Rick92RS

I just wanted to let people know of a couple of things to watch out for that have happened to me on both eBay and Paypal. (same company, same headaches!)

The first is the "African Adventure" scam on eBay. I was selling a Hard Disk camcorder on eBay and I had 5 different (but similar named) people send me a message and it read something like this,

"Hello friend my name is (insert name here) and I am very interested in the product you are selling, and I wanted to purchase this item for a friend of mine that is currently in Nigeria. His address:

Name: (something nigerian sounding)
Address: 123 Some Nigerian address
Phone: Some long Nigerian Number

I am willing to buy your Camcorder for $550.00 American and will also give you $60.00 for shipping. All I need is your Paypal account and I will send the money, but only if you agree to ship the item to the above address."

This is a popular scam, and if you give out your Paypal account info you will be very sorry, lose your item, end up with a hacked into Paypal account, or worse. I had to re-list the Camcorder like 5 times, reporting the scammer(s) each time! There is lots of other scams on eBay but this is one that was tried on me.

Paypal is a true nightmare and eventually, even if you have had good luck with them in the past, something bad can happen at any time! If you value your money you should consider other options. First some things you should be aware of:

• Paypal can and will lock out your checking account if they suspect fraud from you or someone you deal with. Read their fine print real well and they are considered a bank to your bank, so there is nothing you can do about it. I have heard stories of them holding people's bank account for up to 120 days or even more. Imagine not being able to have access to your money for that long!
• Paypal gives you a false sense of security, when in reality they seem to protect potential thieves of your money and protect them while screwing you in the process!
• If you ever have problems with your account, you have two options: email them and get auto responded to death, or you have to call them..be ready! For one, their phone number is buried DEEP inside the web site, and even when you do find it, it is not a toll free call! The real kicker: You will be on hold for 30 minutes up to an hour or more, and when you do finally reach someone you will talk to someone who is rude, impatient, interrupts you, and will probably blame you for whatever problem it is, and not even resolve your issue! I had to call 3 times, and all 3 calls took 40+ minutes for them to answer me, then I was not helped at all and was told to email their support staff!
• Go to Paypalsucks.com and you can learn of all the people who got screwed in various degrees. I am one of them! There is some true horror stories, and I knew of the site but felt since I was careful and didn't ever have a problem with them in the past, I would not have to worry. Boy was I wrong!

Anyhow, let me get to what happened to me, and this is something to watch out for because it's so easy for someone to steal your item and get their money back. Plus charge you in the process for the cost of the item!

I sold a gaming computer mouse (Diamond Copperhead) for $50.00 to Edward Higgins (edfhiggins on eBay). He sent me the money through Paypal, I shipped out the mouse, he emailed me when he got it and left me positive feedback, I did the same for him, and all was well.

About 3 weeks later, I go to check my Paypal account and it says I am minus -$55.00! I look at the Dispute for his transaction and he claimed it was an unauthorized transaction to his credit card company and reversed the charges!

I immediately sent him an email, as well as emailed Paypal as well, telling them of my good feedback from him. I included the UPS tracking number, and I copied the entire auction and included that as well, along with his good feedback for me. They wrote me back with an automated message, explaining how he had disputed the charges to his credit card company, and that I have 10 days to respond to the dispute.

I already had responded to the dispute!

Edward Higgins emails me and tells me it's a big misunderstanding, and he is going to work it out. Needless to say I did not believe that, so I kept up the good fight. I sent a copy of his new email in my next message to Paypal, and Paypal quickly sent me another automated message. To sum it up: Paypal wrote: Thank you Richard for your response to this dispute. Paypal is fighting this matter on your behalf and the final outcome will be known in 30 days.

I didn't feel relieved by this, and I checked my eBay account. Turns out I was not the only one to be duped by this guy. 3 other sellers left follow up feedback "Buyer is disputing charges, what is going on?" Apparently Edfhiggins discovered that you can trick Paypal by disputing the charges and then claim that they are unauthorized charges to his credit card company.

I wrote Paypal a 4th time, telling them about the other people he duped and apparently this was a pattern he was doing. I got the same automated response as the last time.

I called them, waited 53 minutes!!!! A Hindu sounding guy (name was something like Hamir) answered who seemed like I interrupted him from something, rudely talked to me, and said they were working on the matter, and referred me to the online message system! Then he hung up on me!!! I paid $7.00 for that phone call and guess what I got accomplished!?

