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Potential eBay fraudster or something else going on?


filolif

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I noticed some very nice coins being listed by this account that only has 253 feedback score:

https://www.ebay.com/str/teser1autoparts

Ostensibly this account is an auto parts reseller but they have listed almost 49,000 items, all in auction format, all to end in about a week, in all different categories. Many graded ancient coins among the listings along with all sorts of other things too -- furniture, antiques, musical instruments, electronics . Mostly very high end expensive items.

What are the chances a user like this actually has all these items and is selling them in auction format within one week? To me, this has all the hallmarks of a scam. Rake in a bunch of money and then never send these items out. Their photography and listing styles are completely inconsistent from listing to listing which also seems like a red flag.

I reported this strange listing behavior to eBay but they don't really seem to care about protecting their users so I'm sure nothing will come of it. Buyer beware!

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Maybe the business model is that the seller lists things on behalf of other people who don't have the time or know-how to list them on eBay. There's a business in a strip mall in my neighborhood that does this. The owners of the items take the photos and write descriptions of the things and provide them to the eBay broker. The listings would naturally be inconsistent from listing to listing and would consist of items that have too much value to sell at garage sales and such. I'm not sure anything nefarious is going on here.

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Posted (edited)

It may be a scam, but he has some great deals! How about a boat starting at $1 with free 1-3 day shipping!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076804530?itmmeta=01HYX8AS5DRRTYA6Z95S65DXE2&hash=item1f733477b2:g:xTkAAOSw~i1jB5sE

Also a 585 lb anvil starting at $1 with free shipping! (or $32 if you want it shipped from USA to UK)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076828141?itmmeta=01HYX8JZ05X6DA6AEYT4614XVF&hash=item1f7334d3ed:g:9NMAAOSw5v5knwu3

I wish the ancient coin auction houses would use his shipping company! 😃

 

Edited by Heliodromus
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Posted (edited)

Interesting. Some red flags for me, some of which were also mentioned by @filolif and @Heliodromus.

1. All of the items seem to be auctions, which end in 6 days 7 hours.

2. All of the items seem to have a starting bid of $1, and yet all of the items seem to have free shipping, including some very heavy items, such as boats and tractors.

3. Many items seem to have disappeared, between the time when I saw the items in a list, and the time when I clicked on the items.

4. The seller has 32,888 items for auction.

Strangely, some of the items have many bids.

One can search through the 32,888 items for key words. If I search for "boat", I get 10 items. If I search for "tractor", I get 98 items.

Here's a tractor. $1 starting bid, and free shipping :   https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076863407?itmmeta=01HYXBDAX8S1C57ZQ2SN0G7PGJ&hash=item1f73355daf:g:UnkAAOSwgH1kaNGI 

Here's a boat, $1 starting bid, and free shipping, but it has 14 bids, and it's now at $50 :   https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076862362?itmmeta=01HYXB0SMDP5069KR5JND0GPFA&hash=item1f7335599a:g:NVIAAOSw36VlXuCq 

Here's a 17th century violin, $1 starting bid, and free shipping, but it has 10 bids, and it's now at $25 :   https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076844345?itmmeta=01HYXAYRJH8F7KQ1PKVA3ZSC7J&hash=item1f73351339:g:hQwAAOSwMZ1k7n0u 

Edited by sand
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Posted (edited)

P.S. : The tractor and boat, which I mentioned in my previous post, have now disappeared. However, the 17th century violin is still there, at the moment. Also, when I searched for the key word "tractor" just now, I only got 30 items. And, the seller's total number of items has decreased to 26,500.

Edited by sand
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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, sand said:

P.S. : The tractor and boat, which I mentioned in my previous post, have now disappeared. However, the 17th century violin is still there, at the moment. Also, when I searched for the key word "tractor" just now, I only got 30 items. And, the seller's total number of items has decreased to 26,500.

I can only see 21,000. But there's no way that number of listings has been added manually. The listings are all the same with some story about liquidating a pawnbroker.

Why would they remove them when no money has been paid? Each listing asks you to copy and paste a link. Not a good idea.

image.png.429cc05d60f9d91c23121ee4a9bea6c1.png

Edited by John Conduitt
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The seller's number of items is now down to 20,998. Before these great deals disappear, here are a couple of screen shots, of a car and a 17th century violin.

image.png.d4a9840743939333b91944c78e12fa63.png

image.png.cfbb0f78be74e77595a130a2447f3ade.png

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45 minutes ago, sand said:

The seller now has 6,223 items for sale. And the 17th century violin has now disappeared. However, the car is still there, at the moment.

Just goes to show how much people appreciate the free shipping!

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Now the seller has only 5 items for sale, and the seller is located in the Netherlands for those 5 items, and the seller is charging a normal shipping fee, and the 5 items seem to be mundane car parts and such. I wonder, if the seller's Ebay account was hacked, somehow.

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Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, sand said:

Now the seller has only 5 items for sale, and the seller is located in the Netherlands for those 5 items, and the seller is charging a normal shipping fee, and the 5 items seem to be mundane car parts and such. I wonder, if the seller's Ebay account was hacked, somehow.


That is 100% what happened. I have two factor authetication on my eBay account, despite hating it, because I found people (bots) tried to hack my account (and Paypal) daily.

Edited by John Conduitt
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5 minutes ago, sand said:

Now the seller has only 5 items for sale, and the seller is located in the Netherlands for those 5 items, and the seller is charging a normal shipping fee, and the 5 items seem to be mundane car parts and such. I wonder, if the seller's Ebay account was hacked, somehow.

This was my suspicion from the start. I do wonder what process the hackers/scammers used to generate almost 50,000 fraudulent listings for big ticket items. Some sort of script gone haywire? Seems like if they hadn’t been so greedy, they might have gotten away with it. Doesn’t bode well for future eBay purchasing. 

I would never have noticed it if they hadn’t listed ancients as part of the scam. 

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3 minutes ago, filolif said:

This was my suspicion from the start. I do wonder what process the hackers/scammers used to generate almost 50,000 fraudulent listings for big ticket items. Some sort of script gone haywire? Seems like if they hadn’t been so greedy, they might have gotten away with it. Doesn’t bode well for future eBay purchasing. 

I would never have noticed it if they hadn’t listed ancients as part of the scam. 

I'm pretty sure their aim was to flood eBay with these listings for a short time, and that they did get away with it. They wanted to be contacted directly by people hoping for a deal and to steal their details, not to sell fake products on eBay. That would require them to get to the end of the auction and persuade eBay to send them the cash to an account in their name, which would take several days and require no-one to raise the alarm.

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