Words of caution about buying miners on Ebay

[androyster]

Recently, I won a bid on two S19 Pro Antminer Bitcoin miners.  I've been a 20+ year customer of Ebay without even the slightest blimish (not one bad rating).  Ebay and Paypal both have buyer assurance programs so I felt pretty safe bidding on these machines even though the value of these bids was rather high.   One was $10.100 and the other was $9,800.  Strangely enough for some reason Ebay would not allow me to use my credit cards on both machines which were bid separately.  After the first sale when through they locked the Paypal account the seller was using so I ended up paying the seller for the other machine through Paypal directly.  

Alas, both machines were paid for and the waiting began.  The person I purchased these machines claimed to be from Kazakhstan.  She (Name was female), stated that her company had a warehouse in China and that the machines would be immediately shipped from China to New York City over the next couple of weeks and then from there both machines would ship together to Arkansas on or about March 24-26.  On April 15th or so I get a notice from Paypal that the seller had shipped something to me.  They gave me a USPS tracking number and the delivery date on this tracking number was April 24th.  Hum... she said it wouldn't even hit NYC until the 24th but hey I was very hopeful.

When the 24th came around, I got a notice that the package was going to be delivered that day and I was at home waiting.  Well, it never arrived.  So I took the info I had, tracking number, seller etc to the post office to verify.  It turned out that the tracking number was someone elses.  It was an item someone had ordered from Florida to go to Little Rock and it when to some apartment complex.  Bottom line, it wasn't a tracking number going to me.  It was someone elses.

As a result, I filed a resolution case with Paypal and after a few days of not hearing back from the seller, Paypal promptly refunded my $9,800.00.  Next I had to go to Ebay to get a refund for the other machine and it immediately went to their "high value claims department" and I spoke to a young gentleman who was very helpful and after 48 hrs they too ruled in my favor and I was able to use Ebays buyer protection on the other machine and I got my $10,100 back.

The seller was totally a fraud.  Licking my wounds and grateful for getting my money back, I thought that I actually got lucky to go through all of that relatively unscathed.

Then a few weeks go buy and I get a notice from Ebay,  "we have suspended your account permanently for abusing our "buyer protection" policy.  LOL after 20 years and not a single mark against me they completely dumped my hard earned 20 years of loyalty by banning me from using their platform ever again.  I guess someone has to pay one way or another for this so they chose the victim of the crime.  Sheesh.

Lessons can be hard to learn some time. I learned the following:

1.  If the deal is too good to be true it's probably a fraud (ie, I bought a machine for $9,800 on a bid that goes for over $20K everywhere else)  These machines are currently unobtainium unless you want to pay a year's mining for it in advance.

2.  Buyer protection plans work only once until you have to use it.  Then they dump you.

3.  Most miner sellers on Ebay or other sights are scams.  Buyer beware.  You could lose all of your money.  I got lucky.

4.  Ebay doesn't care about the fraudulent sellers on it's platform and they will punish anyone that causes them a loss by banning them for the "good of the community".

But seriously EBAY??

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[babykika2027]

Is this the story from the future? April only begins.
Anyway, so sad to hear that. there are too many scamers on ebay

[androyster]

Is this the story from the future? April only begins.
Anyway, so sad to hear that. there are too many scamers on ebay

Sorry, I meant March not April.. DOH!

[stomachgrowls]

Lessons can be hard to learn some time. I learned the following:

1.  If the deal is too good to be true it's probably a fraud (ie, I bought a machine for $9,800 on a bid that goes for over $20K everywhere else)  These machines are currently unobtainium unless you want to pay a year's mining for it in advance.

2.  Buyer protection plans work only once until you have to use it.  Then they dump you.

3.  Most miner sellers on Ebay or other sights are scams.  Buyer beware.  You could lose all of your money.  I got lucky.

4.  Ebay doesn't care about the fraudulent sellers on it's platform and they will punish anyone that causes them a loss by banning them for the "good of the community".

People do commonly learn up something when they had already experienced those unfortunate events. but eventually you can really avoid these things to happen if you do make out your assignment first before
making any transactions. Making up some research and verifying everything doesnt really cost an arm and leg and you might able to save up your self on being scammed.

[zanezane]

That is why I don't have an inch of trust when it comes to online shopping or something like eBay, they can easily get away with scams even if the management actively tries to remove them. You have to be careful especially with the ones that are sold by individuals and not by an online store because they might've tampered with the product. I hope that this is the last time that OP will get scammed by these kind of MO.

[leea-1334]

It is really really hard for me to buy a big purchase from ebay especially not from a trusted account like myself.

Did the seller have a big reputation and a lot of trades before? It makes me wonder sometimes with all these scammers why do they even risk such a big sell with their high-reputation accounts? And,,, more importantly,,, do they ever go to jail for these frauds?

