Fake Buyers / Spoofing on Amazon

I just recently listed my camera for sale on Amazon. I was well pleased with the listing as the rates on Amazon was much higher than on eBay or any other website. However, I happened to leave a link on the listing asking buyers to check out the photographs I obtained with the camera on my photography website. Amazon objected to me providing links (“contact information”) and I had to re-list it.

Anyway, 2 days later I got an enquiry from Amazon, purporting to be from a buyer asking for product details. Here`s the mail:

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Hello from Amazon.co.uk,

A buyer has sent you a message regarding an order or an item from your store on Amazon.co.uk. If you need to respond to the sender, you can reply to this e-mail.

Item: Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6) [Electronics]

Important Notice: Amazon.co.uk will retain copies of all e-mails sent and received using this service, including this message. By using this service, you consent to this action.

-------------- Begin message --------------------

i don't seems to get pics on here pls send them to : darren.young77@yahoo.com

-------------- End message -----------------------

Amazon.co.uk will never e-mail you and ask you to disclose or verify your Amazon.co.uk password, credit card or bank account details. If you receive a suspicious e-mail with a link to update your account information, do not click on the link--instead report the e-mail to Amazon.co.uk for investigation. Go to amazon.co.uk/phish to find out more.

Amazon.co.uk uses filtering technology to protect buyers and sellers and to identify possible fraud. Messages that fail this filtering - even if they are not fraudulent - will not be transmitted.

Only ship to the address shown in your seller account. Do not honour buyer requests to ship orders to any address other than the one provided by Amazon.co.uk. Do not accept any payment method other than Amazon Payments (checkout via our Shopping Cart or 1-Click). Payment for the sale may be withheld if these guidelines are not followed.

[commMgrTok:A36RXRAQHRGP6M]

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So, thinking it to be a genuine buyer, I responded immediately with pictures of the product, hoping to attract the buyer to my sale.

The next day I got this mail from the buyer:

______________________________________________________________________________________

Ok,get back to me with the link of the item also the name that you use to put ur item on amazon.co.uk site so that i can be able to make the payment for you asap hope to hear from you soon.

______________________________________________________________________________________

…and sure enough I soon get this mail from what looks like Amazon: which has listed as its subject:

Sold,Dispatch Now.Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6)

and the senders address is : Amazon.co.uk [payment-message@amazon.co.uk]

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Your Amazon.co.uk Marketplace Sale has been CONFIRMED. We have Deposited your Earnings from the Sale of this Item into our Payments Account, but it's yet to be Transfered into your amazon Account.This includes a Postage Credit of £65.00 If you haven't already Provided Us with your Bank Account Information, Please do so at your Earliest Convenience, because we can not Transfer Funds to you until you Provide your Bank Account Detail's and if we do have your Bank Account with us already, we hereby inform you that you should go ahead with the Item Shippment within the next 1or 2-Days and email us back with the Shippment Tracking Number.

PLEASE DISPATCH ITEM IMMEDIATELY

1 Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6) [Electronics]

You have agreed to Dispatch no later than One or Two Working Days after the Buyer's Purchase on 09.11.2009. In the Unfortunate case that you cannot Provide the Item which you have Sold on amazonco.uk or do not want to ship outside the UK and Payment has been removed from the Buyer's Account, you should Issue a Full Refund through Western Union Money Transfer or eMoney Gram from the Post Office and email Us back with the Full Payment Sent Detail's.

ACCOUNT:

http://s1amazon.co.uk/exec/varzea/subst/your-account/seller-account-payments.html

Your Buyer's Delivery Address is below ( please use your own address as the return address and enclose the packing slip for your Buyer's Reference):

NOTE: You WIll have to Ship Item and email Us the Tracking Reference Number of the Shipment for the Release of Funds to be Authorised to your Current Account. Also Item will be ended up once this is done. Get back to Us on:cus-o4-ser :(support-seller-dtp@mail.com).

