Should I scam the scammers?

[hal]

A while ago I found a new ebay scam http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-1595860 where the buyers would bid on every damn small RAM sale and if the item is shipped without tracking (which is common since ram is so light and the sale was often under $15, many just send it first class mail and don't bother with tracking), they immediately open a 'not received' case and win it since there is no tracking info. The package goes to a reshipping service and off to china.

Ebay is getting better at finding these guys and shutting them down, but they just open new accounts and charge forward.

I buy apple computers, build them up and sell them on ebay and as a result, I generate piles of RAM and old hard drives. When the pile gets too big, I sell it off. I don't like dealing with sales under $20 so in the past, I'd sell off the ram in big lots, but since DDR3 has been rising in price for a year, I can now hope to get $20+ for a pair of 2GB DDR3 SODIMMs so I'm selling them off in auctions in pairs.

And this operation bids on every single one of them and has won 3 of 4 that I've posted. In the 4th the account was shut down and the bid removed by ebay. Ironically, this is bad for me. If the crooks don't bid, the final price is lower.

Isn't this a perfect scam?

I'm not really sure what to do about this. Please don't suggest calling ebay to get them to take care of it. It just isn't possible. The people I need to talk to do not answer the phones and the people that do have no idea how to get in touch with the right people.

I've considered sending off pairs of truly worthless SODIMMs instead of the correct item - by the time it gets to china the account will have been suspended. But do I really want organized Chinese criminals angry at me? This is a million dollar enterprise... when people get in the way of criminals and their million dollar enterprises, bad things happen. They could, at the very least, destroy my ebay selling account.

So, after much plotting, I dutifully send off the correct stuff and pretend that all is well. DAMN, I want to hurt them, but it's actually not in my best interest to remove those bids - I have absolutely nothing to gain by working against them and a lot to lose if they realize that I'm working against them.

ARGH!

[Black]

Mail with delivery confirmation but don't tell them in advance?

[Speedy]

Don't worry about organized Chinese gangs because the dollar amount isn't worth their time to go after you. It is a great scam!

[Filliam H. Muffman]

This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

[hal]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

[space-time]

whatever you do, think about your safety first, then and only then think about possible way to scam the scammers.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

hal wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.

[space-time]

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.

that would work for 1 maybe 2 items but they seem to bid on multiple items that hal has for sale.

[Black]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.

[Hardly Worthit]

Why not ship as a First Class package with tracking and charge that fee for shipping?

https://www.usps.com/ship/first-class.htm