Well, the end result? Guy got to keep my gaming mouse, Paypal claimed I was not covered because I did not send them the UPS tracking number of the item shipped! I included the tracking number in 2 seperate emails! I also got charged the $50.00 to my bank account, plus a fee so it ended up being close to $60.00, which I had to pay or they threatened to send me to a credit collection agency! So he kept my mouse I sold, and got his money back, and charged me $50.00 for doing nothing but holding up my end of the bargain.

I know this is not a car parts story, but whether it's a hood latch or a gaming mouse, it's still the same eBay and Paypal that screwed me and countless others! I kept up conversation with one of the other guys who also got screwed by edfhiggins, and he wrote me back when I told him what happened to me and he said, "Guy got my item, screwed me over, Paypal took my money, and no one cares!"

Beware eBay and Paypal! I was a loyal eBayer for 4 years until this happened. I closed my Paypal account and sent them some nasty messages, and I vow never to use eBay ever again! If it could happen to me and countless others, it can happen to you!

Sorry for the long post, but I needed to explain the situation and there was a lot to it, but little result from all the effort I put in. I did everything I could do, and I did everything right, and still got taken by that clown! I am going to the FBI Internet fraud division and I hope to take this guy out and prevent him from doing this to more people.

Rick92RS

Safer eBay selling

If you are a seller, look out for members who either bid or pick buy it now that:

• Want you to ship the item to a person or place that is not theirs
• People who switch their ID names, or make their feedback profile private
• New users
• Buyers with excessive negative feedback

You can set the preferences of who can bid or buy your items in eBay, but to protect yourself even further: Include an auction term to your listing, it takes a minute or 2 to do, and you are not obligated to complete the transaction with anyone unless they abide by your auction rules. This gives you the upper hand in any problem that can arise if the buyer does not conform to your rules: here is an example of how I used to do mine.

Item title
Item Description

AUCTION TERMS

If you are a new user, have more than 1 unpaid item strike in the last 6 months, or changed id's recently, please email me before you bid.

Payment can be made via Paypal, Money order, or cashier check. NO personal checks can be accepted.

Payment expected (5) days after the auction closes.

Shipping will be $10.00 to be paid by the buyer.

Please only bid on the item, or pick Buy It Now, if you are serious about purchasing the item. Once you bid or buy the item, you are entering into a legal contract and under rules which are enforced by eBay.

If payment is not received within the time frame, and I do not hear from you I will notify eBay, re-list the item, and leave negative feedback.

This is just an example, you can pretty much put what you want but be reasonable and polite about it. Cover every base you can think of, and if the buyer tries to scam you, you can write eBay an email, tell them of your auction terms you have clearly listed in your auction, and that the buyer did not adhere to them.

This is a good guideline to sell items on eBay, and you will learn as you use the system more and more, but you want to do what you can to be protected.

Rick92RS

Safer eBay buying

If you are a buyer, you need to be very careful who your purchase from. Look out for sellers who:

• Have excessive negative feedback, or started out as a good seller and recently received a lot of negative feedback.
• Sellers who in their feedback profile have a lot of people complaining about items not being how they are described in the auction.
• Sellers that are new, or have recently changed their ID name
• If it seems too good to be true, more than likely it is!

Study their feedback profile, and what people are saying about their experiences from the seller. This does not count for a guy or gal who has 7 total feedback left for them, but 6 of them were from the same buyer! Look to see who is the most trustworthy person selling whatever it is you are looking for. If the person has 10k plus feedback, and like 0-3 negatives, you know you will most likely get the item exactly as described.

Jproz1167

iTrader: (3)

A little off your topic but today I took a money order thats supposedly from a bank to bank of america today and they were very hesitant about cashing it. They ran it through some machine looking for a background inprint and found nothing. just curious if anyone has recieved anything like this. This money order is what looks like a bank draft but looks like paper from a copying machine.

Rick92RS

Safer Paypal usage:

In my experience, the safest way to use Paypal is not to use it! Paypal is very nice, when it works and both the buyer and seller are honest and do what they are supposed to do. It's convenient and amazing when it works!

BUT Paypal is a big gamble, there is lots of room for stuff to go wrong, and a lot of people that will screw you over for no reason using it. Paypal does not protect you as well as they claim to, and they can freeze your account, and do other things that should be illegal but they will most likely get away with! Many lawsuits, and an entire website or six (Paypalsucks.com is one of them) have been against Paypal and are filled with horror stories. I myself got screwed bad by them, and I thought it would never happen to me.

