Uncovered a very interesting Amazon/eBay foreign buyer scheme

[AkumaX]

So typically, foreigners overseas (such as China/Japan/Korea/etc...) want to buy goods over on US Amazon or US eBay. But as you could guess, most sellers wouldn't want to ship overseas, so what now?

I sold something on eBay, buyer paid through PayPal, PayPal gave the OK to ship (confirmed address), no big deal.

Here's the pseudo name-address field:

Andrew VXKO
123 Fake Street
Suite 100
Springfield, IL 12345 (I can give a real address if you're interested via PM)

Address is fine, but the last name? Whatever... I guess its okay.

--

Next day, PayPal put the buyer's funds on hold. I'm like, okie... well, I didn't ship it out yet so I guess I'm ok...
Do some research on the address.
Initial results was that it was some tile company. Okay.
A bit more searching, different combinations of addresses and then..
BINGO!

The address is a front! It's actually a 3rd party shipping office that receives packages for foreign buyers, and they'll eventually ship it to them (presumably, the buyer will buy lots of goods, then they can receive them all at once at a low shipping rate).

The name Andrew VXKO? VXKO stands for their shipping container - when they order goods, the last name gets sorted into their container!

Found a Chinese site (all in Chinese) that facilitated this. Found the address listed multiple times with instructions on how to "receive" goods to the warehouse (with the last name). Saw multiple "last names" of people claiming their shipping containers.

Pretty crazy... but I assume it's against ToS since as an eBay seller you're not shipping it directly to the buyer. I'm not going to wait 1-2 months for them to receive their product for them to just do a chargeback on me...

--

edit: it's called freight forwarding, and it's been a pain in the @$$ since...

 

[unixwizzard]

I thought when a shipped item arrives at the PayPal confirmed/verified address, it is considered to be received by the buyer.

Did that change?

Provided you ship with signature required, you should be safe. I say should because more and more the policies for eBay and Paypal are changing to be 100% in favor of the buyer/scammer.

 

[ringtail]

``

 

[Eureka]

It's a bit unscrupulous, but I don't see what the big deal is.

As a seller, you fulfilled your order by delivering a legitimate item to the address, and by the time the buyer gets it, they'll be out of the recourse period. The buyer takes the risk but they get to have an item at fair market value.

 

[rsutoratosu]

thats been happening for years... there are a lot of these forwarder.. yeah i just refund the money and say sorry, im not gonna get rip off

 

[AkumaX]

It's a bit unscrupulous, but I don't see what the big deal is.

As a seller, you fulfilled your order by delivering a legitimate item to the address, and by the time the buyer gets it, they'll be out of the recourse period. The buyer takes the risk but they get to have an item at fair market value.

right - although with the recourse period, i don't see how the buyer could just do a chargeback to paypal way in the future.

__

it happened AGAIN!

tutorial: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.abcus.net/security.aspx

the jist of it: "The first step: Get U.S. address, the second step: amazon orders, third step: transfer to China."

paypal froze the funds again, saying that, "You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorized by the PayPal account holder."

lovely...

 

[Gillbot]

this is why i never sell on ebay

 

[mmntech]

This is an old one. I have a co-worker that does that. She buys stuff online in the States then gets them shipped to a warehouse in Niagara Falls, NY. She then just crosses the boarder and picks her stuff up. Works well if you're buying bulky items since prices are often significantly less down there even if you do have to pay the sales tax. Since she lives in the Falls area, it's cheaper to pay the $5 to cross the border than the $20 plus to ship it here too.

 

[SunnyD]

I've had individuals on the forums (FS/FT) ask me to ship to a "international freight forwarder", that way there would be no customs or international shipping for me to deal with and they supposedly would get discounted shipping and customs rates.

Yeah, no.

 

[ss284]

Things are really cheap in the US compared to other countries, especially luxury items. The new money in Asia wants their designer label purses at a 50% discount.

 

[Sonikku]

It's amazing how much of a pinch our country seems to be in financially when we not only make more than the rest of the world, but pay so much less.

 

[esquared]

I've been seeing this for quite awhile on eBay.

In my auctions I never purposely ship to outside US. Too many forms, etc.

But what I have seen a lot of, and there's no way for me to block it, is the items would go to a freight forwarder and the forwarder, (in Miami), would ship to the various Latin American countries.

I only became suspicious when I saw a couple of similar addresses and then I googled them later.

That's when I found out about the freight forwarding.

It wasn't a big deal. The buyers were Paypal verified with tons of purchases and no negs.

