Fraudulent buyer around

bricksinbins

So it happened. A new buyer that have placed a few orders here over the weekend, including from my store, turns out to be a scam. Lesson to self is to be much more critical of new buyers in the future. Will start waiting a few days before I do anything with certain orders to see if any issues show up.
To the rest of you, be careful.

Mrs Swoop

You need to explain the scam so we know what to be careful of.

bricksinbins

Point is, as many know by now and I'm also learning, is to be careful with new buyers.

In this case, buyer's account is a few days old and placed a few orders here over the weekend. When order was marked as shipped, he filed a PayPal claim. Buyer had a few feedback at the time, now has none and instead has multiple disputed chargebacks on the BO account.

bricksinbins

Ok, some feedback is still there, it didn't show when I removed mine.

Calibrick

I'm sure you can report this to the admin; and of course, at least if you're a US seller, you can write off the loss off your taxes (though I think that would be your cost only, which of course still sucks as you lose the sale opportunity at the charge price). I'm very sorry this happened to you. :-(

On the plus side, four+ years here I've been super fortunate with new buyers! Thank goodness jerks like this remain the rare exception vs. the rule in the LEGO community.

I'm sure you reported them to brickowl.com?

bricksinbins

I added to the chargeback dispute report on the account but that does little since it will probably never be used again. Admin can do absolutely nothing about it.
Not US seller so it all comes out of my pocket, including extra fees. No doubt Rebrickable wants their cut too even on fraudulent orders.

So yeah it's one of these moments when more faith is lost in humanity. A big part of the problem in my opinion is PayPal's business model, which basically encourage fraud since buyer can do no wrong. Yes most are good buyers but the bad ones sure seem to keep increasing and that with little to no consequences.

Vosblokjes

That there is a claim does not mean that you lost it, depends on what the claim was.
But at least respond to the claim and explain your side and see what happens. If everyone does that maybe PP won't side with this buyer.

bricksinbins

I understand that. But I think it is generally known that sellers most of the time get the short end of the stick. I do think that surely PayPal should be able to do a better job of security checking the payments but then again, they take their cut regardless so not much incentive.

tons_of_bricks

Just for encouragement, we haven't "lost" a paypal claim yet. One or twice Paypal sided with the buyer, but paid them themselves instead of taking it from us; not sure where the justice is in that...

The previous time was on an order over $50. Since we took one day longer than our 2-5 business days to ship his order out, he for some reason thought he deserved a full refund (even though he was told a couple days after the order was placed that it could take longer due to unexpected circumstances and made no objection at the time). Paypal completely sided with us.

So don't give up hope.

bricksinbins

That is a positive and gives some hope. We'll see what happens.

bigasbricks

We have noticed a large increase in fraudulent activity across the board on all platforms we sell on, especially BL.

Calibrick

Keep the faith, brickinbins, it sounds like PayPal is starting to lean toward fairness more than they used to! :-)

Your country doesn't allow you to write business losses off of your taxes? That is AWFUL, I'm super surprised! :-(

bricksinbins

So order has been delivered to recipient. PayPal is still "investigating", in other words doing nothing. It's like when the postal service "investigates" and they just sit and wait hoping it will arrive and they can say "Package has been delivered". Based on my experience with them.

Brickmania.hu

Hello Guys,

Today afternoon Paypal informed us as well about not authorized purchase, and blocked the amuont on our account.
At this moment we have the below evidences in our hands:
- A confirmation email that really that guy ordered the parts and confirmed that he still needs them
- DHL tracking, with delivered status
- Pictures about packed parts

@Lawrence as a few other stores are also affected, is that possible to get in contact with PayPal officially as Brickowl administration and clarify this topic? Is there any reason that this scammer not named till now in any discussions?

In our case we will have ~1200 USD loss if Paypal won't release our money, which is quite a huge amount if we compare with our actual turnover level here.

Thanks, Lajos

bricksinbins

I can not get a straight answer from PayPal what exactly is going on. Everything from them is either vague or they contradict themselves. Whatever it is, a big part of the blame is on PayPal here. What kind of checks are they really doing before they approve of a transaction? Any at all?

They say they are "investigating" but can not and will not give any kind of time frame on when this "investigation" might be over.

In our case the buyer has received the package and we have not got any inquiries from him asking "What is this?". But he is claiming to PayPal he did not buy anything? Something is screwed up in this whole story.

Either way, PayPal is not doing nearly enough to check validity of transactions. But of course, they take their cut either way so why bother, right...

Calibrick

$1200 USD? Oh my goodness, I am sooooooooo sorry you are going through this, @kezany!!! And @bricksinbins also obviously.

Brickmania.hu

Hello Guys,

Just a short update, today paypal released our money with the following message:

We're happy to confirm that this transaction was covered under Seller Protection as you met the PayPal Seller Protection requirements

Hope that other affected stores will have the same result soon.

Regards,
Lajos

Calibrick

That is FANTASTIC news, kezany! What a nightmare though to wait with so much $$ at stake. :-(