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Random thought.
Have you ever been scammed from an online purchase?
I've purchased hundreds of second hand items online from eBay but can't think of one time I was scammed and 8 out of 10 purchases are usually over $100.
Have You Ever Been Scammed?
LLuckyuser on 03/12/2016 - 12:47
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even if you do get the order the DLC codes are already activated lol
You think that's bad? I paid full price for things at Kathmandu once.
OMG! Poor thing!
Get this person off Ozbargain please.
Scammed once on eBay. But I knew it was probably a scam and PayPoo refunded eventually. Oh and it was for 10 bucks so not devastating …
Paypoo lol
Yeh it's pretty much risk free buying om eBay now with PayPal bp.
yeah once on an online MMORPG game, still kinda salty til this day.
That armour trimming never actually happened did it?
Runescape: double your gold by dropping it on the ground and hitting ALT + F4.
Wasn't my mate was it? Used to sell his WoW account for a few hundred $$ (had gladiator title and ateish) to people across the world. He'd then ring up blizzard claiming his account was hacked, he'd give them the secret to the secret question and they'd reset his account lol.
Pretty shitty but people fell for it.
nah never played WOW or runescape.
First and last time I got scammed was on RuneScape, I lost so much that I stopped playing it afterwards, which might be seen as something positive in the end.
Scammed by a buyer on eBay and once by a seller on ocau forums
Ocau forums are pretty good and honest bunch on there.
Except obviously in this case. Seller kept the cash and didn't send the goods
I've had the reverse on ocau. I sold an item on there earlier this year and the buyer sent me money and I bought a post parcel to put it in - then realised he never gave me his address. I've asked multiple times for him to send his address and he never has. The item is still sitting on my desk with the post parcel.
Also scammed once on OCAU, sent them the item when they replied on an agreed price and the money never appeared.
Also similar on OCAU. Purchased an iPhone that seller did not send for multiple weeks. Would not respond to messages whilst being online sometimes, tracked him down to a carsales add but didn't answer his phone… Finally got back to me and sent the phone and it was not as described…
Scammed once from Gumtree: paid but never get delivered. Tracking number is for address in different state.
and once from ebay: got fakebsecond hand galaxy s6 seller told me he wasn't aware his is fake.
Both got cash refunded fully by paypal.
I'm in the process of being scammed, mainly due to ebay rules. I'm selling small items I have a fair few of that can be shipped cheaply overseas. The item value is $40. I choose to ship it untracked as tracking minimum is about $22 - $26. I basically have the choice to wear getting ripped off by a buyer or get bad expensive shipping feedback. If I send tracked, ebay charges higher commission due to shipping. I choose sending by free shipping for the buyer, $3 cost to me, but you get the occasional person just reporting it lost or stolen within the first week or two, before it's even possible to report the item missing. Ebay doesn't allow negative buyer feedback, so if a buyer wants a refund after only a week or so, I risk being held to ransom over feedback. I'm not against items being lost or refunds, but puttng up with buyers who won't wait standard 2-3 weeks for international airmail is frustrating.
That's not being scammed, that's your own business decision. You could easily send the item tracked.
I think you have a buyer-centric view of the world. Supermarkets factor losses due to shoplifting as a business decision. It doesn't mean it's not theft. They could have hired more security and could have spent money on electronic alarms for each grape.
They could have hired more security and could have spent money on electronic alarms for each grape.
I had one of those in my banana once. Checkout chick forgot to deactivate it. Set off the alarm in every store I went to until I ate it.
Now I peel all my bananas before buying. Paying for useless skin is a scam anyway!!
That's still being scammed though. Scam = "a dishonest scheme; a fraud." Tracking or not, it's scammming. This is a common tactic by eBay scammers because there's no proof of shipping by the seller and they essentially have a guaranteed success rate of scamming.
I'm a eBay seller as well. I choose not to offer international shipping because it could be more problematic.