If you do bite the bullet and decide to use Paypal after the warnings, here are some good guidelines:

• Check your account CONSTANTLY for problems and disputes. Don't just trust your email to warn you of account activity, check it every couple days or so even if you have not use Paypal for a while.
• Only buy or sell to verified users, and be wary of those who are not verified, or do not have a confirmed address.
• Be Careful who you send money to and how much.
• If a dispute is filed, especially if you did everything right, respond to the dispute multiple times, making sure you include EVERY detail! This includes what color your underwear was! Really though, as much details as you can of the other person and you.
• Do not have a false sense of security, scam artists have found lots of ways to exploit Paypal, and get what they want out of you while avoiding Paypal protection of which there is very little.
• Be aware that if someone disputes their credit card charge from buying and item from you, all they have to do is contact their credit card company and dispute the charge. Paypal will supposedly fight for you, but in the end likely the person will keep your item, as well as get their money back and charge you for the item as a final kicker! This happened to me and I went over and beyond what they asked of me.

Paypal is about convenience, but there is little you can do if a problem comes up. You will get automated responses through email, and if you need to call the web site hides the number very well, it's buried deep! Then when you call, it's not toll free, and you better have about an hour or so free to be able to be on hold and wait for some foriegn person who will likely brush you off with rudeness and not be very helpful. Good luck and hope you take this warning seriously, money is not easy to come by anymore and I would hate to see more people experience what I have thanks to Paypal. And my experience was no where near what others have gone through!

Rick92RS

I use Bank of America myself, and the money order I had looked nothing like the one you described. Be careful there, needless to say me and you would not trust it. People will try and do anything to get stuff for free, and unfortunately on eBay it works at times!

Jproz1167

iTrader: (3)

My bank advised me to deposit it. Then check back in a week to see if it cleared ... Three people looked at the money order and all 3 were suspicious about it since it showed no signs of a watercolor or whatever you call that. Not even there special machine detected anything.

So needless to say this guy is not getting his parts till this thing clears.

Rick92RS

Good idea, and I would do the same thing. Sad you have to check back in a week to learn if it's legit or not though. All this modern technology and still takes that long?

Good choice, and I would question the guy in the mean time and let him know what they said at the bank. You can never be too careful, especially this time of year. And, people will do what they can to cheat people out of items and get them for free. It's sad how pathetic people can be sometimes.

That is not to say this guy cheated you, you will not know that for a week, but I am referring to those who do cheat people out of their items and/or money.

kurfbird

iTrader: (24)

Aso watch out for people. Email looks lke form ebay saying that you sold them somthing. It looks like it came from ebay. They are looking for your password so they can access your ebay and paypal account.

Ensure that your passwords are different for paypal and ebay DONT USE THE SAME ONE.

ScotSea

iTrader: (2)

Also, if you sell on ebay, only send the item to the address listed. If you send the item to another address (send it to my in-laws, or something like that), ebay and paypal have no sympathy for that. They will not even investigate if you send to another address and the deal went bad.

PeMa

iTrader: (4)

I hate these scammers...
They make it harder and harder all the time for us honest Camaroenthusiasts "on the other side of the pond" to buy stuff from this site here and E-bay.
Why, you might ask..?
Well, I for instance meet at least two criterias for being a scammer according to most people. First I'm not from USA, I'm from Sweden. Second, I want the parts I buy shipped to a different address then on my Paypal.

There is actually an easy explanation for this...
First, I can't help where I'm from, but the reason I frequent TGO is for all the knowledge on here. I don't post much, but I'm on here reading almost every day. This is also a good place to find the parts you need/want, and still feel more safe around other Camaronuts than buying from Joe Schmo on E-bay...

The reason for having a shipping address different from the billing address is only due to overseas shipping cost. For example, I've been trying to buy a set of clear sidemarkers and clear bumperlights for my IROC-Z. The E-bay price is $65, shipping to Sweden a breathtaking $96 and then importtaxes of $46 totaling $207. If I use my shipping contact in USA the price is a little better E-bay $65, shipping within USA $20, combined containershipping to Sweden about $25. With importtaxes this alternative would cost me $145, saving me a nice $62.
But the seller only ships to confirmed Paypal-address, so I guess no lights for me then...

I think I need to find a way to get my work to send me on "business-trips" to USA so I can buy stuff in person and fill my bags with parts on the way home...

//Per

Rick92RS

As much as I sympathize for you, you must take into account that eBay and Paypal will not cover you if you ship it to anywhere but a confirmed address. Lame that you have to deal with that kind of money to get things shipped to you, and I wish I had a solution for you, but if you were the seller, you would be wary as well.

