Fraudulent Buyer Using a Different Account to Purchase

MR1988

Hi all! last year in November I requested assistance with a buyer that has returned a different item to me. I blocked him back then, eBay refunded the buyer themselves so I put it behidn me.

Today the buyer used a different account to purchase once again from me. Luckily for me I recognized the name right away so I contacted eBay customer service, they checked the two user addresses and IP address and agreed this is the same user. Customer service said they will report the buyer to the designated department. I doubt anythign will be done in regards to this buyer anyway.

My concern is buyer might come back with yet another account under different names which I won't recognize and try to scam me again. Is there anything I can do to protect myself further? It's really becoming disgusting to sell online nowadays, I'm really considering to put an end to selling online..

swingaloo

Just in case the buyer does manage to open yet another account I would change your settings to only accept bids from anyone with perhaps 20+ feedback so if he is just targeting you he will need to do some buying and selling. 

The problem now with ebay is the feedback system making it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for bad buyers, I have a sale at the moment that I know I will not get payment for. When I looked at the buyers feedback he has 12 positives all from different sellers and at the side of each one it says he does not pay. Yet ebay allow him to keep doing it.

soolin

swingaloo said:

Just in case the buyer does manage to open yet another account I would change your settings to only accept bids from anyone with perhaps 20+ feedback so if he is just targeting you he will need to do some buying and selling. 

The problem now with ebay is the feedback system making it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for bad buyers, I have a sale at the moment that I know I will not get payment for. When I looked at the buyers feedback he has 12 positives all from different sellers and at the side of each one it says he does not pay. Yet ebay allow him to keep doing it.

You have highlighted the reason why that buyer gets away with it! A false positive is absolutely useless, all it does it raise the feedback score and make a buyer look legit. If all those sellers had instead completed an NPB then sellers, like me who have blocked buyers with 2 or more strikes, wouldn’t have to deal with them…..by leaving a false positive , if buyer complains to eBay then any NPB strike is removed and seller gets a warning. 

So come on sellers help the rest of us out, do a proper NPB , don’t leave false positives and set your account to block buyers with 2 or more strikes. 

Also , per your suggestion that Op blocks buyers with 20 or fewer feedback, unfortunately that isn’t possible as there are no settings that allow a seller to block a buyer with positive feedback. 

swingaloo

soolin said:

swingaloo said:

Just in case the buyer does manage to open yet another account I would change your settings to only accept bids from anyone with perhaps 20+ feedback so if he is just targeting you he will need to do some buying and selling. 

The problem now with ebay is the feedback system making it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for bad buyers, I have a sale at the moment that I know I will not get payment for. When I looked at the buyers feedback he has 12 positives all from different sellers and at the side of each one it says he does not pay. Yet ebay allow him to keep doing it.

You have highlighted the reason why that buyer gets away with it! A false positive is absolutely useless, all it does it raise the feedback score and make a buyer look legit. If all those sellers had instead completed an NPB then sellers, like me who have blocked buyers with 2 or more strikes, wouldn’t have to deal with them…..by leaving a false positive , if buyer complains to eBay then any NPB strike is removed and seller gets a warning. 

So come on sellers help the rest of us out, do a proper NPB , don’t leave false positives and set your account to block buyers with 2 or more strikes. 

Also , per your suggestion that Op blocks buyers with 20 or fewer feedback, unfortunately that isn’t possible as there are no settings that allow a seller to block a buyer with positive feedback. 

Sorry Soolin, its some time since I did much Ebay and I've just restarted. Didn't there used to be a way stop bidders with low feedback bidding on your items? 
I thought there was but I'm a bit out of touch now and having to rea all the new rules.

soolin

swingaloo said:

soolin said:

swingaloo said:

Just in case the buyer does manage to open yet another account I would change your settings to only accept bids from anyone with perhaps 20+ feedback so if he is just targeting you he will need to do some buying and selling. 

The problem now with ebay is the feedback system making it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for bad buyers, I have a sale at the moment that I know I will not get payment for. When I looked at the buyers feedback he has 12 positives all from different sellers and at the side of each one it says he does not pay. Yet ebay allow him to keep doing it.

You have highlighted the reason why that buyer gets away with it! A false positive is absolutely useless, all it does it raise the feedback score and make a buyer look legit. If all those sellers had instead completed an NPB then sellers, like me who have blocked buyers with 2 or more strikes, wouldn’t have to deal with them…..by leaving a false positive , if buyer complains to eBay then any NPB strike is removed and seller gets a warning. 

So come on sellers help the rest of us out, do a proper NPB , don’t leave false positives and set your account to block buyers with 2 or more strikes. 

Also , per your suggestion that Op blocks buyers with 20 or fewer feedback, unfortunately that isn’t possible as there are no settings that allow a seller to block a buyer with positive feedback. 

Sorry Soolin, its some time since I did much Ebay and I've just restarted. Didn't there used to be a way stop bidders with low feedback bidding on your items? 
I thought there was but I'm a bit out of touch now and having to rea all the new rules.

There used to be one option where you could block buyers with fewer than 4 feedback unless they had registered a payment card on eBay , I’m not sure that’s still there as I haven’t actually looked for years . It is also possible to block people with overall negative feedback, but of course an account used purely for buying can’t have any negative feedback at all. 

GadgetGuru

MR1988 said:

It's really becoming disgusting to sell online nowadays, I'm really considering to put an end to selling online..

Agree - especially where eBay is concerned.

MR1988

Blocking people with no feedback is not really a solution. I had a lot of nice buyers who had no feedback or very low feedback. Plus not to mention this buyer could ask any of his friends to buy on their behalf, in which case I won't be able to recognize the name anymore. I wish ebay would require ID verification so people would stop creating so many accounts for the sole purpose of scamming.

forgotmyname

If the user does manage to buy something send the item back that they sent you originally.

Just pop a compliment slip in with a smiley face.