eBay Fraudulent Listings
- Hamster
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eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Thu May 23, 2013 6:58 am
There has recently been a swarm of electric bikes being listed on eBay, usually with a starting price of either 1 cent or 99 cents. These are coming from China from sellers with no prior history. The actual advertisements look good and with lots of quality pictures, and well written text. When several carbon-fibre electric bike were listed with a starting price of 1 Euro I became highly suspicious.
I reported this to eBay as possibly being fraudulent and last night I received the following email from eBay:
However eBay has had to remove the listing. All bids or offers have been cancelled. Also, we recommend that you consider carefully whether to complete this transaction.
We hope you understand that due to privacy reasons we're unable to discuss the details of why this listing was ended.
*Important*
We strongly recommend that you do not go ahead with the purchase however if you have already paid for this item but haven't received it, you need to act quickly to get your money back.
- Contact your bank to stop payment if you paid by cheque or bank deposit.
- Contact your credit card company if you paid by credit card.
- If you paid with PayPal, you may be eligible for up to $20,000 in PayPal Buyer Protection. To file a dispute go to the Resolution Centre in My eBay and click on I haven't received it yet or I received an item that does not match the seller's description.
If you have recently bought a really cheap electric via eBay, please DO NOT pay for it without checking with eBay first.
I am currently notifying eBay of more potentially fraudulent listings. This is of course not directed at the many thousands of legtimate sellers
- Hamster
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Thu May 23, 2013 7:05 am
The above is a link to one of the sales that I suspect is fraudulent. As it is one that I have reported to ebay, the listing may over the next 24 hours simply disappear.
- ldrcycles
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby ldrcycles » Thu May 23, 2013 8:31 am
But I agree, it looks suspicious when it's a complete ebike, and a nice looking bit of gear too.
- Hamster
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Thu May 23, 2013 8:41 am
- AUbicycles
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby AUbicycles » Thu May 23, 2013 12:51 pm
Can we assume that they rack up as many buyers as possible and then take the money and run.
One was to check up on these type of sales (via ebay or even shops where you are uncertain) is to copy sections of the text and paste into a google search and see what results come up. Sometimes you need to try different combinations though may also spot other shops that are dubious or even the original retailer (from where the text was ripped) who have completely different contact info.
- ozzymac
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby ozzymac » Thu May 23, 2013 1:23 pm
Always have to be careful using eBay or any other online site.
Cheers
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- Hamster
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Thu May 23, 2013 4:28 pm
I suspect that the "seller's" business plan is to establish a bank account and a eBay account, sell as many as possible then withdraw the money from the bank account and abandon the eBay account and then repeat the process. These bikes have been "selling" for around $120 but I saw one reach $355. I don't know what a factory worker (for example) in China earns but I suspect that a couple of hundred dollars would be a lot of money.
I hope that not too many people have lost their money.
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Xenon » Thu May 23, 2013 5:53 pm
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Thu May 23, 2013 7:34 pm
That's his standard method of operation, usually also a 3 day auction. I suspect that the plan is to get a 'sale' before eBay notices and cancels the auction. I'm still reporting them as I find them, it you could so the same thing it'd be great and might keep somebody's hard-earned dollars out of this scumbag's hands.Xenon wrote:I spotted one (the same bike) and the seller had a feedback of 5, all $1 purchases within 5 minutes of each other...
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby AUbicycles » Mon May 27, 2013 9:22 pm
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Tue May 28, 2013 1:40 pm
- Hamster
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:18 am
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby linds » Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:11 pm
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Re: eBay Fraudulent Listings
Postby Hamster » Tue Dec 24, 2013 6:38 pm
Be careful people.
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