Another ebay scam

[AllenAnalog]

My evening search of Allen organ related items resulted in finding two new listings from the same scammer that has posted photos of these very same instruments many times in the past. In this case they hijacked an account in the Netherlands and posted 4,778 items for sale in the US. That number of items is almost always the same. Since there is a wide range of highly desirable items in many different categories, most of them with a starting price of $2 with free shipping, many of the items already had multiple bids.

What is incredibly sad to me is that this particular scam has been going on for several years now and ebay's filters don't seem to be able to catch it before thousands of items are listed. The scammer's "signature" is a second photo of a page that says, "This item can be purchased at the buy-it-now price only. Do not bid." And that price is always $3,000.00.

Of course they list an email address for questions, saying that that they don't use ebay messages. I find myself wondering if if this is an email address harvesting scheme.

As always, I've reported the organ listings as fraudulent. Usually it takes a few hours and then all several thousand listings will disappear. I've even gone so far as to talk on the phone with ebay's fraud division but they don't offer any reason why they keep getting hit with this same scam and can't stop it.

Many long-time ebay buyers and sellers have become disgusted with their constantly changing rules and fees but I still use them because I've found a number of useful items at what I consider to be fair prices, including Allen organ spare parts.

[myorgan]

Larry,

I reported the same scammer, so we'll see what happens from there. They may be collecting phone numbers as well. It is election season, after all.

dBay is still of use to me too-I'm finding some nice books available for use in church and concert. Needless to say, the scammers make it difficult, but I've continued to do business with particular sellers because I know their services well.

Michael

[toodles]

EBay has improved vastly in the area of buyer protection from the early days. I reported this scammer, also. I think the problem with them not catching him in the listing process is that he has the info on paying outside of ebay in the photos; they'd have to review every photo in every listing to preclude this.

[AllenAnalog]

I guess I have higher expectations of their fraud prevention tools and techniques than they have demonstrated with scams like this that seem to repeat almost exactly the same, time after time. The mere fact that thousands of listings are always posted in a very short period of time should be a red flag for further checking IMHO.

Amazingly, 4152 of these fraudulent listings are still up as of 10AM on Saturday, most with active bids. So whoever investigated my complaint did not bother to do a thorough job. And since their fraud reporting mechanism only allows the choice of a very limited number of responses and no longer allows a text message, you can't communicate the bigger picture to them.

Like all scams, some of the responsibility for perpetuating these frauds is the lack of critical inspection of the listing and associated photographs by people salivating over an incredible bargain. That text page that is part of every listing. And you have to wonder why an ebay member in the Netherlands is selling so much valuable stuff in Charleston, South Carolina.

I've only been burned once by an ebay purchase and that was long before they instituted the current buyer protections. But it taught me to read all of the information in the listing, inspect the photos carefully and definitely check the seller's information and feedback before I placed a bit for an item.

[myorgan]

Amazingly, 4152 of these fraudulent listings are still up as of 10AM on Saturday, most with active bids. So whoever investigated my complaint did not bother to do a thorough job. And since their fraud reporting mechanism only allows the choice of a very limited number of responses and no longer allows a text message, you can't communicate the bigger picture to them.

What's even more amazing to me is that eBay doesn't realize it is impossible to make 1,000+ listings in the same minute-no variation. I guess one machine needs to recognizer's activities.

Michael

[toodles]

I suspect there are some listing tools that allows for making multiple listings as the same time for volume sellers so that alone isn't enough to trigger a fraud review.

[Admin]

Yes, indeed. There are numerous third party bulk listing tools available including one from EBay.
https://www.pages.ebay.com/seller-ce...ing-tools.html

[terrypippa]

That's the biggest problem of online shops. Amazon and eBay are unable to track scammers, which I think is a big issue. They are big companies that annually make multimillion-dollar profits, so I don't understand how they cannot ban scammers.

[gtc]

That's the biggest problem of online shops. Amazon and eBay are unable to track scammers, which I think is a big issue. They are big companies that annually make multimillion-dollar profits, so I don't understand how they cannot ban scammers.

It took the credit card companies and banks a long time to take card fraud seriously, but since that time that they have implemented very sophisticated algorithms to detect suspicious activity on card accounts.

Sites like Amazon and eBay seem to prefer to spend their IT dollars on sophisticated ways of selling you more stuff. If they were serious about scammers, I'm sure that they could do a whole lot more to detect/thwart them.

