Topic: Charge-back scam (Read 3118 times)

anyone using neteller, then?

Scammers are about 75% of the equation. You are missing the other 25%.

The missing 25% is PayPal itself. Even when a scam artist makes a seemingly successful payment that is not charged back quickly, PayPal is an inherently suspicious entity. When they see funds coming into your account by means that they cannot immediately identify, it throws up a red flag. They will beat the scammer to it and just freeze your funds themselves. Then there are the patterns. If they notice patterns they don't like they'll limit your account. Of course they want all type of documents, but their reasoning is always some generic security risk bs.

Then there's the final "We classify you as a money services business and therefore cannot do business with you anymore because you did not let us know up front." This exists. Basically, they are telling you that they are going to do whatever they want with your money for 6 months. Probably buy gourmet pizzas for their staff and shit.

Moral of the story is you are not just playing vs. scammers when dealing with paypal. You are playing against Paypal TOO.

It's like a 2 on 1 basketball game. You may be able to keep up for a while. If you are really good, you may even be able to take the lead for a while. But most of the time the numbers catch up to you. The scammers know they can always pass the ball to paypal and paypal will dunk on your ass.

bang bang.

Yeah ebay is not for you.

After everything I've learned about this, I will never use eBay or Paypal ever again for any purposes. I've been communicating with them about all of this and many merchants who've been royally screwed by this scam and come to the conclusion that eBay/Paypal is simply an unethical (borderline criminal) company that shouldn't be trusted for anything. I wouldn't sell chewed bubblegum for a penny over the eBay/Paypal system.

I was naive/stupid for ever dealing with them in the first place, but I'm a fast learner lol... lesson learned... Thank God I wised up after a few days and got out. BUT... there will soon be a viable alternative to all of this.


Spoken like a true scammer... "It's ok to screw people because they're 'dumb' enough to trust me and/or Paypal"... Your attitude and ethics are the problem, my friend. 

Taking a look through the feedback that seller has left for the buyers I'd say you're exactly right.

Its fuckwits like you that are the problem.

That's what we're thinking. And I suspect that all these scammer accounts on eBay/Paypal belong to only a few people; meaning they have a lot of them. I've figured out that they get those feedback scores by buying cheap "trinkets" like cell-phone cases, key chains, ash trays, et cetera from eBay "Power-sellers". They'll buy several hundred of these little cheap items over time and the items get shipped to their fake addresses -- the high-volume sellers never think to question it, and they of course get positive feedback from the seller. And this also tricks eBay and Paypal into thinking the address is "confirmed" or "verified". They use this tactic to build their repute for their many fake accounts and then suddenly pop up trying to buy large volumes of Bitcoin. When I started putting this all together and realizing there were probably more demand from scammers than legit buyers I simply had to say "NO MORE". Never know when you're going to get hit... 

"DONT USE PAYPAL" is the best advice ever. Not saying you can't use it with people you know personally and trust, and if you're an established business with registered/verified customers you can probably afford the risk. But for most of us, including my own fledgling enterprise, the risk is simply far too great. You're gonna get screwed. If anyone has been selling Bitcoin for Paypal to strangers I suggest you quit now, even if you haven't had a charge-back or dispute, because it can hit you at any time...up to 180 days, as CBC pointed out to me. Just a bad idea...

that guys feedback is interesting.
looks like his account got hacked or something maybe ?
He's got like perfect feedback for ~90 transactions for a couple of years ending jan 2011.. then dec 2012 starts buying btc and doing chargeback on all of them.

It's not just BTC that paypal buyers do this with. This is an ongoing scam buyers use paypal for all the time. "Item significantly different than seller described" = chargeback and the buyer keeps the item, because paypal helps them steal from you. The solution is really very simple.

DON'T USE PAYPAL

Agreed. I just went ahead and took my money out of Paypal before any more gets stolen from me...  

It's not the end of the world and not a huge amount of money, but it's still bullshit...

I knew there were risks, but I didn't realize the problem was this big. Maybe I'll accept Paypal again in the future, but only if buyers submit valid ID and the account they pay from matches their ID. Otherwise, screw this... 

Both the guys that bought 2 of those bitcoin notes did fraud attempts. You can see one of the guys here that bought 2. It is in his positive comments that has been edited to Fraud attempt. PayPal reversal. DO NOT SELL TO THIS BUYER. LOL. http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=royalcourtcwebb&ftab=AllFeedback&rt=nc

Sticky in the currency exchange forum (not sure what this post has to do with trading)


https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/beware-of-paypal-and-other-reversible-transfer-services-14632

The OP post seems to come from a naive belief that this is some unique or rare situation.  It is very easy to reverse these types of payments and thus you will attract scammers.  The roi of this type of theft is insanely high.  The idea that they will all be caught and then it will be safe to use ebay/PayPal is just naive.  There are thousands and thousands of scammers, if they were all busted there would be thousands more to take their places.  Some scam with their own accounts, some hack accounts, some just buy stolen/hacked PayPal accounts by the hundreds for negligible cost.

+1


This person sold four under a unique approach.  I don't see further sales, so I'm presuming it didn't end well:
 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/320981224642

After all of the threads on here regarding the dangers of using eBay/PayPal for trading Bitcoin, why on earth did you ignore those dangers?

You're violating eBay/PayPal's ToS and the scammers know that - they know that you're going to lose in any dispute related to BTC (and that your accounts may well be frozen into the bargain).

Stop trying to game the eBay/PayPal system in the first place and you're not going to have to worry about scammers who intentionally target people violating eBay/PayPal rules.

FTFY

I'm still utterly shocked than anyone with BTC would accept ebay/paypal anything at this point.

You break Paypal and eBay's terms by selling Bitcoin on there so be prepared to lose your money.

We're being hit with a charge-back scam through eBay/Paypal. So far it's only two relatively small charges, but we fear more might rear their heads. The same scammer(s) have hit other eBay/Paypal merchants. We've all gotten in touch over Skype and the phone to try to piece together the puzzle. We've also submitted all the transaction information to Paypal and showed proof we delivered the Bitcoin. My theory is that someone is hi-jacking legitimate eBay accounts and then somehow linking Paypal accounts to them. They're probably using stolen credit card info as the funding source for the Paypal accounts.

Warning to any "Bitcoiners" doing business through eBay:

*Do not sell to "bhill995"

If we receive charge-backs from any other eBay or Paypal accounts we will post the account names to prevent them from scamming anyone else. I hope we don't get charged-back for any more than this < $30 amount. But now we watch our Paypal balance with butterflies in our stomachs...

I will post updates on this and any subsequent revelations about who's behind the scam. My suggestion is everyone stop selling over eBay until something is done about these scammers. Some other merchants have been hit for much bigger amounts. Please be careful!

If anyone has any advice for how we (and other merchants) might fight against this problem I'd love to hear it...

Regards,

--ATC--