Random anecdote about eBay scam

[prestonvisser]

Hello FOG,

I have enjoyed reading posts and purchasing some items from the classified section, but I have not posted yet.  I'm sure many of you keep your eyes on eBay for good deals on used Festool items.  I recently experienced a twist in an eBay scam that I thought I'd share just in case you hadn't heard of it yet:

1) I purchased a df 500 plus half-full tenon classic systainer for $500.  I know, too good to be true.  I thought that maybe someone just wanted to get rid of it quickly!
2) The seller was a few days late in shipping the item, but to my surprise it was marked as shipped after about four days.  Best of all, I received a UPS tracking number!
3) The item was marked delivered on Monday to my town (it didn't specify an address), but I didn't receive it.  I'm in a small town, so sometimes UPS will drop off packages at the post office to be picked up.  I held out hope that this had happened.
4) Nothing for me at the post office, so I called our UPS driver (small town), and she had no recollection of leaving me a package on Monday. 
5) I called the UPS office, and they reverse-tracked the package to a different address in my small town. 
6) I googled that address, got the name of the elderly lady that lives there, got her phone number off the internet (a little creepy, I know), and left her a message on her answering machine. 
7) The energetic elderly lady returned my call and was more than happy to help me out.  It turns out, she had indeed received a package on Monday, and it had the exact tracking number that I was given.  However, the package was for some nutritional supplements that she actually had ordered. 
8) The lady sent me a picture of the box with the tracking number and her address, and I sent it to eBay's concierge department, and they closed out the seller's account that evening and refunded the money.  I would have been protected anyway, but it was nice that they could move forward more quickly with closing out the fraudulent seller's account.
9) Apparently, the scammer found some legitimate tracking numbers for items going to my same town and used those on eBay as proof that the package had been shipped and delivered. 
10) I made a new friend with the lady that got my...her package. 

TL;DR - Just be aware that the tracking number you get from a questionable eBay seller might have been carefully selected as part of a scam. 

Cheers.

 

[live4ever]

Interesting, thanks for posting.  I wonder how they manage to obtain legitimate tracking numbers heading to the same town at the correct timeframe?

 

[Svar]

Interesting, thanks for posting.  I wonder how they manage to obtain legitimate tracking numbers heading to the same town at the correct timeframe?

I wonder if tracking numbers are sequential or have origin or destination areas encrypted in them.

 

[ChuckM]

Thanks for sharing the scam. When I read a scam in the newspaper, I share it with my friends.

I shop all the time on eBay and always pay via Paypal (so my credit card info. is protected). eBay has a very easy protection mechanism , unlike in the early days. Out of the several hundreds of transactions, I have had only two or three issues of non-delivery or damaged delivery and all were taken of by eBay to my full satisfaction. When I buy, I look at the seller's rating and I never deal with someone who is brand new. There are so many suppliers of the same item I want and so I can always pick the most reliable sellers and the price differences are very small.

Often I can find what I need (tools included) on eBay that is better in price than on Amazon even though the product is identical.

 

[lwoirhaye]

Somebody was trying to run a Festool scam on Amazon some months back.  They would sign up for new seller accounts and then list tools as "used" for considerably less than market value.  It looked so fishy I didn't look into it further.  Amazon seems to have caught on and eliminated those accounts now.

 

[Gregor]

Interesting, thanks for posting.  I wonder how they manage to obtain legitimate tracking numbers heading to the same town at the correct timeframe?

I wonder if tracking numbers are sequential or have origin or destination areas encrypted in them.

Most parcel companies tracking numbers are predictable in sequence (especially these days where the tracking numbers are no longer preprinted on blank forms that are distributed all over the globe and then be used in unpredictable order, but generated on demand by their central server) and their online tracking interfaces ask for the destination zip before they show you the details of the package (and throw an error in case you enter the wrong one).

This can easily be scripted with one (or two) dozend lines of code: generate a tracking number from thin air (be it random or educated guess), curl the webpage with tracking # and target zip, rinse and repeat until no error message.

 

[ear3]

Interesting -- thanks for posting.  The variation I have seen is where sellers offer items for a ridiculously low price, and then ask you to contact them directly about the item before ordering.  If you instead try to order through Amazon, the sale will be cancelled and they will send you a direct message asking to follow up with them directly.  That way they you aren't protected by Amazon if you were to purchase from them.

These sorts of scams tend to focus on high-price items across the board, and will include more things besides tools (expensive electronics, exercise machines).  A good giveaway is if you see a pot-pourri of unrelated items in the same seller's store, usually all with the same price.

 

[prestonvisser]

Thank you all for the replies and the info about other scams.  I do agree that it's helpful to hear about the ways people are scamming so that you can get better at recognizing the signs.  Thank you, Gregor, for the comments about the tracking numbers.  Thieves can be pretty clever; just wish they would use their brains for something productive.

 

[semenza]

Thank you all for the replies and the info about other scams.  I do agree that it's helpful to hear about the ways people are scamming so that you can get better at recognizing the signs.  Thank you, Gregor, for the comments about the tracking numbers.  Thieves can be pretty clever; just wish they would use their brains for something productive.

Hi,

  Welcome to the forum!  [smile]

      Thanks for the heads up on the scam.

Seth