Hey. I’ve been wondering this for a long while. We’ve all seen it. Somebody with 0 feedback, selling a highly desirable item for a unrealistically low price. Weather it be bidding, or just a BIN listing. Some are more convincing than others, and you can often go to completed listing and see the same card has sold 3 times in an hour or some bullshit like that. I can say even I have let the naiivety of greed cloud my judgment once or twice. That being said, I’ve never been too worried as you’re completely covered by eBay protection, and the worst that can happen is you file a claim and you get your money back and waste some time. There is just one thing I don’t understand. WTF do these sellers expect to get from this?
Like, PayPal holds money from new sellers until an item is confirmed delivered. For these exact reasons. So they receive absolutely no money… Like what’s the motive? I would be grateful if anyone had any insight on this. My best guess is they hope the buyer just says “oh well I lost my money” and doesn’t make a claim?? Or maybe they just don’t know and actually think they will receive the money right up front. I just don’t get it.
Three answers, one you answered in your post. Sometimes people buy items and don’t submit claims when they don’t recieve their items.
Often times these people have stolen Paypal accounts that have enough activity that the funds don’t get held, so they use the account remove the money and leave the damage to the actual owner.
The last is someone will create a fake Paypal identity. They’ll build up their paypal accounts by selling off cheap items that they buy and getting enough activity that paypal doesn’t hold funds anymore. Then they use a new eBay account link it to their Paypal steal the money out of it. They could very well be a prominant eBayer who changes their Paypal account every few months with a new bank account links and into.
Really, the strangest thing is that they decide to fake Pokemon items. It’s really stange because if they did bullion items they would have a lower eBay fee, thus pocket more money. Of course, nobody said scammers were smart.
You asked, “WTF do these sellers expect to get from this?”
They expect to get a bid and paid, like you said you have done yourself.
I remember Rudy mentioned the Chinese sellers selling booster boxes insanely low to fish for email & information.
Ultimately it is a complete waste of time trying to figure out why people scam. Scum scam; it is that simple.
Fuck these guys !! I messaged few guys selling cards for 10-20x the amount. I told them to fuck off