Another eBay scam (!)

To be honest, I thought it's impossible to fool me but every time another thing happens and change my whole way of thinking. Here's a story that happened to me just recently and made me think twice if I should sell on eBay and ship item worldwide. From now on, I will ship only to the 48 states of U.S.A.

I sold an item on eBay and mailed it to Russia. 40 days exactly I get a claim on eBay from the buyer that he didn't get the item yet. Usually when stuff like that happens they send you messages on eBay before they dispute it to a claim but this guy just put a claim without letting me know.

So I contacted USPS to see what's going on and they told me they're checking it with the Russia post office to get a clear picture. a day goes by and I decided to buy a $3.99 item and PayPal took another $830 (the item price) as hold for just incase I will lose in this case. I called eBay immediately and after an hour being transferred from a representative to another they released the hold and I got the money back.

When the buyer bought the item from me I noticed that he has only few feedbacks (all from buying) and I thought to myself that he's probably new at this. Now I just think that he's not new at all, I think that this is his new account after he scammed before. Long story short, eBay just closed the case on my favor because I managed to prove them that he got the item. I found it in the Russia post office website.

By the way, On the USPS website it still says that the item left New York when the buyer actually got it on August 29th and this guy knew it. He knew that the USPS website will not show that he got it. Right after he paid me he sent me a message on eBay that he wants it sent as 'first class'.

What you should learn? If you ship worldwide make sure you mail it REGISTERED and pay a little bit more for a delivery confirmation. It's worth it. Moreover, KEEP THE RECEIPT! I made a mistake throwing the receipt away because I thought he got the item and he's new so he's probably doesn't really know how to send messages and how to put feedback. I got lucky but it's not a reason to trust luck.

Take care guys.

Western Union - are you still buying it?

When I used Western Union for my first time I though that this is the best way to pay for goods. I started doing business online with dealers from china and everything went well. And than I realized I was too naive. I sent money to someone in the UK and he started bluffing me 6 days from sunday. Anyhow, my total lost was $800 but I'm saying 'thank you' everyday for loosing that money, I could never learn this kinda stuff in school, you know... for me it was experience I couldn't get anywhere else.

Since then, I paid with Western Union maybe few more times and that's it, I decided to move to PayPal. Even with PayPal someone managed to steal money from me and since the transaction wasn't via eBay, PayPal wouldn't refund me. Anyhow, I have a question for you. You won't have to answer since the answer will be obvious. Will you buy a brand new item for 50% off the retail price from someone you don't know and pay him by Western Union?

I guess you're smiling right now because you know what I mean. Every time I see an ad somewhere that ask people to pay with Western Union I know someone already been scammed before by this ad. If the scammers wouldn't succeed, they wouldn't keep trying. I take it very seriously when I see those ads, I also take it personally as if they stole from me. Read between the lines. Don't give them the option to steal your money. It's the money you worked very hard for, if they want money, let them work for it too!

Again, don't let 'em get ya!

  

The Nigerian scams don't stop!

The Nigerian scams keeps on coming. I posted an ad on craigslist last week and I got 25 text messages from Nigerians about this item. They don't stop and it seems like they try harder and harder as we try to reveal them. Don't fall into anyone's hands. Don't accept PayPal payments from anyone you don't know!

Their methods are being changed every day, they know we're on to them and they're trying to fight back. Today, for every craigslist ad there are 10 scammers sitting and waiting for someone to eat their bait. More over, they call old people and scam them too. I will tell you all about it tomorrow. Don't let 'em get ya!

The PayPal scams

Every time scammers asked me if they can pay with PayPal I was afraid to agree since in my mind I thought I have it all figured out. I thought that they really send you money and when they get the package they put a complaint on PayPal.com that they didn't get anything and when that happens PayPal actually blocks you and hold all your funds till they case is solved and I wasn't so sure that I can win this since I thought that if they really send me money than they are probably very good at this and they can win for sure.

So I decided to check it all out. I opened a new email account and than I opened a new PayPal account and I put a selling ad on Craigslist and waited. I didn't have to wait so long, after less than 10 minutes I got the first text. We "closed" the deal and I gave him my new PayPal address and after less than 2 minutes I got an email that says that I got a payment waiting. I logged into my new PayPal account and I didn't see anything... I opened the email again to read carefully what it says and I wasn't wrong, it says clearly that I have a payment waiting.

