if they can get to the bottom of this because it appears to me that this is a local crime being perpetrated - but I could be wrong.
This is downright devious...bottom line is, I don't know how we could have prevented this from happening. We filed a claim with PayPal and after verifying the tool distributor was legit (and not the scammer himself) we will give him our CC info to pay for the way oil that he shipped to us.
He told me that this is the first time that this has every happened to him. Normally, the perps will buy an item (he said it is normally machinist books) have him ship the item to a house for sale that is unoccupied and they will pick up the stolen item there and resell it on eBay.
OK stay with me...
We needed to buy some Vactra way oil, 5gal. Maintenance supervisor saw a deal on eBay for about $115. Trying to save a few bucks as we are looking to cut costs whenever we can during the pandemic, he orders the 5 gal. from eBay seller (ichael_18) <---- do not buy from this seller.
This eBay seller has 10 positive feedback, has a verified PayPal email address and name. I'll resist doxxing the SOB here, since we have already handed over the information to the authorities.
The seller then goes onto a tool distributor website, orders the Vactra way oil with stolen credit card information and enters our ship to address and the CC victims bill to address. Takes the UPS tracking number from his legit order made with a stolen credit card and enters the tracking info into the eBay tracking info.
A few days later, we get our 5 gallons of way oil delivered. All is good in the world except our money was stolen, the CC victim had her money and potential identity stolen, and the distributor had their oil stolen.
After a long discussion with the tool distributor we were able to figure out what happened. Our clue was that we had two different receipts but with the same tracking number info.
The perp madeup a fake email address for us and used a fake phone number as well. Another interesting thing that occurred is that the victim is down the road from us and the IP address on the legit transaction is coming from a local business - which will remain unnamed for the time being. I will be turning over the information to the authorities later today to see if they can get to the bottom of this because it appears to me that this is a local crime being perpetrated - but I could be wrong.
This is downright devious...bottom line is, I don't know how we could have prevented this from happening. We filed a claim with PayPal and after verifying the tool distributor was legit (and not the scammer himself) we will give him our CC info to pay for the way oil that he shipped to us.
He told me that this is the first time that this has every happened to him. Normally, the perps will buy an item (he said it is normally machinist books) have him ship the item to a house for sale that is unoccupied and they will pick up the stolen item there and resell it on eBay.