Most Elaborate Scam - Ebay support wanted nothing to do with it - Really Dodgy

[atolo20]

A buyer from the Ukraine had won an auction for an item I was selling, made an offer on another item and asked to ship the items together which made sense.

I created the invoice and sent it to the buyer, half a day later I received an email for each item stating "You've been paid!..." with completely legitimate emails. When I received these emails, I was not logged into ebay in any device (except the Android app).

 

I checked my ebay app and the browser and both said "Paid - Send Now", unfortunately did not take screenshots of this. Checked my PayPal, no funds. Waited half a day, nothing appeared.

Next morning I chatted to ebay support, while chatting to them I noticed that the listings had changed from the status of "Paid - Send Now" to "Awaiting payment". Checked both the browser and app and both had changed.

What I did notice before I was on the phone with support was that the listing stated that I had marked them as "Payment Received". I had definitely not done this, I don't even know how this can be done and I was not on my computer or on the app to do this. I am guessing this was done right before the legitimate email I received.

This was the same for both listings.

While I was on the call with support, the listing changed and said I was awaiting for payment again. The listing looked like the following:

Tried to explain this to the chat line but got no help, was just told that I must have marked both as payment received but they could not explain the legitimate email or how the status's could have changed.

Got told to call the ebay 1800 number if I thought it was a fraud issue but after waiting more than 30mins on hold, they answered and were also no help and was told to forward those emails to spoof@ebay.com.au and that was it.

This scam pretty damn elaborate and impressive but what was not impressive was the support I got from ebay regarding this.

[curraone]

probably can't help - I can't read any of your attachments - they are either too small or too blurry

but one point I notice - you said Checked my PayPal, no funds. Waited half a day, nothing appeared.

As you are on managed payments, you don't check paypal anymore - the money is stored by Ayden and it shows up in your payments in Seller Hub.    Have you looked there?

[atolo20]

Hey curraone,

I did blur out part of the pictures but left the parts of the pics that I was wanting to highlight. Are they that small and blurry? When you click on them are they still bad?

I don't have any other payment setup except PayPal. I will set that up now as I had not realised the change with eBay.

There is nothing there though.

[digital*ghost]

I'm not tech savvy enough to know if (or how) this could be done - there is a mark as payment sent on the buyer's side (or at least there used to be, been a while since I've had cause to use or look for it), which was primarily used for manual payment methods (bank deposit etc), but that would not shift an order to awaiting shipment, it was a pending payment and would only shift to awaiting postage of the seller confirmed on their side and marked as payment received.

I've used that option as a seller plenty of times in the past - it was never temporary, though, once marked as payment received, it would stay that way unless you "unmarked" as payment received. 

If it's a deliberate attempt at a scam, I guess there would have to be some way to force a temporary status update and hope the items get posted before they revert to normal? No idea... Have you had any contact with the buyer since?

[atolo20]

Yep, he said to give him 24 hours.

Logged in this morning to my eBay account and again it says to "Send it"

When I click on the individual item it says "You marked this item as "Payment Received""

I don't think it is even worth reporting with eBay cause I don't think they will take it seriously.

I am guessing that the buyer needed 24 hours to trick the system again?

Hopefully you can see the pics? This is pretty wild

[curraone]

Just on the off chance, keep checking  your "payments' in seller hub.

[atolo20]

There is nothing.

Don't know what happened in the background but eBay finally sent an email saying that the buyer is not registered on eBay and cancelled the listings.

[curraone]

When you re-list I would really limit the countries you post to - in these pandemic times, and with so many scammers,  I probably would not list your items for international sale.

[atolo20]

Yeah i was thinking about that but this item especially sells for so much more overseas. lol.

Just got to make sure the money comes through. 🙂 

[davewil1964]

Not if they don't pay. I suspect Eastern Europe would be good to avoid, especially for anything worth money.