How to protect yourself from eBay fraud

Ripped off on eBay? Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case: Scams, fraud, and the like occur time and again on the online auction site. The best defense against criminal activities is to be aware of the methods used by fraudsters — and to follow a few simple rules. We explain the dangers lurking for users on eBay and how to outsmart the gangsters.

Fraud on eBay – what should you expect?

Ebay is still one of the most popular online auction sites for many people. According to Statista, around 130 million users were active on the platform in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, this kind of hustle and bustle also attracts scammers, who often use perfidious methods to defraud unsuspecting users.

The motto here is: Know your enemy — or at least their methods. If you familiarize yourself with the typical machinations of scammers, you have a good chance of not falling victim to such crooks yourself.

Typical eBay scams: Watch out for these

If you come across scammers on eBay, they will often try to steal your data or get your money directly — without offering anything in return, of course. These scams have been particularly common in recent years:

Complaints fraud: Simple but effective

A very simple and therefore quite popular method of defrauding users on eBay is the so-called complaint trick. Fraudsters first pose as normal buyers, order an item (such as a smartphone) and pay for it. Shortly after dispatch, however, the fraudulent buyers contact the seller again and complain about the product. Then comes the trick: Instead of returning the device originally purchased, another item is sent back to the seller. Usually the same model but inferior: damaged or badly battered, for example.

Important for sellers: You should always be able to prove exactly which device or item you have offered for sale. The best way to do this is by noting/photographing serial or model numbers.

The classic: Demanding money but not sending any goods

Anyone who falls for this scam is doubly annoyed: Not only is your own money often gone, you also have to live with the fact that you have been hoodwinked. Typically, sellers in this scam demand that you do not pay for items via eBay, but instead transfer money directly to an account outside the platform, sometimes even to a foreign account.

In such cases, buyers can then no longer take advantage of eBay’s buyer protection. In the meantime, the fraudsters make off with the amount paid without sending the buyer their item.

Classic number two: Pay, but only send scrap

This method only works with cash on delivery: For example, you buy a supposedly cheap laptop for good money and then want to pay for the goods by cash on delivery. When you receive your parcel, give the supplier the money and sit down at the living room table to unpack it, you are in for a rude awakening: Instead of high-tech, the parcel contains scrap metal or a river pebble.

Important for buyers: Always open such parcels before letting the postman drive off with the money you have paid. You can then refuse to accept the parcel and have the junk parcel returned.

The ‘triangle scam’: A perfidious method that also occurs on eBay classifieds

This scam is quite inventive, but also particularly brazen, as it also involves an uninvolved third party in the mess. Scammers like to use common items with a relatively high price, such as modern laptops or smartphones. They then look for a seller of these goods and ask for PayPal addresses or bank details to (allegedly) transfer the purchase price.

Then things get criminal: The scammers copy the seller’s offer with the exact same price and use it to place a new advert for the product. As if they were the seller themselves. If an unsuspecting third party becomes aware of the offer and wants to pay for the goods, they give this third party the account details of the seller they originally contacted. In other words, the person who actually created the advert in the first place.

Then the trap strikes: The third party now transfers the money for the item to the actual seller. However, this seller thinks he has received the money from the scammer: After all, he gave him his account information for the purpose of the purchase. When the money arrives, the seller sends the goods to the scammer, who then disappears never to be seen again.

Support scam

In this scam, scammers pretend to be eBay support staff in order to elicit account details or credit card numbers from users. The scammers initially approach a user as a normal buyer or seller. During the transaction process, however, real or purely fictitious problems suddenly arise.

To clarify the situation, innocent users then receive a supposed eBay support service number. In reality, however, this is where the disguised scammers can be reached, who then skillfully try to elicit sensitive data or account information from callers.

Phishing: When crooks misrepresent themselves as data anglers

Mohamed Hassan / Pixabay

Phishing is a fairly old but still very successful maneuver used by fraudsters to obtain critical user data. In phishing emails, gangsters like to trick their unsuspecting victims into believing that they themselves belong to eBay. These emails can look deceptively real with official logos and sometimes even original text passages.