[Taskford]

Its expectation vs reality thats why in terms of buying this hardwares better go to the legit stores which offer brand new materials, and we can assure that we will get the same on what we buy compare to online shops where some of the sellers are scammers thats why sometimes we cannot get what we expect to get on what we pay so for next time better be careful since this is a huge mess for us if we encounter the same happenings.

[malevolent]

Evidently whatever money you brought them over the 20 years wasn't high enough compared to what they reimbursed you with. If I were you I'd be happy the losses amounted to a suspended eBay account.

I doubt it, unless the customer or the company (such as eBay and amazon) willing to sue those frauds which costs lots of money and time.

Fraud is a crime so police report is all that should suffice if the fraudster hasn't done enough to cover their tracks.

[malevolent]

I doubt the fraudster is that stupid. Besides, is your statement assuming OP and the fraud live on same country?

A lot are lazy which is why they're fraudsters in the first place, and lazy means committing mistakes along the way. This scammer could have made off with $20k from just one instance of scamming, with the amount of money involved in frauds I'm sure they or their countries' authorities work can with authorities from around the world, e.g.:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14152042
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/organized-romanian-criminal-groups-targeted-doj-and-romanian-law-enforcement

[dothebeats]

It's good that you acted swiftly on the matter. That decision on your account to be closed is unusual, and perhaps the seller countered the buyer protection claim just so she can get some revenge on you for not letting her do her scam. You can appeal that verdict, and I'm pretty sure ebay will side on you on that appeal. As for the listing, it's still beyond me how are they able to not screen these obvious scams and get it listed. I know they have a dedicated department for the sole reason of taking down listings that are suspicious but apparently it still is out and about on the platform. Well, it's good that you get your money in the end though, but the decision to ban your account IMO is unjustified.

[Quickseller]

I doubt the fraudster is that stupid. Besides, is your statement assuming OP and the fraud live on same country?

A lot are lazy which is why they're fraudsters in the first place, and lazy means committing mistakes along the way. This scammer could have made off with $20k from just one instance of scamming, with the amount of money involved in frauds I'm sure they or their countries' authorities work can with authorities from around the world, e.g.:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14152042
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/organized-romanian-criminal-groups-targeted-doj-and-romanian-law-enforcement

I thought such cooperation between multiple countries only happen on more serious case (such as terrorism). OP post indicate he lives on US, while the fraudster might live on China/Kazakhstan, i don't know about Kazakhstan, but i doubt US could have China cooperation in this matter.

The US has a treaty with Kazakhstan that compels their government to help with investigation of crimes the US is investigating. My guess is the State department would need to get involved for it to be invoked, and I don't think the State Department is going to get involved in a $20k dispute in which the complaining party suffered no losses. If there was a pattern and eBay were to complain, it might be a different story.

Keep in mind that the seller was claiming to be from Kazakhstan, but that does not make it true.

4.  Ebay doesn't care about the fraudulent sellers on it's platform and they will punish anyone that causes them a loss by banning them for the "good of the community".

My guess is that eBay suffered losses when refunding your money, and that the seller was probably able to withdraw the proceeds of the sale to their bank account.

[MCcryptonia]

Me thinking how I would get my ass down to ebay if such thing happened to me when I'm from africa, well this is shocking and I will think twice next time before buying anything from eBay, I always ordered some gpu from eBay last month until a friend told me cards are available in a mart nearby, thanks for the warning

[bL4nkcode]

Most miner sellers on Ebay or other sights are scams.  Buyer beware. 

This is given, ebay is so huge marketplace (well its included on top 5 huge marketplace in the internet) that's why scammers will find ways to their modus operandi even the user has so much feedback, chances are it's only sold account to start their scamming on such. Don't ever trade to some sellers without hearing reviews from the community or someone you knew.

[Zotak337]

If you have to compare amazon with ebay which one do you think is more secured or safe for buyers ?? I'm already thinking about buying some things on ebay but now I can't because I don't want to get scammed, id probably do research on amazon reviews online first too

[Quickseller]

If you have to compare amazon with ebay which one do you think is more secured or safe for buyers ?? I'm already thinking about buying some things on ebay but now I can't because I don't want to get scammed, id probably do research on amazon reviews online first too

For items that have a high risk of fraud, such as miners, I would use eBay over buying from a 3rd party Amazon seller when the item is not shipped by Amazon. IMO, it is easier to do your due diligence on eBay sellers. If something is being shipped directly from Amazon, I would have more confidence buying from Amazon.

Obviously, the demand for miners is higher than the supply is right now, so buying from the manufacturers is not currently an option, but I would buy directly from the manufacturer whenever possible.