Ebay Scams

[iloveglee]

has anyone heard of an ebay scam that goes something like this. your item bids normally until the last minute or so, a bidder makes constant bids taking the price up to unrealistic levels, then a different bidder comes in and wins the item - both of these bidders joined e-bay only that day, and have zero feedback. a request for payment is sent, then the winning bidder contacts the seller, apologising for making a stupid bid, and offering a realistic, but good, price. they then request you to log into your paypal account, send a new invoice and details of where they are to send payment. clearly something not right here, but how can they get information from you from you just logging into your paypal account and sending a renewed invoice. I just know this is a scam but cant quite work out how it works.

[Daffy6543]

Report it to eBay and ask them to look into it, also try the eBay forums.
http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/bd-p/27

[Retrochic]

You would not send them a new invoice through PayPal you would use Ebay. The drop down menu to the right of the item sold gives you the choice to 'send invoice'. Personally I would not do business with this sort of buyer I would cancel the transaction through the resolution centre,this is against Ebay policy, and report the buyer.

[iloveglee]

I have to say I have a bad feeling about this, it is my granddaughter selling an iphone. I think what happened is they e-mailed asking her to send an invoice for the amount they said they wanted to pay (not what they had bid), and then they would pay through paypal. they did say something about logging into her paypal account, not sure about the details of that. she e-mailed back to say she would send an invoice but that was all. I am a bit concerned also that they may have a fake paypal account. it all feels wrong, I simply find it hard to believe that two bidders, both new that day, one of which bids up 20 times then the second bidder comes in with a ridiculous price, is genuine. even new people to e-bay don't do such stupid things.

[Peaspeculiars]

I personally wouldn't send them anything at all - Report them to ebay and hopefully they should be blocked.
You have the right to get the correct amount for your item and if they are offering less than they bid, then they are in the wrong and if you let them purchase the item for less than bid, they will continue doing this to other people as they can get away with it.
Please, if you are going to go ahead with the price they have offered, do not put your home address on any communication to them and do not provide a separate email - make sure every email goes through ebay so that they can track this deviation from the norm, should anything go wrong..
I wouldn't touch their offer with a barge-pole and I would re-list the item as a 'buy it now' with 'strictly no offers after purchase' in the description.
Some ebayers are an absolute pain.

[Buenchico]

As the transaction would be 'off-site', there would be no protection from eBay if anything went wrong. See 'The Let’s-Finish-This-Elsewhere' here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ebay-scams-to-be-aware-of/
(It's not necessarily that exact scam but anything that involves a transaction which isn't through eBay is risky)

[woofgang]

if she invoices through paypal and not through ebay, ebay will not protect her when things go wrong. She should respond saying that she will only deal through ebay. The details of where to send the money is fishy too. To invoice through paypal. all you need is the PAYER's email address, your daughter shouldn't need to tell the buyer anything.

[horseshoes]

Tell your granddaughter to sell her phone on the Facebook page relevant to your town i.e. FOR SALE IN LEEDS. Most towns have a page. She can then sell face to face, cash on collection and no eBay or paypal fees today. Lots of eBay scams involve technology items.

[horseshoes]

..... and definitely report that scam to eBay AND paypal.

[horseshoes]

Drat, forgot to say FORWARD the original email so they can see the source too.

[email protected]
and
Spoof@ paypal.com

[iloveglee]

e-bay told her to send an invoice through them, which she did, with a message to say that was all that was necessary, and that the buyer should pay through the normal paypal channel. if after 48 hours no payment had been received, to inform them and re-list the item if she still wanted to sell it via e-bay. needless to say no payment has been received. definitely a scam to lull someone into a false sense of security to give over information. thankfully she has her head screwed on and knows you don't give any financial details to anyone - ever. its just the aggravation of having to start again when she was hoping to have the thing sold.

[joko]

i think it is also the scam of the fake accidental bid - they want to be sure to win the item - dont want to lose it over a last minute 20p bid - so instead of £70, they bid £700 - knowing they wont be outbid ... then say 'oops' ...
and so they win outright

obviously here they seem to be up to something else though

i would demand they pay the price they bid - and just report them as a none paying bidder ...