[myorgan]

That's the biggest problem of online shops. Amazon and eBay are unable to track scammers, which I think is a big issue.

Terrypippa,

How would you track scammers? Maybe they could use your advice.

I will speak of eBay because that's all I know. From a technological perspective, it is very difficult to track scammers because they compromise legitimate accounts when the owner of the account makes the mistake of clicking on a link. When connecting to the URL, the account credentials are compromised, and within a few minutes, over 8,000 scam items are posted by the scammer's bots, with the same link to compromise other accounts. Unless/until someone reports it to eBay, they don't have any knowledge the account is compromised.

I've seen some behaviors recently on eBay's part, which lead me to believe they are actively trying to address the issue. I've noticed that when my IP address changes (or device changes), an e-mail is sent to my on-file address advising me of the "new" activity. Invariably it is me accessing the account, but at least I know they're doing something.

I'll concede they could handle reporting of compromised accounts better, but I think that's yet to come. Personally, when I run across compromised accounts, I visit other items for sale by the same account and report the first 10-20 items, hoping when eBay sees the reports coming in quick succession, they will more readily take action. After all, eBay is only as good as its members.

Michael

[John Vanderlee]

Did anyone ever see the Internet as the Trojan Horse?

We're stuck with it now to survive, but I see parallels.

[myorgan]

I'd imagine that's why they labeled certain classes of viruses as Trojan viruses.

Michael

[beyerjf]

As a lot of you, I grew up in the era of this new exciting medium known as Television. Remember what we were told? That it would be this great educational tool, it would bring peoples together from all corners of the globe, When they launched Telstar in 1962 which allowed satellite TV images like WOW.
Fast forward to now. Television, which does have it's finer moments is just one giant sewer that has affected society in ways incomprehensible in 1950. And most of them not good.
My marker for the internet and it's decline is June 2007, when Steve Jobs unveiled the first Iphone. And it really didn't take hold until a few years later when the telephone companies had a chance to build out the 3G network. Now of course we can exchange total garbage at lightning fast 5G speeds.
That didn't take long did it?

[John Vanderlee]

I actually said "Trojan horse" 10+ years ago. Rather than keeping people truly connected, it has caused a breakdown in communication. Letters are passe, No- one writes thank you's or personal notes. Now even emails go unanswered. That great thing "texting" eliminates the need for thoughtful exchange.

[gtc]

Letters are passe

If I have a complaint or something that needs serious attention by a company, I always put it in letter form addressed the CEO of the company by name. That is the only way I know that it will be read and that I will get a written reply posted back to me. I only include my email address if that suits me as the reply medium, which is rare. I like to have a signed reply to use as evidence of the promised action, if necessary.

No way I'll use email for raising such matters.

It's sometimes evident, from the reply's form and wording, that the person delegated to respond to me is not used to writing letters so, yes, letter writing is becoming a lost art.

As for television, I switched it off in 2010. The golden years of TV passed decades ago. If somebody tells me that I should have seen this or that documentary on TV, then I can usually watch it as a repeat online. News I get online.

[you795a]

I eliminated my television about 5 years ago. When people tell me they watched something I tell them that I don't have television. Some of them look at me like I came from outer space (which maybe I did) and others say "You're not missing anything." As far as a cellphone, I do have a Tracfone which was bought for me because this person felt that I should have one in case of an emergency. I have so many minutes on it because I don't use it. If I want to use it, I have to think how to use it. As far as texting, I don't even know how to do that. I still do write letters and notes. I do agree that people don't know how to communicate any more. I saw two people in the same room texting each other rather than talking. Yes, they are relatives of mine. Like gtc mentions, I too will get the news online.

[John Vanderlee]

We've stuck with a TV antenna, Gets 34+ Channels, local news and PBS(the only network that doesn't insult you). It's free. If we want to watch a film at home , we have access to our local library - tens of thousands of titles.

[AllenAnalog]

Well the fraudsters have returned to ebay again - this time with four Allen organs (and thousands of other items) with exactly the same wording on the 2nd photo as their previous scams. I reported one organ last night and this morning I see it has been joined by three others so I reported them this morning.

Once again ebay is slow on the response but this time there are 21,307 items listed on someone's hijacked ebay account so that may explain why it is taking so long.

I'm hoping they will have shut down these listings by the time most of you read this post.