Recent spate of scams involving tablets and phones

[squeakskip]

Every day I log into ebay and I find sellers listing phones and tablets worth between 200 and 800 dollars. They have these products listed for around $20 with free shipping from China.

My kids bought a few of these products and now the listings have been removed by ebay and it's too late for my bank to stop the payments. The sellers didn't respond to my messages asking for a refund before the listings were removed.

I can find these scams in seconds and they are becoming very common. It seems like ebay doesn't check for these scams. When I report the scams the goods stay listed for about 24 hours. It seems like ebay couldn't care less and happy to let scam merchants rip people off. The scams are being run on several international ebay sites.

An experienced IT tech could easily write a script to identify & flag these scams for further investigation.

From my investigations over the last week these scamsters are making hundreds of thousands of dollars internationally if not millions, I've only been watching for a week.

This is international organised crime and ebay really seems to have dropped the ball with this issue.

[janeababe]

ok, so let me get this straight.....

you KNEW they were scams, yet you STILL alowed your children to BUY them?

O.....K......THEN!   ?:|

Im sorry, but im lost for words, so I cant help you. Maybe one of the others will come along and give you some actual advice here.....

[lyndal1838]

Can you give the item titles of the listings bought by your children...I cannot find them in your buying history.

If the items are listed in China you must have paid by paypal, so just open a dispute, escalate to a claim immediately and get your money back.  There is no need to involve your bank at all.

[squeakskip]

Janeababe

No, I had no Idea these were scams, I'd set my kids a $30 dollar limit each to buy a buy a "game" like an ipad/ipod. I'd seen a lot of Chinese knockoffs for a similar price so I just assumed that the items were generic no-name products until I invested a lot of time researching this type of product.

If I knew or suspected they were scams I never would have approved the transactions. Shame on me for trusting an auction house. Anywhere else authenticity will be guaranteed by the house so there is no need for me suspect foul play. ebay doesn't meet the standards of any other regular auction house so I was fooled by the fraudulent listings. Shame on me for trusting ebay.

Is this my fault for not being up to date on the latest technological developments or ebays' fault for allowing fraudulent listings ?

I lead a very busy lifestyle, should I be expected to invest more than half my working week investigating market pricing of throw away consumer goods just to know that I'm not going to be scammed by international fraudsters selling goods on a trusted auction site ?

@lyndal1838

The listings have been removed by ebay only after I contacted the sellers and also reported them for fraudulent listings. I have also lodged paypal claims for them. I cannot escalate to a claim until the (fraudulent) sellers reply -which they never will, so I have to wait for paypal to make the next the next move.

Normally I'd never fall for scams like this, but I just don't have time to investigate market value of electrical goods. I thought I could trust ebay to guarantee the items they list but it seems like they just don't care and will allow anyone to list whatever they want.

[lyndal1838]

No, no, no....you do not wait for the seller to reply to a paypal dispute.  You have 20 days from the time you opened the dispute in which to escalate to a claim.

If the listings were removed by ebay that is all the more reason to escalate to a claim immediately.

If it is past the 20 day limit the dispute will have been closed by paypal.  You will need to ring paypal and plead your case.

Please escalate to a claim immediately if you are still within the timeframe.

[phorum_junkie*]

Unfortunately you may find it almost impossible to get a refund through Paypal as you are not allowed to send them overseas using Aus Post, something you should always take into account before purchasing anything with a lithium battery from overseas.

I bought a thirty dollar with free postage tablet from China and it worked just fine.

[cq_tech]

There's nothing to send back as they haven't yet arrived, and probably won't.

I've had no issues returning goods to China as long as I removed the Li-ion battery first.

OP, you should escalate your Paypal dispute to a claim immediately as ebay have removed the listings as being fraudulent.

[squeakskip]

Sorry for the slow reply

Thanks for the heads up on escalating this to a claim.

When ebay removed these listings they replaced the description of the purchased items with a disclaimer type of notification. At first there was a notice that was later replaced by another & now this one. I'm sure the original disclaimer has been changed twice - all up there have been three messages plus the item description in that area.

"This listing was removed by eBay. If you already paid for the item, we recommend that you wait 10 days from the expected delivery date to see if the item arrives. If you did not pay, you are no longer obligated to pay for this item. If you have a problem with the purchase, you can resolve the problem by filing a claim through our resolution centre."

This seems like it's worded to be misleading to delay my response until the window I have to make a claim has elapsed.

When I first got the message/s, I contacted my bank, but the money had already gone through, so from the suggestion made by ebay I'd been led to believe I should just sit back and wait until 10 days after the expected delivery date to lodge a claim, at first I had no idea how long to wait because I couldn't see the listing details or an expected delivery date.

The original notice that replaced the item description was replaced (the next day) by a notice that included an expected delivery date (about 30 days) and informed me to wait until 10 days after that date before I lodged a paypal claim. Now after lodging a claim I have the message quoted above.

Now I feel like I've been deliberately mislead,by ebay to eliminate my chance of making a successful claim.

First they allow me to buy items that don't exist and then they take steps to mislead me so I can't recover my loss incurred on their site.

This whole situation is really starting to stink.

I've lost a lot of trust in this place lately. I really fell like I've been deliberately mislead.

[cq_tech]

Regardless of any messages you may have received from ebay, now that you have actually lodged a dispute with Paypal, you MUST escalate it to a full claim within 20 days of the date it was initially lodged, otherwise Paypal will close the dispute, and once closed, for all intents and purposes, you will be unable to reopen it.

To reiterate, you have a period of up to 42 days from the date of purchase during which you can lodge a dispute with Paypal for non-delivery (or if the items do arrive but are faulty or not as described), and once the dispute has been lodged, you then have a further 20 days in which to escalate your dispute to a claim.

In addition, now that a dispute has been lodged with Paypal, it is out of ebay's hands and any further enquiries need to be directed towards Paypal themselves, and not ebay.

Just make sure that you escalate within 20 days, and you will eventually be refunded. 🙂

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

edited quote

If I knew or suspected they were scams I never would have approved the transactions. . . . . .

I lead a very busy lifestyle, should I be expected to invest more than half my working week investigating market pricing of throw away consumer goods just to know that I'm not going to be scammed by international fraudsters selling goods on a trusted auction site ?

Normally I'd never fall for scams like this, but I just don't have time to investigate market value of electrical goods. I thought I could trust ebay to guarantee the items they list but it seems like they just don't care and will allow anyone to list whatever they want.

simple solution.  Tell your kids that if they see something they like then they need to put it on your watch list.  YOU can then look at the listings and decide if it looks okay or like a scam.

This means you will not need to spend a lot of time investigating, but if you allow your kids to bid/buy and then pay without YOU having any involvement then I don't think you can blame anyone else but yourself.

I would be changing my eBay and PayPal passwords and not let the kids have unsupervised access to eBay.  If you are that busy that you are unable to manage the activity on YOUR eBay account then maybe eBay is not the place for you.  This may sound harsh, but by your own admissions you are already struggling to manage the activity on your account and you are too busy to do so.