A few years ago, I was selling a used SSD. Someone from overseas messaged me saying that they were hoping to purchase it so that they could part out the controller chip and swap it theirs (theirs had malfunctioned). Initially I said no for the same reason ie. it could be problematic but in the end I gave in. A week later, guess what? The SSD was crushed, possibly by the parcel sorter machine, and then the guy wanted a refund.
This was a long time ago - I bought a memory stick on eBay and the real storage was nowhere near what was advertised. Got my money back for that one and it was a good lesson for me.
Haha I think a few of us fell for that one too! (myself included)
I recently bought ram from a guy off ebay, all I got was rolled up bubble wrap lol.
Kinda reminds me of a story I heard here (don't know how true it is) - apparently some guy bought an xbox from ebay, and what he received was a cardboard box with an X written on it - LOL!!!
Xbox story - Could be possible to write a description of a x-box, post no photos and not be breaking any eBay/PooPal rules
There was this widespread scam that went around for a time where the seller would print out the ad of the respective console and mailed it to the buyers.
There would be a tiny print somewhere on the ad that says that it's for a print of this ad. A lot of people fell for it
I recently sold some ram to a guy off ebay, packed between 2 cds and then wrapped in packing tape then in a bubble envelope. the guy sounded sus from the start- something in me went "this feels wrong"- he messaged me with - "you're sending it registered?" -the item description said regular post, 3 business days after he paid he was asking "where's the ram?" - 3 days!! it arrived the next day. and he claimed there was only the packing cds in the envelope.
then he starts a claim and starts asking for photos of the ram from when I packed it (as if I took photos of a packed object!!)
I have an even funnier story related to one of those memory sticks. I bought a robo vacuum on eBay from this seller in China. The price was around $299 whereas the RRP of the same unit is around $699, so it wasn't extremely cheap but still reasonably believable. Anyway when the item arrived, it wasn't the vacuum but one of those Kingston (fake) memory sticks. I went through all the claim process via Paypal and sent the memory stick back to the seller. Eventually got my money back, and a few months later, the memory stick arrived back at my house because the seller's address doesn't exist.
At the time I haven't even heard of these memory sticks being fake so I tried to sell it on OCAU and the buyer mentioned to me something like that when he came to pick it up. He went home to test it and yep, confirmed fake. Gave the guy his money back and dumped the memory stick straight in the bin.
For a moment there I thought you were going to say it was full of home made porn.
Happened to me 10 years ago when I purchased a Sony memory stick. Buyer protection didn't exist back then unfortunately.
Yes, I remember getting an 8gb mp3 player from ebay many years ago that you could never put more than 2gb of data onto. IIRC I was weak and took the partial refund. I'm much less forgiving of dodgy practices now.
Oh i bought a giftcard on ebay, no help from ebay, paypal , bank, seller. Never got giftcard item tracked and nothing inside it. RIP lesson learn never buy giftcards online
Why buy gift cards in the first place? Just been that guy, why exchange your money for store money that is less valuable then money? I mean is there any real benefit to you for a gift card?
Don't see the gift cards for fuel and groceries, thanks any ways
@spriggan43: When did anyone mention fuel and groceries? You should try open your mind a bit (or even your eyes) https://www.cashrewards.com.au/woolworths-gift-cards
You must get into a lot of pointless arguments
I purchased a Canon IXUS digital camera in 2003 on eBay from an Australian seller. Cost around $550. PayPal wasn't around then, so I transferred money via direct deposit to the seller. The seller never sent the item and then a few days later the eBay account shut down. After doing some online research on the seller I learned that there were many others who were ripped off. Unfortunately, I never received the camera nor a refund. Live and learn I guess.
Damn, I feel for you! But it's okay, karma has probably gotten him back a few times now
Karma doesn't exist.
I too suffered from the same scam as jelko.
But in my case, it was a Laptop for $1,200.Police were involved. The thieves were apprehended.
And allowed to keep the money in return to doing 50 hours of community service.Still not sure if "justice was served"…
Hmm, thats more than what most people earn for 50 hours work… seems like a good deal (for them).
