One of the worst examples of a "HW wallet" on ebay I've ever seen

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This ebay member:



is selling this:



loaded onto which is this crazy-looking, never-seen-before software wallet:



And it's ONLY $30!!  Ladies and gentlemen, I think this genius might just have put Ledger, Trezor, Keystone, and all the way down to Keepkey out of business.  Get 'em while they last.

Sarcasm out.  Can you believe this crap?  The dude would only have to sell one of them to make a profit, since that USB drive was likely purchased in a pack of 100 for pennies.  I found his listing a week or so ago, and I'm happy to say that he doesn't seem to have gotten any bites....yet.  The seller is operating out of North Carolina.  Hey, Quickseller:  isn't that your neck of the woods?  I could swear Vod doxxed QS and he was from that state.  Or it could be S. Carolina.  In any case, that's not an accusation, just my rambling thoughts.

In the very old days of ebay, you could leave any feedback you wanted for any member for any reason (sort of like the system here).  When I see scams like this, I wish I could just hand out a negative without having to buy someone's item.

[1714584060]

1714584060

[1714584060]

1714584060

[1714584060]

1714584060

[SamReomo]

The seller is truly a kind of scammer with marketing background and he/she knows that people would love to have their hardware wallet at low cost and that's why he/she ended up with such kind of listing. The strange thing is that 6 people have added this item in their watchlist, I'm quite sure that he/she is operating that 6 accounts just to grab the attention of the buyers.

I don't really believe that this thing can be even of a little help to poor fellows who purchase it, and yes such devices can also have malware to steal the users Bitcoin. I'm quite sure that someone with basic knowledge of Bitcoin would avoid such wallets at any cost.

[Yamane_Keto]

You like to search for hardware wallets from third sources, the last time was Amazon and now eBay, no matter how low the price of these devices is, buying HW from a third party who may tampering the components which considered dangerous, and mostly whoever buys the hardware wallet stores large amounts, so ~$ 100 on average It is cheap.

This user is scammer, when you connect the hardware wallet to electrum wallet, a small icon appears next to the green button, it does not exist in this screen shot, which means that the hardware wallet is not connected and that this user does not know anything about bitcoin.
He needs to improve his Photoshop skills.

[joniboini]

It sucks that we can not give a warning directly to scammers like this. But shouldn't eBay allow the buyers to get their money back if they found out that it is just a USB with an Electrum installed? Or do they assume that the buyer is aware since the seller is showing the whole screenshot, so technically he didn't lie? The seller doesn't accept returns too. Either way, hopefully, no one is stupid enough to buy this.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

You like to search for hardware wallets from third sources, the last time was Amazon and now eBay, no matter how low the price of these devices is, buying HW from a third party who may tampering the components which considered dangerous<snip>

Yeah I know.  Browsing Amazon and eBay for shit like this is what you might call a guilty pleasure, and I'm hoping threads like this aren't too annoying or distracting from all of the good stuff that gets posted in the HW wallet section.  And please note that I would never consider buying any of the crap I've posted about.  It's just that when I see morons selling tinker toys with "hardzware wa11et" written in crayon on the side, I feel like sharing it with the fine members of bitcointalk.

You just try and stop me!!

This user is scammer, when you connect the hardware wallet to electrum wallet, a small icon appears next to the green button, it does not exist in this screen shot, which means that the hardware wallet is not connected and that this user does not know anything about bitcoin.
He needs to improve his Photoshop skills.

What icon are you referring to?  And by the way, I just noticed that the version of Electrum shown appears to be 3.3.8.  I'm not sure if that jackass photoshopped anything, but I'm betting he copy/pasted that pic into his listing.  I'm also wondering if you ordered one of these things if you'd even get any Electrum software on the cheap stick.

[m2017]

This ebay member has sold almost 50 of these devices exactly?

It looks like a regular USB flash drive, on which Electrum wallet is preinstalled, judging by the picture. It also says "Hardware wallet for Bitcoin", which in principle is true. Of course, for us it seems terrible, but purely technically, he sells exactly what is in the product description (I didn't see the profile of this product and the seller and all my reasoning is based on @The Sceptical Chymist 's post). I don't condone his actions and believe that it is not entirely ethical and correct to do so, but it falls short of being called a full-fledged fraud. It's just that the seller takes advantage of the low technical literacy of buyers.

There is another point. Will this wallet already generate a ready-made seed-phrase, to which the seller has access or something similar, which allows access to the contents of buyers' wallets. Which can lead to theft. From this moment on, it becomes more curious and the status of the seller begins to fit the criterion of a fraudster.