The next step is similar to the support scam described above: the fraudsters use sophisticated tricks and skilful deception to obtain critical data.

Typical characteristics of phishing are:

• The request to provide confidential data
• The request to follow external links, for example to protect your own account (do not click on such links)
• Requesting confidential data when following the links
• General salutations such as “Dear eBay user”
• Broken English
• Intrusive tone or urgent requests
• Unsolicited attachments (never open such attachments)
• Sender addresses or links that only appear to belong to eBay. Always take a close look at such addresses and compare them with official eBay URLs. eBay will never ask you to disclose confidential data by email or on external sites.

If you have received phishing emails or calls, do not respond to them and report them directly to eBay. The address spoof@ebay.com is available for this purpose.

Important: eBay always sends a copy of important messages to your own eBay messages and will never threaten or urge you to do anything.

General rules of behavior: What you should always look out for on eBay

A few simple and general rules of behavior are often enough to avoid falling prey to scammers and fraudsters on eBay. If you want to buy from the auction platform or offer goods yourself, you should follow these tips:

• Check the contact’s account: This is a routine part of every contact with sellers on eBay. Take a look at the user account and read the reviews of other users. Overall, such reviews should be clearly positive. However, it can also happen that you are dealing with a hacked account — the positive reviews then lose all validity.
• Remain skeptical: If an offer looks too good to be real, it often is. If sellers lure you in with unrealistically low prices, you should be skeptical and check the actual market prices.
• Read adverts carefully: Always take a close look at listings on eBay. Do the pictures shown match the item? Do the photos look credible or do they look like archive images?
• Only accept traditional payment methods: Don’t fall for sellers who insist on dodgy payment methods or want to do business outside of eBay.
• Only use eBay’s own messaging system: Don’t be persuaded to exchange messages or data beyond eBay.
• Do not follow external links: Sellers in particular like to be lured to external websites to supposedly solve a buyer’s payment problems. However, this is sometimes just phishing: You are then asked to enter critical data such as credit card numbers or passwords.
• Use strong passwords: This applies to all online access. The best way to do this is to use a password manager; such programs promise particularly good protection and are very easy to use. We’ll explain how to find the perfect password manager in a moment.

How do you recognize fraudulent sellers on eBay?

There are some typical warning signs for fraudulent sellers on eBay that you should always look out for when shopping, browsing, and bidding. Keep your eyes open for these “red flags”:

• Fantastic discounts or rare items: If prices are underground low, or if you find goods on eBay that are long sold out or out of stock elsewhere, then you need to listen up (and be skeptical!).
• Sellers put pressure on you: If sellers on eBay are in a strange hurry, you should become suspicious. Fraudsters want to successfully carry out their scam as quickly as possible, because the longer a scam takes, the greater the chances that victims will have second thoughts or that they will be found out. If offers are only valid for one day, for example, this is already an important warning signal, even if there are of course exceptions — such as tickets for short-term events.
• Suspicious requests for payment: eBay takes care to only accept payment methods on its platform that are traceable and can be cancelled if necessary. If sellers mention foreign accounts or ask you to pay with prepaid cards or cryptocurrencies, this should set alarm bells ringing. eBay provides information on legitimate payment methods.

Important, not only on eBay: Use a good password manager!

Unfortunately, the most popular passwords are still a tragedy: things like “123456”, “password”, and — not much better — “123456789” are rampant. You really shouldn’t make it that easy for fraudsters and hackers. For really good passwords, it is important that they consist of long and cryptic character strings and that you never use identical passwords for different services or portals.

However, because it is impossible to remember such lines of code yourself, we strongly recommend that our readers use a strong password manager. Such tools, which are often free of charge, can be used across devices and platforms and promise lasting security and ease of use (e.g. via autofill and automatic password generation). See our list of the best password managers.

Discovered a fraudster? What you should do now

If you suspect that you have come across a fraudster on eBay, you should report this person or their account to the site operators as quickly as possible. eBay has set up a special function for this purpose: You can report suspicious sellers here.

If you suspect that someone has hijacked your account, i.e. your eBay account has been hacked, then you should immediately follow these account theft measures that eBay has compiled for such cases.

This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.