If it helps anyone who wonders if Paypal or eBay ever take this sort of thing seriously I can share this little tale.
We had a customer purchase an item from our website store, using a card registered to a US female (with an verifiable billing address) and a Vietnamese shipping address and paying in...
... *wait for it*...
Euros.
Yeah, this order had more red flags than a Chinese military parade so we did more digging then normal. Turned out the billed card was registered to a unique named individual located in the USA, in her late 70's. In itself that's not a huge issue but the item was for a tech/geek style product that would be unlikely of interest to someone in their dotage.
So, at that point, we just politely declined the order, refunded the payment via the credit card processor and figured we'd dodged a bullet.
Around two to three weeks later we got an order for the exact same item via our eBay outlet. For whatever reason they chose a UK based Paypal account for billing but somehow the shipping address had been verified. Heaven only knows how they were able to verify that but I'm guessing they used one of their own accounts. Either way, we spotted it due to the earlier attempt and got on the blower.
Frankly, eBay were next to useless initially but with Paypal we had a LOT more luck. There was some pass-the-phone silliness but once we got the right person things started to get interesting. eBay were pulled onboard (albeit between Paypal the eBay only) and all the data we had was passed over.
I never did find out what happened to the actual individual but judging by the gushing enthusiasm I was getting from the Paypal anti-fraud rep, I'd say it broke a few things open on what I would guess was an itinerant fraudster.
eBay cancelled the hacked eBay account, killed my sale but frustratingly had to be chased for the FVF refund. That aside still a rather satisfying in a "potential karmic retribution" kind of way... So in this instance at least is was worth reporting and putting up with the hassle.
Oh and the Paypal rep helped review my account and sort out the business rates that I hadn't applied for, so a nice little reward for the trouble.
We had a customer purchase an item from our website store, using a card registered to a US female (with an verifiable billing address) and a Vietnamese shipping address and paying in...
... *wait for it*...
Euros.
Yeah, this order had more red flags than a Chinese military parade so we did more digging then normal. Turned out the billed card was registered to a unique named individual located in the USA, in her late 70's. In itself that's not a huge issue but the item was for a tech/geek style product that would be unlikely of interest to someone in their dotage.
So, at that point, we just politely declined the order, refunded the payment via the credit card processor and figured we'd dodged a bullet.
Around two to three weeks later we got an order for the exact same item via our eBay outlet. For whatever reason they chose a UK based Paypal account for billing but somehow the shipping address had been verified. Heaven only knows how they were able to verify that but I'm guessing they used one of their own accounts. Either way, we spotted it due to the earlier attempt and got on the blower.
Frankly, eBay were next to useless initially but with Paypal we had a LOT more luck. There was some pass-the-phone silliness but once we got the right person things started to get interesting. eBay were pulled onboard (albeit between Paypal the eBay only) and all the data we had was passed over.
I never did find out what happened to the actual individual but judging by the gushing enthusiasm I was getting from the Paypal anti-fraud rep, I'd say it broke a few things open on what I would guess was an itinerant fraudster.
eBay cancelled the hacked eBay account, killed my sale but frustratingly had to be chased for the FVF refund. That aside still a rather satisfying in a "potential karmic retribution" kind of way... So in this instance at least is was worth reporting and putting up with the hassle.
Oh and the Paypal rep helped review my account and sort out the business rates that I hadn't applied for, so a nice little reward for the trouble.
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