Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

coryklein.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 243 posts

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#181

Post by Shivetya »

jliptzin wrote: post #127

This happened to me about 5 years ago on ebay when selling an iPhone. I was an eBay member since 1999, 100% positive feedback, occasional seller (about once a month). I sold a perfectly fine iPhone, buyer with no feedback history complains to eBay he never received the phone despite tracking showing it was delivered. He also leaves me negative feedback (in broken English). eBay sided with the buyer immediately and at…

It happens as a buyer, I buy expensive antique glass and have more than once had to fight with ebay to have the purchase refunded because it was not as advertised, or worse having a seller ship a piece that was previously broken and then turn around and try to claim it was the post office and defraud them.

so I understand paypal's and ebay's stance 1. They are up against CC companies who will side with their customer 2. A market suspected of selling fraudulent goods fails quickly 3. Sellers enter the agreement knowing full well there is a risk of a bad buyer and they will lose in the dispute.

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#182

Post by x3sphere »

rietta wrote: post #122

Gosh. It's almost worth it to never resell anything. Just throw old electronics away even though that's bad for the environment and squanders value both for the owner of no longer needed gear and the potential new user of it. The world would be so much nicer if everyone were honest dealing.

Well I've sold a lot on Amazon and eBay with success, probably like $40K worth of computer equipment over the last 10 years. Never been scammed or had any complaints. Guess I've been lucky.

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#183

Post by qq66 »

CaptSpify wrote: post #177
corin_ wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no love for eBay or Paypal, but what should they do in these sorts of situation? If buyer claims they send the product and seller claims they didn't, is there any good way of handling the dispute that doesn't have the potential for screwing over whichever party is innocent? Of course, they could have decided in your favour based on better feedback history, but that would have solved the problem for you, not al…

Wouldn't tracking the package be the final decision maker? If it was "taken off the porch", then the buyer should have opted for signature required.

The package could always contain a brick. That's why I take a video of myself opening anything expensive I buy from eBay.

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#184

Post by plttn »

waterphone wrote: post #43
soyiuz wrote: post #17

I've had a similar thing happened to me a few years back when I sold a no longer needed but still unopened Windows Vista DVD that I purchased directly from MS Store (on Microsoft campus). The buyer returned the package, but the returned merchandize was clearly counterfeit. The box was of a light material, missing holograms, faded colors etc. The buyer's history was full of similar purchases. I've been careful about d…

They're draconian in some other areas, too, which affect regular customers. I was blacklisted from Amazon Payments, which I've only ever used to fund a few Kickstarter Projects. They will not tell me why, will not consider an appeal, and will not respond to further inquiries anymore. From reading online, this is due to their use of Experian for identity verification. But if you don't have any credit history, as I do…

I don't currently have any credit history and have had no issues with Kickstarter/Amazon Payments, so that might not be the specific cause as to why.

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#185

Post by windlep »

qq66 wrote: post #183
CaptSpify wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't tracking the package be the final decision maker? If it was "taken off the porch", then the buyer should have opted for signature required.

The package could always contain a brick. That's why I take a video of myself opening anything expensive I buy from eBay.

Which proves you didn't already open it, swap in a brick, and reseal it to make it look unopened... how?

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#186

Post by xanderstrike »

ghaff wrote: post #90
ndesaulniers wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for eBay. Buyer of my MBP opened a claim against me cause I didn't include the OS install disks (which Apple stopped shipping years earlier). Had to bend over backwards to prevent this con artist from keeping the laptop and money. Now I don't sell shit on eBay.

In my (fortunately limited) eBay selling experience, you also just have some very stupid people. I got into a hassle with selling a brand new digital camera to someone because they refused to understand (in barely coherent English) that the "digital zoom" in the specs cut & pasted from the manufacturer was not a "zoom on the outside" to use his terminology. I haven't sold on eBay for ages. There's very little I want…

I've found ebay is a great place to sell smaller, cheaper things that I probably couldn't find a buyer for on craigslist. Stuff of lower value (As things get more expensive on eBay, you become a bigger target for scammers and stand to lose much more, so it becomes a terrible option both because of how many scammers there are and their policy of screwing over sellers. Also the more expensive it is the more likely I'll be able to move it on craigslist which is a sure thing.

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#187

Post by mrep »

mrep wrote: post #118
ghaff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (fortunately limited) eBay selling experience, you also just have some very stupid people. I got into a hassle with selling a brand new digital camera to someone because they refused to understand (in barely coherent English) that the "digital zoom" in the specs cut & pasted from the manufacturer was not a "zoom on the outside" to use his terminology. I haven't sold on eBay for ages. There's very little I want…

Yep. When I sold my last Iphone, the guy said the wifi had connection issues (It was the version where your finger could reduce the signal). I told him that that was a known problem with the phone, but if he still had problems with it, he could take it to an apple store as the phone still had applecare+. He said the apple people are mean and he didn't trust them. He kept trying to get me to compensate him $50 for a r…

I lied, i have one more minor horror story with buying too. I bought my rMBP off of ebay for a pretty good price. A few months after I bought it, it stopped booting and would show a grey screen with a question mark on a folder (means there is no boot drive to load from). When I took it into the apple store, I found out that this laptop had been dropped right before I bought it and had to have like $1500 worth of repairs as it was having the same problem.

So not only do you have to worry about scammers, you have to deal with a market for lemons [1]. (Quite ironic now that I think about it as that is one of my favorite economic articles)

[1]: https://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730g83/artiklar/1.328833/AkerlofM...

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#188

Post by capote »

Partially related: Is anyone else bothered by the volume of negative reviews on Amazon that simply target an individual seller rather than the product? All instances of any product are covered by the same set of reviews, regardless who the seller was, so reviews like this are totally unfair in dragging the product's rating down.

Why doesn't Amazon have a policy against this?

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#189

Post by morganvachon »

windlep wrote: post #185
qq66 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The package could always contain a brick. That's why I take a video of myself opening anything expensive I buy from eBay.

Which proves you didn't already open it, swap in a brick, and reseal it to make it look unopened... how?

Yep, I think the only defense against someone criticizing an unboxing video is to sit near your front door on the expected delivery day, recording device in hand and finger on the button, and as soon as you see/hear the delivery driver pulling up, start recording and don't stop until the device is unboxed. The sheer absurdity of anyone actually doing that is what works in the favor of scammers on both sides (buyers and sellers).

Re: Scammers Game Amazon A-Z Policy By Replacing iPhones With Clay

#190

Post by xkcd-sucks »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #74
thenomad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently decided not to sell several expensive bits of electronics on eBay because multiple people warned me about this sort of fraud. Real pity because it's hard to know where to sell that sort of thing these days.

What if there was an EBay like action site where you couldn't just sign up, and rather someone had to "vouch" for you? When fraud starts happening, you can see who vouched them in and shut down the network. If people start selling vouches online, then you suspend both them and the person who had the bad judgment to vouch them in originally. (maybe they can keep using the site, but not vouch, etc.) The site would also…

It sounds like new users would have to rub a bunch of bots just to start making their first sales, leading to high demand for a user friendly botting ecosystem
Post reply on HN