eBay warns buyers to beware of the 'second-chance sellers'

David Prosser
Friday 01 July 2005 19:00 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The starting point for the scam is that eBay users can see which fellow bidders are participating in auctions. It is then possible to contact unsuccessful bidders through eBay's "contact a user" service.

In many cases, unsuccessful bidders have received e-mails from sellers claiming that their sale to the auction winner has fallen through. The e-mails seem authentic, because they are delivered through eBay's own systems, which were set up to enable users to do legitimate business with each other.

Bidders are then asked whether they would like to buy the item outside the eBay system. After they part with cash, the goods are never delivered and the seller disappears.

eBay said the auction site was aware of a number of cases of attempted second-chance fraud. The scam has already caught out thousands of users of eBay's US site, and the fraud was imported to the UK last year.

"An offer to sell an item directly to another eBay member through e-mail violated eBay rules, and it is clear in our marketplace safety tips that anyone who receives such an e-mail should report it," a spokesman said.

"We strongly discourage anyone from taking a transaction off eBay as you are no longer protected by eBay safety measures such as our standard purchase protection programme."

The auction site is particularly concerned that second-chance fraudsters are attempting to persuade people to use instant money transfer services such as Western Union, where there is no way to seek redress if a transaction goes wrong. eBay's own payment service, PayPal, offers guarantees about security, as well as a compensation scheme.

eBay has repeatedly been targeted by fraudsters. In particular, it has become one of the leading targets for the "phishing" scams usually aimed at bank customers. Users receive e-mails purporting to be from the site, urging them to update their credit card details – but customers who disclose such information are robbed.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in