Shipping an item to you would be a risk for them, and with all the scams they make you look bad, whether you have good intentions or not. It's the old, "Lots of people ruin it for you" thing.

My problem with Paypal is that I never got to talk to a competent person who actually helped me. If I have a problem with my internet, it's easy to get a hold of someone to discuss the issue. My credit card, former car payment, etc. Plus, don't talk about how, "Protected" I am when I obviously was not. If I was I would either have my money, or my item by now!

Paypal sends automated messages, and you can tell there is no one actually typing to you, because they are very general and do not discuss your specific issue. The phone number "helpline" costs lots of money, is hard to find the number on the site (obvious reasons), and on top of that I got nothing accomplished through 3 phone calls. Each that averaged about an hour, cost over $7.00, and was answered by some foreign guy that was very rude, and not the least bit helpful. So all in all, it cost me $80.00 and I still lost the mouse, my money, and that's not even including the seller fees from eBay. I lost $85.00+ on a mouse that is worth $50.00 because someone learned to cheat the system, told others, and there was nothing I could do about it, though I did a lot!

They also referred me to the message system! So it's not being helped correctly, it shows they do no protect you like they claim to, that you are not safe, and they probably fight issues the same way they handle them with you. Why did they not give me that guy's credit card companies' phone number so I could dispute it myself, and send them what Paypal asked me to? I could have fought it WITH Paypal! The fact he was doing it to others should have won me the case no matter what.

Now imagine if this had been an expensive part, like a $3000.00 engine or whatnot. It would end up costing me nearly $4000.00 if someone scammed me because of the seller fees, Paypal fees, and everything else. Something to think about!

Rick92RS

Jproz1167 what was the end result of that money order?

Rick92RS

As much as I sympathize for you, you must take into account that eBay and Paypal will not cover you if you ship it to anywhere but a confirmed address. Lame that you have to deal with that kind of money to get things shipped to you, and I wish I had a solution for you, but if you were the seller, you would be wary as well.

Shipping an item to you would be a risk for them, and with all the scams they make you look bad, whether you have good intentions or not. It's the old, "Lots of people ruin it for you" thing.

My problem with Paypal is that I never got to talk to a competent person who actually helped me. If I have a problem with my internet, it's easy to get a hold of someone to discuss the issue. My credit card, former car payment, etc. Plus, don't talk about how, "Protected" I am when I obviously was not. If I was I would either have my money, or my item by now!

Paypal sends automated messages, and you can tell there is no one actually typing to you, because they are very general and do not discuss your specific issue. The phone number "helpline" costs lots of money, is hard to find the number on the site (obvious reasons), and on top of that I got nothing accomplished through 3 phone calls. Each that averaged about an hour, cost over $7.00, and was answered by some foreign guy that was very rude, and not the least bit helpful. So all in all, it cost me $80.00 and I still lost the mouse, my money, and that's not even including the seller fees from eBay. I lost $85.00+ on a mouse that is worth $50.00 because someone learned to cheat the system, told others, and there was nothing I could do about it, though I did a lot!

They also referred me to the message system! So it's not being helped correctly, it shows they do no protect you like they claim to, that you are not safe, and they probably fight issues the same way they handle them with you. Why did they not give me that guy's credit card companies' phone number so I could dispute it myself, and send them what Paypal asked me to.

Now imagine if this had been an expensive part, like a $3000.00 engine or whatnot. It would end up costing me nearly $4000.00 if someone scammed me because of the seller fees, Paypal fees, and everything else. Something to think about!

81caballero

ouch, the world is full of scammers. Im from Canada and buy parts on ebay quite often. I pay through my paypal account, both bank account and credit card. I only buy off of legitimate companies that have more positive feedback. But, being from Canada and the brokerage fee's for ups and such to bring parts across, I have an account at a parcel receiving depot just across the border. I use them to receive packages and I go down and bring them across, saves me a bunch of money. I hate theives, and scammers....Im a firm beleiver on karma, they will always have to walk around looking over their shoulder........cheers.

88KARRV6

iTrader: (1)

The charge back fraud and lack of seller protection is the very reason I no longer accept paypal as a form of payment for any transaction.
They are not FDIC insured and you are at the mercy of their T.O.S., which are atrocious and skewed.
I still sell on ebay from time to time, but sadly I can only accept postal M/O's from US buyers and wire transfers from out of the country buyers, it makes it more difficult on legit buyers since i have to protect myself like that.
It's scary the number of people scammed by paypal fraud, and there has been nothing done to improve the issue. a few bad apples are ruining it for everyone, typical.