- Original Poster
- #1
Hi UBF members,
This is quite an interesting development that is taking place as I write this.
We are an established seller on Amazon UK and sell our own exclusive brand of goods. We only sell on Amazon and nowhere else. As all seasoned online sellers will know and has been discussed before on these forums, there are suspicions of unscrupulous buyers who claim non-receipt when they have actually received the goods.
A customer emailed us just 3 days after dispatch asking where their stuff was. We are always a bit wary of customers who seem just a little keen to start chasing orders so soon. Anyway, we sent the usual email saying dispatched and with Royal Mail etc. There was no tracking by the way as it was a relatively low value purchase. The buyer had however purchased two of the same item on the same order which will become more relevant later on.
Every two days or so the buyer would email us for an update (even though we asked them to allow 10 working days from dispatch). We politely replied as we usually do. Then the buyer started (pretending) to not receive our replies. The last email sent after a week was demanding a refund or "action would be taken". We of course perceived this to be a threat of an Amazon A-Z claim. As a result we refunded the customer in full without quibble.
I didn't think anything else of it as non-receipts happen all the time especially as we deal in quite a large volume of orders daily - until earlier today that it is!
This morning we were on eBay purchasing some packaging as we do regularly. While I was there I typed our trademarked brand name in to eBay. We do this occasionally just to check for any potential counterfeit infringements, or if any ex-customers are selling their items second-hand etc. I was just a little surprised to see for sale 2 separate auctions (brand new and sealed) for our branded product. On clicking through to them the eBay user ID "rang a bell". It just looked familiar. So I searched our emails and sure enough, the user ID matches the buyer from us above on Amazon!
I decided to dig deeper. I started taken more interest in the user's activity on eBay. They are a personal seller (not business registered). Almost all items sold over the last few months including live listings are brand new & sealed just like the product's ordered from ourselves and allegedly not received. When we looked through their feedback, we can even see several instances where they have purchased items from other sellers on eBay and then re-sold the exact same item a week or two later. It seems they have moved on to larger value items also with the odd laptop although we can't see any evidence these were purchased on eBay (at least not on that account).
While looking at the seller's completed auctions we are again surprised to see they had actually previously listed and sold our branded product - 2 seperate auctions. So they had already sold 2 and now had another 2 listed. However according to our records, only 2 have been purchased by this buyer. It then dawned on us that the item they had claimed non-receipt for they had already sold. The live listings aren't due to complete for another week yet. We now strongly suspect that they will place a repeat order.
This fraudulent individual seems to be systematically targeting online sellers across marketplaces, claiming non-receipt then re-selling the exact same items. Nice little earner!
We are certainly planning to bid on our branded products he has put up for sale on eBay and will probably win the auctions. We can then get his contact details from eBay and will have further evidence. We are also planning to fulfil his new order once he inevitably places it on Amazon. We will however add subtle markings to the products before dispatch. We will take video evidence of this taking place. We will await arrival of our own items from the unscupulous buyer and once again video the opening of the package complete with the marked items inside.
We may also contact the other sellers who this buyer/seller has possibly also conned (one of them is eBuyer Express) who we believe may have also been duped by this same individual.
What would you do? Buyers like this cannot be allowed to get away it and we are prepared to take every step necessary to bring this person to account. I know we can report it to eBay and Amazon but would/may simply just result in the account being closed which isn't really enough. We are compiling quite a list of evidence and it is only by chance I noticed this and wonder how many times this has happened in the past with other similar fraudsters. For all we know, this person may have multiple accounts so it could be the tip of an iceberg.
Steve
This is quite an interesting development that is taking place as I write this.
We are an established seller on Amazon UK and sell our own exclusive brand of goods. We only sell on Amazon and nowhere else. As all seasoned online sellers will know and has been discussed before on these forums, there are suspicions of unscrupulous buyers who claim non-receipt when they have actually received the goods.
A customer emailed us just 3 days after dispatch asking where their stuff was. We are always a bit wary of customers who seem just a little keen to start chasing orders so soon. Anyway, we sent the usual email saying dispatched and with Royal Mail etc. There was no tracking by the way as it was a relatively low value purchase. The buyer had however purchased two of the same item on the same order which will become more relevant later on.
Every two days or so the buyer would email us for an update (even though we asked them to allow 10 working days from dispatch). We politely replied as we usually do. Then the buyer started (pretending) to not receive our replies. The last email sent after a week was demanding a refund or "action would be taken". We of course perceived this to be a threat of an Amazon A-Z claim. As a result we refunded the customer in full without quibble.
I didn't think anything else of it as non-receipts happen all the time especially as we deal in quite a large volume of orders daily - until earlier today that it is!
This morning we were on eBay purchasing some packaging as we do regularly. While I was there I typed our trademarked brand name in to eBay. We do this occasionally just to check for any potential counterfeit infringements, or if any ex-customers are selling their items second-hand etc. I was just a little surprised to see for sale 2 separate auctions (brand new and sealed) for our branded product. On clicking through to them the eBay user ID "rang a bell". It just looked familiar. So I searched our emails and sure enough, the user ID matches the buyer from us above on Amazon!
I decided to dig deeper. I started taken more interest in the user's activity on eBay. They are a personal seller (not business registered). Almost all items sold over the last few months including live listings are brand new & sealed just like the product's ordered from ourselves and allegedly not received. When we looked through their feedback, we can even see several instances where they have purchased items from other sellers on eBay and then re-sold the exact same item a week or two later. It seems they have moved on to larger value items also with the odd laptop although we can't see any evidence these were purchased on eBay (at least not on that account).
While looking at the seller's completed auctions we are again surprised to see they had actually previously listed and sold our branded product - 2 seperate auctions. So they had already sold 2 and now had another 2 listed. However according to our records, only 2 have been purchased by this buyer. It then dawned on us that the item they had claimed non-receipt for they had already sold. The live listings aren't due to complete for another week yet. We now strongly suspect that they will place a repeat order.
This fraudulent individual seems to be systematically targeting online sellers across marketplaces, claiming non-receipt then re-selling the exact same items. Nice little earner!
We are certainly planning to bid on our branded products he has put up for sale on eBay and will probably win the auctions. We can then get his contact details from eBay and will have further evidence. We are also planning to fulfil his new order once he inevitably places it on Amazon. We will however add subtle markings to the products before dispatch. We will take video evidence of this taking place. We will await arrival of our own items from the unscupulous buyer and once again video the opening of the package complete with the marked items inside.
We may also contact the other sellers who this buyer/seller has possibly also conned (one of them is eBuyer Express) who we believe may have also been duped by this same individual.
What would you do? Buyers like this cannot be allowed to get away it and we are prepared to take every step necessary to bring this person to account. I know we can report it to eBay and Amazon but would/may simply just result in the account being closed which isn't really enough. We are compiling quite a list of evidence and it is only by chance I noticed this and wonder how many times this has happened in the past with other similar fraudsters. For all we know, this person may have multiple accounts so it could be the tip of an iceberg.
Steve
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