In order not to become a happy owner of such devices, it is necessary to increase your awareness and skills of bitcoin users.

[Yamane_Keto]

What icon are you referring to?  And by the way, I just noticed that the version of Electrum shown appears to be 3.3.8.  I'm not sure if that jackass photoshopped anything, but I'm betting he copy/pasted that pic into his listing.  I'm also wondering if you ordered one of these things if you'd even get any Electrum software on the cheap stick.

When you connect a hardware wallet, you will get a small icon indicating that the seed is for the hardware wallet and not on your device.




This figure indicates that the seeds are on your device. If you look at the image in the product, you will realize that the hardware wallet is not connected.
this scammer does not know anything about hardware wallets.

[Pmalek]

If you look at the image in the product, you will realize that the hardware wallet is not connected.

Of course not. That's because it's not a hardware wallet that Electrum would recognize as such. It's a random USB stick on which he probably loaded the portable version of Electrum and calls the device a hardware wallet. It's not like Ebay would know the difference nor would those who he is trying to scam. If it is a scam, of course.

I am saying 'of course' because we don't know if the software on his "wallet" is malicious or the genuine Electrum. If it's just an overpriced USB drive with Electrum installed on it, it's not a scam in the traditional sense. If I want to sell a USB device for $30 and you are ready to pay for it, no one got scammed. But if the thing comes with a pre-generated seed with instructions to use that seed or a malicious and fake copy of Electrum, it's obviously a scam.

[LTU_btc]

That's unbeleavable. Scammers is so creative nowadays and I'm wondering how much similar crap you can find while digging deep in various marketplaces. And I'm not really sure that something can be done against such scammers because technically you can use this USB stick as hardware wallet.
Interesting how much memory this USB stick have, probably it's cheapest options in the market thatseller would be able to maximize profit.

The strange thing is that 6 people have added this item in their watchlist, I'm quite sure that he/she is operating that 6 accounts just to grab the attention of the buyers.

I wouldn't be surprised if real people added it. Not everyone have good knowledge about hardware wallets and they added it just because low price of it. But adding to watchlist doesn't means that they will buy it.

This ebay member has sold almost 50 of these devices exactly?

Yeah, I'm wondering what was other 49 items that hesold already...

[joniboini]

Yeah, I'm wondering what was other 49 items that hesold already...

Many of those feedbacks comes from reviews from a year old or more. He didn't sell anything in the past 12 months and a lot of his products seem to have been removed too. I'd not be surprised if the account changed hands or something similar happened which led him to sell shady products like this.

[m2017]

If you look at the image in the product, you will realize that the hardware wallet is not connected.

Of course not. That's because it's not a hardware wallet that Electrum would recognize as such. It's a random USB stick on which he probably loaded the portable version of Electrum and calls the device a hardware wallet. It's not like Ebay would know the difference nor would those who he is trying to scam. If it is a scam, of course.

I am saying 'of course' because we don't know if the software on his "wallet" is malicious or the genuine Electrum. If it's just an overpriced USB drive with Electrum installed on it, it's not a scam in the traditional sense. If I want to sell a USB device for $30 and you are ready to pay for it, no one got scammed. But if the thing comes with a pre-generated seed with instructions to use that seed or a malicious and fake copy of Electrum, it's obviously a scam.

If this pseudo-bitcoin HW doesn't contain malicious programs, then the seller still abuses the ignorance and gullibility of his customers using the name hardware wallet, because this product has absolutely nothing to do with this class of devices. You understand all this very well (which the buyers of this seller from ebay don't understand) and there can be nothing in common between these devices, except perhaps the presence of a usb port and some general shape of the case. Ebay should have been told to rename "hardware wallet for bitcoin" to, for example, a "flash drive with a pre-installed bitcoin-wallet". To avoid misleading your customers. Is it even possible to make a report on a ebay of such a plan?

[Pmalek]

Ebay should have been told to rename "hardware wallet for bitcoin" to, for example, a "flash drive with a pre-installed bitcoin-wallet". To avoid misleading your customers.

But I don't think they know the difference, that's the problem. The chances of their support agents understanding what a hardware wallet is and what it isn't is surely quite low. You would have to be really lucky to have the right person read your report. Anyways, it should be accompanied by information what a crypto hardware wallet is. And again, I don't see them studying that to learn how to deal with your report.

Is it even possible to make a report on a ebay of such a plan?

Yeah, sure. You can complain to eBay about sellers and listings.
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/reporting-item-issue-seller?id=4022
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/default/report-item-listing?id=4739

These links are probably for the US site. I am not sure if each regional site has their own links or not.