Is eBay Cracking Down On Scams, Return Fraud & Virtual Shoplifting?

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


Comments

eBay's recent acquisition of AI powered compliance software company 3PM Shield aims to root out counterfeit products on the platform and a new job posting shows that eBay may be looking to hire an expert to tackle important trust issues on both the buyer and seller sides of the marketplace.

Senior Manager – Trust Transformation in New York | Finance & Business Analytics at eBay
Apply for Senior Manager – Trust Transformation job with eBay in New York. Finance & Business Analytics at eBay

About the role:
At eBay, Trust is a critical global function tasked with ensuring the safety of the millions of buyers and sellers on the eBay marketplace. This includes developing best in class detection & prevention systems and protection policies to shield customers from those who attempt to commit fraud on our platform.

eBay’s Trust team is fast-paced, dynamic, and proactive. In this role, you will focus on three key areas:

  • Improving the buyer and seller experience across the safety measures the Trust team puts in place: that means ensuring that the end-to-end experience and tools the team uses to prevent bad actors from causing issues have a minimal impact and are clear and easy for our good customers to navigate protecting our sellers from the experience of bad acting buyers, which includes detection and prevention of scams, return policy violations and any form of virtual shoplifting.
  • This role will partner closely with key leaders in Category, Product and Risk teams across the company to inspire and earn the trust of our buyers and sellers.
  • Ensuring Trust is effectively supporting and enabling the strategies of our global business.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Protecting our sellers from bad acting buyers
  • Refining our policies to minimize the potential for abuse and identifying strategic areas where eBay will invest to protect sellers from abuse
  • Partner with our Data Science team and third parties to develop predictive capabilities to identify individuals at risk of abusing sellers on our platform through virtual shoplifting, return policy violations or policy gaming
  • Architecting product changes to prevent these bad acting behaviors and working through the annual planning process to get them prioritized

"Protecting our sellers from the experience of bad acting buyers, which includes detection and prevention of scams, return policy violations and any form of virtual shoplifting" - now there's an eBay initiative sellers can absolutely get behind!


This new focus likely comes at least in part due to increasing regulatory and legislative efforts to hold online marketplaces accountable for counterfeit and stolen goods sold on their platforms, like the SHOP Safe act and the INFORM Consumers act.

Will The INFORM Consumers Act Stop Stolen Goods On eBay?
Home Depot & other retailers push for online marketplaces to do more to stop sale of stolen goods sold on their sites.

Regular readers will know that reporting on fraud and scams on eBay is one of our top priorities here at Value Added Resource - in fact, it was my firsthand experience with triangulation fraud on the platform that lit the spark that eventually led me to start VAR in the first place.

When my previous employer was hit for over $160,000 in fraudulent orders using hijacked accounts and eBay Trust & Safety utterly failed to help in any significant way, I knew I had to act to help protect other sellers and consumers from becoming victims.

Triangulation Fraud - What Is It & How Can You Protect Yourself?
Multi-channel ecommerce businesses using 3rd party marketplaces may be targeted by this sophisticated fraud.

eBay has serious problems with hijacked accounts being taken over and used for all kinds of fraudulent activities, and they usually stick the innocent actual account holder with the bill.

Hacked eBay Account Costs Seller Thousands In Fees
Seller pleads for help as eBay attempts to collect thousands of dollars in fraudulent fees incurred after account hijacking.

Or sometimes the fraudsters will just use stolen identities to create new accounts.

eBay Identity Theft & Fraudulent 1099-K Problems Continue
As eBay send 1099-K tax forms for 2022, reports of fraud & stolen identities used to sell on the platform return.

Another long running scam on the platform uses hijacked accounts to list thousands of vehicles for sale in an attempt to trick buyers into making payment off the site using gift cards or wire transfers.

Why Doesn’t eBay Do More To Stop Car Scams?
It seems like eBay car scams have been around forever, why doesn’t eBay do more to curb this particular kind of fraud?

South Yorkshire Police recently nabbed six such fraudsters, but there are many, many more to go.