Than I looked at the email address that sent it and guess what, the title says 'PayPal' but the email address says something else completely. Than I figured it all out, they don't even send the money, they just want you to think they sent it. Eventually I sent the guy a fake UPS tracking no' to let him think I believed him and since then I try not to answer them although sometimes it's attempting to fool them :)

I said it before and I say it again. PayPal will never send you an email that the title starts with "Dear PayPal User" or "Dear PayPal Member". They will always start with your name, like that: "Hello Jerry Stein". Moreover, always check the email address that sent it, don't just believe the title, they can fake a lot of stuff but they can't fake the email address.

Don't let 'em get ya!

Craigslist Scams - Part 2

I got another text msg from a nigerian scammer this morning. The text quoted my ad title, like I told you yesterday, they wrote that they are interested and they signed the text msg with "Miss Kate". Now that's another method they're using to make people believe that they are for real. As a man, I know the feeling when a woman wants to do business with you. It makes men become very curious and that way they make you want to believe it's real.

For women it's not the same but women also feel more secure when they know it's a woman on the other side of the phone. Most women prefer to do business with women and not men, don't ask me why, it's just like that. Maybe when a woman wants to buy or sell it gives more security to the other side since women usually will not steal.

I started talking yesterday about the 1st rule that will help you not to fall into a scam. Again, the rule is: If it's too good to be true - IT IS. I know sometimes it seems like you found what you've been looking for and that's the main reason people are having hard time to see what they have right in front of them.

Here is a story that happened to me a week ago. I got an order for 20 iPhones 5 from a supplier outside of the U.S and I started looking online where I can found 20 units at once without meeting 20 different people, Suddenly I see an ad on Craigslist that says "100 iphone for sell, minimum purchase of 10 units, send email with your contact info". nice & simple, not too much explanations, just the way to attract dealers. I thought to myself, here's another scam but I couldn't hold myself from trying. So I sent my contact info and I get an immediate reply saying: "Can I call you right now?". Before I continue I must say it was 9PM Pacific time. I reply "yes" and a get a call from a guy that presents himself as a big wholesaler from New York (the time in NY was midnight and that was 1 of the hints I started getting). He told me about the 'company' that he's running, and it's very secure to do business with them since they are working all over the world, selling 1000's of iPhones to customer in Hong-Kong every month etc.

I told him that I need only 20 units and he says that it's ok, for 20 units he can sell it for $350 each, brand new in a sealed box - free shipping. I told him that I wanna come to NY to pick it up myself so he said that it's ok but the price for pick up is $560 (?). At that point I understood what I need to understand but my curiosity didn't let me stop there so I told him I want to check few things and I'll call him in the morning.

Long story short, I told him to email me all the information he can send me about his 'company' and I started checking everything he said. He even told me that I can pay in any form of payment that I want, including PayPal. And than he made the mistake that made me understand he was just a con-man. He gave me his PayPal address and it was "the guy's name"@gmail.com. Now you tell me, do you think something smells bad here?

Before you answer, let me tell you. No company will have a PayPal account with Google email. Think about it for a second. Would you open a Google email account for your company to use it for PayPal account? I wouldn't. When you have a big company that sells a lot of iPhone (one of the most wanted products in the world) and you have a website, usually the domain of your website is the same domain of the email.

He called me few times after we talked the other day and tried to convince me to buy from him and tried to convinced me to send him money. Again, why would such a big company will chase after me? I'm only buying 20... not 1000 units. By the way, with PayPal I had no problem, If I'd send him the money PayPal would have pay me back but that's not the issue here. I didn't want to wait 30-45 days for the money to come back to me. Moreover, he always gave me different information. At first he said $350 for each and than he said $300 each. after that he also said that he will "through" me a iPad-Mini. Now that's what I mean when I say - Too good to be true.

Until the next time... don't let 'em get ya!