Sorry you got scammed though… definitely seems like justice wasn't served
All you need to do is steal stuff from Kangal since s/he bankrolled the laptop scammers' pay!
@Kangal: should have taken them to small claims court. They already had a criminal conviction for the offence so it was pretty much open and shut.
I dont believe in Karma but I do believe cause and effect.
For someone who would do something like that, General theft or other crimes are not a big jump, and its not far fetched to think they would get caught one day, or they steal from the wrong person. Its more like - What Goes around comes around, IMO.
You're right Mavis.
Now Karma owes me one. So one of these days, I'm gonna go and steal a laptop : )
Same i was scammed for an ipod for $250 back then and never got it and lost money as well:(
lesson learnt..
yes.
purchased 4 compact flash cards for my wifes DSLR years ago and the items never turned up, paypal did a full refund which was all good.
got skimmed $2000 from my account in england, about 1 hour earlier i purchased some maccas in penrith, stated my claim to CBA and got my 2k back after 6 week wait.
kids they say, it will be fun they say.
stated my claim to CBA and got my 2k back after 6 week wait.
Don't bank with CBA, they're the largest but the worst.
My friend had $600 fraudulently withdrawn from their ING account and received it back within 1 business day.
HSBC are worse. Personal experience
I agree that HSBC are as bad as I've seen.
I used to work for one of the "Big 4" banks, and did a little work for the Disputes department. Quite often if a disputed transaction met certain criteria (card not present transaction, eg. online, phone), then they'd put a hold on the transaction while the merchant had to prove it was a legitimate transaction.
I now have a HSBC Platinum credit card (no annual fee for life + reward points). About 6 months ago, HSBC called me in relation to three unauthorised transactions THEY picked up totalling about $2k. After filing a transaction dispute form, it still took them 3 months before refunding my money. They refused to put a hold on charging me for the unauthorised transactions, meaning I was out of pocket for 3 months while the sat on their arses with my money. NOT HAPPY!
Not really scammed more so I didn't read the details properly.
Ordered a power adapter for a laptop and router ended up with half a power adapter haha lol ie the brick but no power cable lol
I bought a mobile on ebay a few years ago. After about nine months, it stopped working. When I called the manufacturer to make a warranty claim, they told me it was a fake phone. I had no idea until that point. I tried to get my money back from ebay but they said there was nothing they could do even though the vendor was still selling on ebay.
Yep.Many years ago, when paypal was first introduced. I bought an Asus laptop for $700, via Ebay from a NEW seller (0 feedback), in the same state but never received the item.
I tried contacting the seller,via phone and email, to no avail.I filed a claim through paypal and fortunately I was able to get my money back.
Few lessons learned always use Paypal for costly purchases or pick up item and test thoroughly before handing cashiola over.Do not use bank deposit with a new seller.many years ago, the paypal refund was a maximum of $400
I'm pretty sure it was $700, perhaps it wasn't that long ago then, it was around 2011-12.
Once and only once. Must've been around 12 years ago at least from memory. I was selling a Samsung flip phone for $450, had a camera and polyphonic tunes. Legit technology.
Anyway I was selling on eBay and got a private message from someone in Germany that they would offer me $500 and pay the shipping if I could send it to them, and they would pay me through an Escrow company. They sent me to the Escrow company to have a look, everything looked good, I got an email saying I had received funds, so I logged in to the company and could see my funds there, the company said they would release the funds as soon as I upload the Aus Post receipt.
Well, you can imagine what happened. I posted the phone, uploaded the receipt, site went offline in under 24 hours. Bam. Lesson learnt.
Shocking thing was I had already been in IT for 4 years at this point, so should've known better. Boy did it teach me a valuable lesson.