There's also the more recent Specialty Services scam where fraudulent sellers list hot items like computers and gaming systems in incorrect categories specifically to bypass eBay's Money Back Guarantee buyer protections.

eBay Specialty Services Scam Leaves Buyers Unprotected
An eBay scam targeting Steam Decks, Omega Moonswatches & more leaves buyers with no protection.

And the everpresent presale scams that eBay turns a blind eye to because they financially benefit from allowing these policy violations to continue unabated.

Is It Time For The FTC To Get Tough On eBay Presales?
eBay often turns a blind eye to sellers who violate presale policies & FTC 30 day mailing rule - is it time for tougher regulatory enforcement?

On the seller protection side, there's the ubiquitous "empty box" scam where the bad actor buyer claims to have received an empty box or some broken or less valuable item and eBay will happily force a refund from the seller with no questions asked.

Another variation on this scam is when the bad actor buyer ships an empty box or broken/different item to the seller as a return and eBay forces the seller to refund the money while the buyer keeps the real item.

One would hope eBay would consider such bad buyer behavior exactly the kind of "virtual shoplifting" that this new hire will ostensibly be tasked to address.

Same zip code tracking scams are also a scourge on both the buying and selling sides of the marketplace - since eBay depends on carrier tracking scans which only show delivery to a specific zip code, not a full address, all a bad actor on either side has to do is mail a piece of paper to a different address in that zip code and eBay will accept it as proof of delivery in a dispute.

eBay Same Zip Code Tracking Scams
Same zip code tracking fraud has been on a problem on eBay for decades - why don’t they do more to protect users?

And so called "friendly fraud" via credit card chargeback has been a growing problem for sellers since eBay took over managing payments. eBay provides very little protection when it comes to payment disputes and sellers often find themselves left without the money or the item - plus a $20 dispute fee added on top.

eBay’s Growing Chargeback Problem
Chargebacks are a hot button topic for sellers in Managed Payments. What can eBay do about this growing problem?

When I was fighting triangulation fraud perpetrated through eBay, the most disheartening part of the experience was the helpless feeling of hitting a brick wall with eBay's PROACT (partnering with retailers offensively against crime and theft) department - despite the cute acronym, they were anything but proactive.

Even though a category manager confirmed to me eBay had known about this type of fraud for years and had lost many large sellers because of it, PROACT dragged their feet and obfuscated at every point in the process, then eventually just stopped responding.

At one point I even offered to provide them over 4,000 tracking numbers from verified fraudulent orders that they could have used to trace back in their system to identify more accounts being used to perpetrate the fraud.

They declined that offer and refused to accept any additional information I had found through my company's internal research and fraud analysis efforts.

While it's encouraging to see eBay may finally be putting some real effort into protecting sellers from bad buyer behavior and putting an end to all kinds of fraud on the platform, I'll believe it when I see it.

That being said, if whoever ends up in this new Senior Manager Trust Transformation position is open to genuine seller engagement on the many issues that have led to eBay's seller trust problems - my inbox is always open and you're welcome to contact me any time. 😉

eBay’s Seller Trust Problem
An open letter to eBay CEO Jamie Iannone on transparency, integrity, feedback and gaining seller trust.

As an eBay seller, what would be your top priorities for the Senior Manager Trust Transformation?

Tell us your bad eBay buyer behavior stories in the comments below!

eBayFraud

Liz Morton Twitter Facebook
LinkedIn

Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.

4 comments
Avatar Placeholder
joe3
ebay is a playground for fraud/crime/scamming and the best part is that ebay themselves are complicit with their deliberately incompetent policies and poor customer sevice that fail to address any inappropriate behaviour , even when they are presented with clear evidence, they more often than not take no action whatsoever.The issue is they have a preference and skewed relationship with their buyers who line their pockets successfully, so will happily turn a blind eye to them as long as they are making profits.Dont take it lying down...name and shame them:

https://shamebay.com/
Avatar Placeholder
Rtliq
I’ve lost thousands of dollars already and I’ve only been selling for a year. eBays automated system is horrible and the program they’ve wrote for it is even worse.
There must be about 10 differ t ways to easily navigate to report a item. They even encourage buyers to file a claim by sending buyers an email asking if they want to report a problem with the item they just bought.
I’ve had buyers just demand a partial refund because brand new items were “not as described”. If you don’t give it to them they damage the item and send it back. The worse part about it that when you get items not as described they reduce your sells believing it’s the seller. This is true, I’ve had someone from their line tell me that in a round about way.
The only option a seller really sees on the return page is refund buyer or report a problem. I reported a problem and it responded with thank you for reporting a problem. Please refund buyer now.
Bottom line is that sellers pay them for a safe place to sell. If you promote a listing (which is stupid because they should be doing that anyhow so they make money) it can cost up to a sellers full profits and if you pick 2% of final sale, it’s almost 20% after selling and listing fees.
If eBay keeps this up they’re just going to have a bunch of stuff being sold for .99c from China. I’m just about done with them.
I’ve asked for my transcripts like 20 times thinking I was going crazy, no transcripts! Just transfer me around for a few hours. Yes, I want my transcripts!
Avatar Placeholder
twilloo1
I have been a small seller on Ebay since 1998 and I can tell you, I never had any problems until Ebay changed its policy regarding sellers not being able to leave bad feedback on buyers and siding with the buyer 90% of the time. This just opened the door and invited in many buyers with virtually no feedback and most never sold on ebay. I stopped selling for 15 years because of this and being a small seller on small ticket items with low mark up, one scam and I am hurting. so I stopped selling and only now am going to try it again since Ebay now says they are taking bad buyers more seriously. Back when Ebay first started, it was a pleasant experience and there was not much to worry about, now it is a host for a den of thieves, mostly buyers not sellers.
Avatar Placeholder
Banned in Chat
Please! Ebay has never cared about counterfeits or fraud on their site, as long as they get their cut. 9 years ago there was a big thread on the eBay boards about a seller of HVAC products who sold a several hundred pound unit to a buyer and shipped it via freight carrier. The buyer started a return and returned a 10lb brake part in a priority flat rate box. Ebay gave the buyer their money back, when the seller tried to appeal, he had very good proof, his item weighed 600 pounds, you cannot ship anything over 74 pound via USPS. But eBay ruled against the seller. Only when the seller got ahold of his eBay account rep, something most eBay sellers will never have, did eBay give him a "one time courtesy refund" of his $1400. So instead of holding the criminal buyer accountable, eBay paid $1400 out of their own pocket. That buyer is still active today, their last buyer feedback was sometime before Christmas this past year.

Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderConcerned2 days ago
It is Slowwwwwww and is more expensive to the buyer. In the past items I have ordered will sit at the hub for around 2 weeks. I avoid ebay unless I cannot get it elsewhere.
Avatar Placeholdermarks30472 days ago
Hi, I have a friend who had an interesting experience recently that fell under this issue. They sold an item, packed and dispatched to the UK Ebay hub, this was midway through the period as the pause occurred. They then received a message from the buyer that they had checked tracking and discovered that the item had disappeared on ebay, no advice. It then turned out that the tracking had been fudged and the package was with them but not forwarded on to the USA. A few hours of to and fro to get the answer that it was due to the tariff dilemma. NO fault of the buyer(who had paid) or the seller ((who had been paid) and a strange response that the item could not be delivered. The buyer would be refunded in full, the seller would keep payment and the item would not be returned. Strange, Ebay must be hurting paying our both sides of the deal+
Avatar Placeholdercwi3 days ago
  1. Start building out the brand and promoting the heck out of Canadian sellers to our domestic market. Work with Federal/Provincial level governments in the push to build a strong presence here in Canada.

  2. Add other calculated shipping options than Canada Post UPS/FedEx for domestic shipping - partner with couriers nationwide, leverage agreements and software integrations with courier reseller platforms such as Stallion Express. Build out a crowd sourced network using national/regional retail locations as drop points for rural regions, leveraging transport networks to move packages to courier pickup points, akin to the UK courier model but adapted to the Canadian realities.

  3. Create a centralized international shipping clearing house to aide micro businesses with affordable shipping rates and customs clearance to avoid pitfalls and complexities (akin to US eIS).

  4. Bring features forward to the platform from other localizations, such as prepaid best offer acceptance, etc.