Craigslist scams

Hello again. This time I will tell you few things about craigslist. When Craig newmark started his classified sale/buy/trade ads website, he didn't think a lot of people will take advantage of it and will scam anyone they can. Craigslist, as of today, is the biggest classified sale/buy/trade ads website in the United States of America and as far as I know this website, you can find there anything. Just name it.

When you sell something on Craigslist, usually you do it in order to sell it to someone that lives around your area and like anyone that wants to sell something, you wanna do it quick and for the best price for you. That's where the Nigerian scam comes into the picture, they contact you via SMS with a U.S.A number (we'll get to that one right away) and they gives you an offer you can't refuse.

They say that they will pay you extra money because they want it shipped to them and they usually have a lots of reasons. Usually they say that they are out of town and they want to send it as a present to a friend/family member/co-worker/employee/donation and anything that they & you can think of. once you agree, they says that they can pay by PayPal, which sounds very attempting because PayPal is supposedly very secure and they ask you for your PayPal address. Now we all know how Paypal works. your username is your email address, so every time you get a payment or something like that you get notified by email - your email.

At that point, after you agreed to accept their terms, you'll get an email saying that you have a payment pending and pay attention to that, the email will start like that "Dear PayPal User". PayPal never turn to their users like that, they will always say your name, like that "Dear Sam Gold". anyhow, this email should make you think that you really have a payment waiting and once you'll send the item they will release your money.

Now the part with the U.S.A number is very easy. They just sign up to google voice and they send you all the text messages from the computer. If you pay attention, the text will start by quoting your ad title. it usually looks like that: "sony camera brand new - $340 - manhattan - is this item still available??" You can see that they just copy-paste it from the Craigslist website and send it to you. they do it because they're sending a lot texts to a lot of people and they just don't wanna get lost between the ads.
Now this is funny - while i'm writing this words I get a text message from them, here is the snapshot :)

That is a live example!
Anyhow, I'm not done with craigslist, I will keep on writing tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend!

All the signs that will help you be aware of scams online

Hello everyone and thanks for visiting my blog. The only purpose of this blog is to help you recognize a scam online. I will give you all the tools to know what is a scam/fraud and how to avoid falling in to it. Everything that I write here is from my own experience. It all started when I lost money few years ago and since then I know how to be careful. I can even say that this money is actually a fee that I paid in order to know what I know today.

Most of the online scams are coming from Nigeria/UK and rarely China. Here I will tell you about all the journey that I've been through since the first day I started shopping online (In order to establish the business that I own today) till today that I'm still running into them day after day non-stop. They just don't stop and they keep trying and trying to scam everyone and the only reason they don't stop is because they succeed.

Is it unfortunate to say but people still believe them and are still sending them items and money all the time and that's keep motivating them to keep trying. I promise you, once people will stop falling into their trap - they will stop but I'm afraid it's not gonna happen any time soon. They always have a new story and they are aiming everywhere.

What does that mean "aiming everywhere"? That means they will make you think that they are a pretty lady that is looking for love and she doesn't have a enough money for a flight ticket, that means they will make you think that they wanna give a donation to a poor kid with cancer and they always find a new story to tell you.

I don't really know where to start so I will just start somewhere and we'll keep from there.

First rule of recognizing a scam online is: Don't send anything by mail unless you know you're insured (Like eBay). But remember - even on eBay you can find scammers!
The scammers will do anything they can in order to make you believe that they will send you the goods/merchandise. If it's too good to be true - IT'S A SCAM!
I saw a user on eBay that had maybe 80 feedbacks, all of them was %100 positive and he also had the eBay Buyer Protection from eBay and he posted iPhones for sell for a very cheap price. When I decided to look at the items he sold I saw that all of the feedbacks that he had was for things that he sold for few bucks each. that's how he got %100 positive feedbacks. Long story short, in the item description field he wrote that he will not accept any bid unless you email him first and that's what I did, he replied me that he was sorry to reply so late, it's because he had a lot of customers and he has a lot of iPhones to sell (he gave a very good prices - too good) and when I told him that I will do the transaction only with eBay he just stopped replying me...

You can see very clearly that what he did was to make me think he's legit by listing an eBay ad and also having %100 positive feedbacks.

You can email me at anytime, I will help you with any scam problem you have... so don't let 'em get ya!