Yes. Purchased a clarisonic from a 1000ish feedback ebay seller thinking it will all be good. But when I was trying to pay via paypal in ebay it kept erroring out. I contacted them and they told me their account had a problem and to pay to a different email. That should have been a warning sign, but as the seller had pretty good feedback and I was still using Paypal, I transferred to the other email. 2 days later, I checked my eBay summary to see that the item was 1) marked as unpaid 2) seller had disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Paypal refunded me my money though, so no losses except time and frustration :)
Got very close once, when looking to purchase a Camera Lens on eBay.
The price was very good, not enough to raise the alarm bells too early, but lucky I was travelling to the city where the seller was based in two days, so asked for pick up and pay then. That's where the alarm bells went off. After asking a few more questions and with answers getting more and more outrageous I called off the purchase. Two days later his eBay account closed.
So now if I'm purchasing anything over $100 or there is a sniff of something out of the ordinary I ask a few questions. All the genuine sellers are happy to respond. After the second question the fake ones are starting to sound schizophrenic, so I pull out then.so I pull out then.
Like a drunkard sobering up in a Thai brothel.
Many years ago I ordered a leather dip belt from eBay at just below the next lowest price. The item received lots of orders but eBay messaged me a few days later indicating that the seller may have been fraudulent. I was then able to claim my funds back to PayPal quickly through eBay IIRC. I subsequently ordered the next lowest priced belt without issue.
This year I ordered a $35 DOOGEE X5S from eBay at $15 less than the market price. That item received many orders too and negative feedback started amassing on the sellers account. It seemed to be a hijacked account. I had to wait a few weeks before PayPal returned my funds. I ended up purchasing a vkworld T5SE from DX which was crap — GPS was extremely imprecise, the front camera became faulty after the one and only FOTA update and the speakers sounded terrible. After that I purchased an Alcatel Pop 4 which has been brilliant!
About 30 years ago a guy came round the local houses claiming he was from the Council and was painting your house number on the kerb to assist emergency services to locate you in an emergency, so I gave him the $2 for the paint job.
He showed me the stencil he would use and everythingNever saw him again after he got the money
I should add that talking to the neighbours at the time it was clear he made a killingThis happened to my parents but they were asking around $10 i think and they actually did the job lol
They did this to me - but they also told me that it wasn't required by the council when asked. They looked like council workers.
Ended up paying $8 to have it done - she gave me a receipt for $10 =/
Not a scam for me since I asked if it were required, but lots of people wouldn't even ask.
They did a good job - since my house number is hard to see it was worth it, used the reflective paint so it shows up clearly in headlights.
Bought art work from a guy claiming to be a overseas backpacker art student, he claimed the work was his own. But what I bought was mass painted art from Chinese factories. I paid 130 dollars, for an item worth few bucks.
The old Israeli art student scam. VERY nearly fell for it myself, but alarm bells sounded and I asked him to come back later. Did my research, called the cops, guy came back an hour later and I told him no thanks.
Wow! I nearly got scammed from that. But it now feels good for wasting the guys time
I fell for this one as well; I paid about EU7 for a little postcard sized painting and afterwards I realised that it was a print with a few bits of paint added to give it texture.
Nearly got scammed… I sold a brand new phone via Gumtree. The agreed price was $375. The buyer came to pick it up and gave me $350 and told me that he will transfer the remaining amount into my bank account. I took his word and handed over the phone. After nearly a day nothing was transferred and on calling him he started making excuses that he didn't get time and later even stopped answering my phone calls. I was so pissed off. Anyway, as I knew his name, I did a random search on Google and his name popped up one of the LinkedIn links. I found out his company name and called the reception asking to talk to that guy. The receptionist transferred the call and on hearing my voice, I think the guy must have got the shock of his life. I told him to transfer the money otherwise I will be seeing him in his office. The transfer was immediate.
Moral of the story : don't trust anyone.
Haha, reminds me of the recent broker who tried to scam a guy on here with his gift cards.
Do tell!
This came up maybe late Oct/Early Nov. I won't go into to user details, as it appears it was resolved.