I've sold on eBay for just about 15 years and never, ever has an issue with a ripoff or an issue with Paypal.

 

[Ns1]

I've been seeing this for quite awhile on eBay.

In my auctions I never purposely ship to outside US. Too many forms, etc.

But what I have seen a lot of, and there's no way for me to block it, is the items would go to a freight forwarder and the forwarder, (in Miami), would ship to the various Latin American countries.

I only became suspicious when I saw a couple of similar addresses and then I googled them later.

That's when I found out about the freight forwarding.

It wasn't a big deal. The buyers were Paypal verified with tons of purchases and no negs.

I've sold on eBay for just about 15 years and never, ever has an issue with a ripoff or an issue with Paypal.

hm i got a buyer just like this.

what to do what to do...it's a freight forwarder in FL.

 

[Rumpltzer]

I sold a CPU to a freight forwarding place in FL. What's the big deal? Mine was retail in box with Intel heatsink and fan. Buyer asked me not to send anything except the CPU.

*shrug*


BTW, Amazon exists in Japan. http://www.amazon.co.jp/

 

[Jodell88]

I buy all my stuff on Amazon that way. It comes out cheaper than buying it locally.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I just sold my 24 k gold plated Bentley on ebay and it is being picked up by a freight forwarding company and being shipped Peru......

 

[chin311]

I've probably done 100 ebay auctions and have had about 3-5 things go to a freight forwarding setup. Never an issue yet. Just sold something last night and shipping to one tomorrow, he has 159 positive feedback since 07.

 

[Ns1]

thx for replies all.

 

[JMapleton]

Used to work for an online retailer. We cancelled all freight forwarding orders on the spot.

Always Google any address going to Miami, Long Beach, or Vancouver to see if it's a freight forwarder. Or any address that has a id number of some sort in it. Like this:

John Public
1253 Industrial Parkway
BU0432893
Miami, FL 33063

Something like that. Sometimes the id number is in the name.

 

[jupiter57]

I just sold my 24 k gold plated Bentley on ebay and it is being picked up by a freight forwarding company and being shipped Peru......

What is it with the run on Gold Plated Bentleys lately?
Sold 3 on ebay & 1 on CL last week, already have orders for the same this week & it's only Monday!

 

[Doppel]

I thought when a shipped item arrives at the PayPal confirmed/verified address, it is considered to be received by the buyer.

Did that change?

Provided you ship with signature required, you should be safe. I say should because more and more the policies for eBay and Paypal are changing to be 100% in favor of the buyer/scammer.

You are never safe with paypal. they don't put their own money on the line, and any decent scammer will empty their account immediately. Thus, the only way to ever get anything back is never pay with your paypal balance but instead with credit card, and let your credit card lender pull the funds from paypal forcibly.

 

[AkumaX]

Freight forwarder, got it. New to me!

If i was selling tangible goods (like clothes or whatever) I probably wouldn't care.

But selling electronic goods? what happens if its DOA?

And lastly, since this has happened to me 2x (who knows, maybe I sold stuff to a freight forwarder in the past, but never knew), the last 2 times PayPal froze the funds on both accounts. Which means it took me 10-14 days for me to get my eBay fees and my PayPal fees back (the purchaser never bothered trying to correct the payment)

 

[slayer202]

Could be a proxy service, usually legit. I've used one to get items from Japan.

You pay a service charge of about 10% on top of the item + shipping + paypal fees and you get your item.

 

[AkumaX]

Could be a proxy service, usually legit. I've used one to get items from Japan.

You pay a service charge of about 10% on top of the item + shipping + paypal fees and you get your item.

Right, freight forwarder. Interesting...

Anyways, it happened AGAIN. TODAY!!!

Some interesting 'facts' this time around:
- Buyer's eBay account from China
- Buyer used a PayPal email address that was non sensical (random letters)
- Buyer's PayPal name (Russian) was different than Shipping name (Chinese)
- Scariest Part: Buyer shipped through Confirmed Address, BUT PayPal says that I am Seller Protection - Not Eligible!!!

 

[Ns1]

Right, freight forwarder. Interesting...

Anyways, it happened AGAIN. TODAY!!!

Some interesting 'facts' this time around:
- Buyer's eBay account from China
- Buyer used a PayPal email address that was non sensical (random letters)
- Buyer's PayPal name (Russian) was different than Shipping name (Chinese)
- Scariest Part: Buyer shipped through Confirmed Address, BUT PayPal says that I am Seller Protection - Not Eligible!!!

fuuuuuuck that.