Selling Online, Be Aware Scammers Are Only Too Happy to Help

With today's economy being what it is -- up, down, good, bad, who knows not even the pundits who are supposed to -- there are many interesting scams going on out there filling thousands of mailboxes every day with promises of a gazillion here or there for 15 minutes work, just fill out this form, give them your credit card number and they're off to the races.

"And they're off"

Oh, did that say "they're off to the races"? Yes, the chances are good to very good to even better that by the time you've logged your session off, your credit card number is posted on what seems to be a billion or two billion underground websites, just waiting for someone from a country known more for bribery than democracy _____________________ (you fill in the blank, there are so many) to use your information. Or, worse, the scamming company will just charge the brains out of your card, run you up a huge debt and then chuckle all the way to their next victim.

Meantime, you sit and wait for the money to start rolling in or for the next 12 people to be "place below you" so they can start earning right away.

Don't believe it will ever happen because it won't. These schemes are like those run by that Madoff fellow in New York. He was a rich billionaire or so it seemed. He rubbed elbows with the stars, gave them all tips and huge returns, while people further down the tree waited for their incomes to grow. Funny thing about it, incomes really shrank as this particularly greasy type (yes it's a stereotype, but he deserves it) took money from anyone who would invest it, pay off the top "investors" at high returns as he took their money.

It's called a Ponzi scheme or pyramid investment plan where those at the top get the money and those at the bottom get, how can we put this gently, a raspberry. It's as simple as that.

Scammers, that's all

The sad fact is that they are often operating under what look to be legitimate guises when, in fact, they are nothing more than crooks, scammers or money-launderers.

They are able to get away with this because of the wide-open nature of the Internet today. People try to self-police the internet but they are often shouted down as Kooks or self-appointed Internet gods, but, when you look at the work they are trying to do; they are just trying to help out. We're not talking about the well-meaning folks here who are just trying to help out by keeping folks out of trouble.

No, we're talking about those who knowingly use otherwise good freelance or work-at-home sites and the like on which to post their imaginary "EBay Assistant" jobs or looking for "successful people" on eBay who want to supplement their income.

Since these ads look legitimate to the software that the site owners use to keep out the riff-raff and spammers and scammers, quite often you'll have folks offering their services and their reputations in return for the promise of all payments made up front, including eBay payments and eBay final value fees being covered to guaranteeing a modest profit.

Bitten close to home

If it sounds like we know what we're talking about, we do, we've been bitten and it hasn't been an easy time. We're still suffering at the hands of these scammers who strike by promising great prices on hard-to-get electronic devices and then asking you to post the ad for them. They certainly look legitimate and the profits they promise you to act as your "distributor" are not out of line.

It's just that once you've gone to the trouble of downloading the images and text -- they will usually provide it and they want you to use it -- and then placing the ads on eBay, watching the auctions and communicating with these supposedly reputable people, and watching as a winner comes forth thinking they are going to get a great deal on an hard-to-get item that the shoes start to drop.

First, the scammers -- for that's all they are -- have you subtracted out all of the key fees. Second, they then have you make a payment through a legitimate third-party "banking" site or directly to them. Third, they will ask you to make the payment as a gift rather than as auction goods because it will help them keep the costs down. Forth, they disappear with the money and you are the one left holding the bag because you are the seller who placed the ad on eBay in the first place, so you have to pay the money back out of money you have or you then run a balance and your account is frozen and your access is pretty much terminated.

The customer is out what may amount to several hundred dollars and they quite naturally turn their anger toward you. It's only natural and you do what you can to either pay them back or guide them as best you can.

Right back at it

The worst part of all of this is that these bottom feeders, for that's all they are, usually turn up again and again and people fall for these same schemes again and again. And, don't say it won't happen to you because everything looks legitimate.

The bottom feeders are working on people who use eBay to help supplement what may be meager incomes in the first place whether the person is a divorced mother living on child support and state aid or some poor schlob who has lost a job and is trying to make ends meet on way too little unemployment insurance.

All these folks are trying to do is add a little money to their checkbooks -- there are limits to these amounts -- and the scammer know that there are plenty of folks out there ready and willing to help provide great deals for very reasonable money.

The job sites have to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to flush these bottom feeders out, but they appear and appear and appear. And, eBay doesn't help the picture by refusing to acknowledge that they have a real problem with their policies and procedures.

EBay and its subsidiary PayPal are either self-insured or use a large insurance company to cover the costs of losses. They also get the advantage of large tax breaks when they have to file their corporate taxes. In light of this, do you think they'll help?

Give that person a seegar

If you answered "heck no," give yourself a nice fat Scotch (neat and have one for us). All they are out to do -- in the guise of keeping the environment safe for auctions and sales -- is to make sure you or someone you know pays for what is plainly and simply a theft from you. And, they hold you responsible because you are the vendor -- that's the bedrock of their argument. It gets particularly nasty when their "fraud investigators" call you up and paint particularly nasty pictures of what will happen to you if you don't pay up yesterday as they believe you are lying from the start and are just trying to get out of paying anything that might be owed.

Has anyone in San Jose stopped to think that "hey, maybe some of our own poor long-time vendors are getting screwed and we're just helping it along" with fraud investigators -- who may actually be violating federal laws against threats and thus nullifying their own cases -- make threats.

If this paints a none-too-pretty picture, it is really what is happening out there. We've heard anecdotally of folks losing their homes due to these scammers and we've heard of others who have had to take huge loans to cover losses. Then there are those poor folks on fixed incomes who are trying to cover a few extra bills. They even rattle bars at them.

They're no angels

It's just not right, all around. It shows a company that is too full of itself to think that it can have "fraud investigators" violate federal law in their calls and it takes a huge corporate ego, somewhere about the size of the entire continent of Europe to expect a victim to pay their vaunted "Buyer's Protection Insurance" claim back. That's why it's called "insurance" isn't' it?

So, what's the bottom line here: as the old saying goes if it seems too good to be true, then chances are it isn't. So, the best thing to do is stay away from anything that looks fishy.

What types of scams are out there? We've found at least three and there are likely more:

• The person who wants to work with you "only if you're serious" and then asks you to contact him at xyz at blab dot com. This is a dead giveaway that this guy's just a scammer because he's circumventing any process. Watch out for this person, too -- last alias we heard with "justin mur" but we've also seen "mikep" -- because they will Trojan your machine so they can control the entire process, including rewriting your screens on the fly.

• The empathetic "legitimate" businessman who has access to special shipments of a device. If you see this add run screaming the other way because you will ultimately be taking the money and disappearing. We've been told by investigators that many people in former parts of the Soviet Union are engaging in this activity. The only way you can prove it is by the site they want you to email any remainder to. Google the site first and if it isn't quite right refund the money then and there and report the scammer to not only eBay but also the service where you found the listing.

• The emphatic person who is just having all sorts of trouble because the "drop-shipper" took the money and ran. They are all kinds of apologetic but they, too, disappear, especially when the items they are selling are among the hottest on the market.

The list of scamming seems to be getting endless, but there are some things you can do to fight back:

• If the vendor asks you to send the money as a "gift" through PayPal, don't do it. Make it an auction service instead. This slight change in semantics is a sea change on recovery because you will be able to cover the costs that you had dumped on your shoulders.

• Slow every deal down to make sure that all parties understand how the funding is arranged and if they still balk at the "goods" or "services" button, don't do it. They will also ask you to make the payment as a gift, to get around any keep the costs down trying to recover fees for our customers so that our reputation and account can be restored.