Someone made a forum post saying that the gift cards they purchased through OzBargain classifieds got suspended. The seller offered a partial refund (something like there was still $1300 value, but seller offered $1000 for them to be returned).
The classified was quickly found and it was found the seller had previously advertised their business on here previously.
I'm guessing he realised the error of his way and I believe it was resolved (forum thread was closed).
What an idiot!
To be fair, the seller may have been scammed himself (otherwise would he be stupid enough to use the same account advertising his business?) but still, you should take full responsibility for what you sell.
I told him to transfer the money otherwise I will be seeing him in his office. The transfer was immediate.
Haha, well played!
I hope you spoke to him on the phone with a quote similar to Liam Neeson in Taken.
Yes,a quick search can save you grief. If you know the person's name (preferably first an last if possible) it is a great idea to do a Google search on them before any transactions. If he/she is a scammer, it may show up on other discussions/forums. When I sell stuff on Gumtree, I always mention in the ad that I will only answer un-blocked numbers. That way there is a point of contact just in case of any issues, or even if they fail to turn up.
totally agree dont trust anyone
Being an idiot that I am, my brother and I shared an ebay account. My brother later put an ad up on behalf of his friend on ebay for 2 rare coins in total they were sold for around $840.My paypal account was linked to the ebay account so i ended up with the money. after talking to my brother and his friend I decided to send the money to the friend so he could send the coins off. Trusting my brother and my brothers friend's word that he would send the coins to the buyers.
The friend ended up skipping town without sending the coins and i ended up having to refund the money to the buyers after they didnt receive the coins through paypal.
Living in London we were looking for a new rental property, we came across one on Craigslist which was ridiculously cheap for the area it was in. We contacted the seller who said that they were living in Poland and assigned HomeAway (similar to Airbnb) to look after the property for them. Usually a deposit is taken first with these properties then you get the keys to the place so I wasn't too suss about that.
The guy sent me an email with what looked like a legit 'HomeAway' email requesting 700 pounds deposited directly into an account under a woman's name. The other weird thing was the email was something like "[email protected]" which seemed strange given it wasn't an Airbnb. The last strange thing was that none of the social media links worked. Alarm bells rang, I stopped making contact, he emailed me and asked what was the hold up, so I just made up a sob story about losing my job and couldn't afford it anymore. Lesson learned - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
he emailed me and asked what was the hold up, so I just made up a sob story about losing my job and couldn't afford it anymore.
You should've just said you never got an email from HomeAway, you only ever got a scam email. That would have shut him up.
Not scammed but as new, perfect condition etc is loosely used when it's crap on gumtree. Waste of time.
Then again retailers sell goods for ridiculous margins when not on throwout sale so where's the real scam.
Znaps
Nearly scammed. I sold an item on ebay to a new registrant. Item was paid promptly via Paypal but provided address was incorrect / incomplete. Repeated attempts to contact buyer were unsuccessful so I refunded the money and relisted the item.
Sending the item otherwise would likely end up in Item Not Received claim.
I got scammed on Boostcruising forums (yes I know). Bought a car thingy that never existed and paid the guy with tracking only to see package was for something in another state.
After I posted on a few forums what info I had about the guy (before his account got nuked) I finally got other people who dealt with him talking, we finally took a case to the cops ( as a collective) and got the ball rolling.
His father then made a deal with people (via the cops) to pay the money back if they don't press charges, due to the item being $150 it was right on the cusp of being a serious crime (not minor shoplifting) and a few others didn't take the deal, instead we watched the dude go down.
Best $150 I ever wasted watching this uni student go down and lose all prospects of working in IT
"+" vote for ruining a scammers life. Should be more of it.
and lose all prospects of working in IT
How do you figure he lost all prospects of working in IT?
Probs because he suspects IT HR would be the first to google someones name?
Background checks.
A fraud conviction will knock you back on a lot of jobs, not just IT.
Won't exclude you from smaller firms who won't check, but anything like a bank or goverment, nope.
inb4 EB Games online orders.