Here are the details of your Completed Amazon Marketplace sale:

Order #: 278-4888592-9283706

Listings: 1

Total Item Count: 4

Listing 1 Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6) [Electronics]

Listing ID: 052DS67N3R

SKU:

Quantity: 1

Buyer's Price: £285.00

Postage & Handling:£65.00

Total Amount: (£350.00)

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Less Amazon.co.uk Marketplace Fees: ( £7.76) Less VAT on Amazonco.uk Marketplace: (£9.90) Total Due Seller: £340.01 For General Questions about Amazon.co.uk Marketplace: You will find more information here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/3149141/

Amazon.co..uk Marketplace -- Amazon Services Europe S.a.rl.Sell Your Stuff http://www.amazon.co.uk/marketplace

PACKING SLIP:

Amazon.co.uk Marketplace Item: Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6) [Electronics] Listing ID: 052DS67N3R

Quantity: 1

Purchased on: 09.11.2009

Dispatched by: xxxxxxxxx(edited)

INVOICE ADDRESS:

Name: James Abeey

Address Line 1: 01,bayoola Street Off Bishop Road Address Line 2:

Town / City : Ipaja

County: Lagos State

Post Code: 23401

Country: Nigeria

DELIVERY ADDRESS:

Dispatch to : James Abeey

Address Line 1: 01,bayoola Street Off Bishop Road Address Line 2:

Town / City : Ipaja

County: Lagos State

Post Code: 23401

Country: Nigeria

Buyer Name: Darren Young

Buyer e-mail: darren.young77@yahoo.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DISPATCH LABEL

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Name : James Abeey Address : 01,bayoola Street Off Bishop Road City : Ipaja State : Lagos Zip-Code : 23401 Country : Nigeria

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Three things about the mail made me suspicious:

Fisrt of course was the Nigerian address! Hell, I wasnt going to ship to Nigeria even if it was a genuine sale!

Second, all links provided did not lead to Amazon!

Third, if you noticed, the postage fees provided was simply too high.

So I logged into my Amazon account to verify the sale and Lo , the item was still unsold!!

The sale was one big scam, hoping I would dispatch the camera to him without bothering to look at my Amazon account.

A few minutes later, the scammer sends me another mail:

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Hi  ,

How are you doing? hope you're fine. i just want to inform you that i went ahead to make payment for your item a short while ago and i have finished the procedure for the check-out and i believe amazon would notify you as soon as possible, am sending this item as a gift to my cousin and i don't want you to write the content on the package because it is expected to be a surprise gift, you may just write gift item on it.I have promised that i am going to surprise him on his birthday and i don't want to disappoint him this time when his birthday is around the corner. Please use international signed for priority handling delivery at the post office and here is the shipping address below...

James Abeey
01,bayoola Street Off Bishop Road
Ipaja
Lagos
23401
Nigeria

here is my number +447024085728

i will be awaiting your reply as soon as possible concerning postage details.

Thanks

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The cheeky b*@~#£$d!! I`m not going to fall for a scam like this. I promptly contacted Amazon and sent them copies of the mails. They took their time to reply, and a day later sent me this confirming that the sale was a spoof attempt.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk Marketplace.

We certainly appreciate you contacting us regarding this situation, and are sorry to hear of it.

I can confirm that there has not been a genuine sale for the Sony DSLR-A200K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera + Zoom Lens Kit (18-70 mm F3.5-5.6) and ask that you do not fulfil the delivery request. Payment has not been taken and the listing for this item is still available on our website for prospective buyers.

Please note that Nigeria is not a country which is Marketplace-enabled and sellers are not permitted to sell electronic items overseas. Therefore if you receive emails purporting to be from Amazon which request items be sent to Nigeria or electronic items be sent overseas you can be certain they did not originate from Amazon.co.uk and are not confirmatory of a genuine sale.

As advised on the Seller Announcements Board, we have had a number of contacts from sellers stating they have received fake "Sold, Dispatch Now" e-mails recently. The person who sent you the fake "Sold, Dispatch Now" email obtained your email address from your reply to their Product Detail Enquiry. Please exercise caution when deciding to respond to such enquiries for electronics items, especially if you have been asked for a picture, the condition of the item or a listing ID - information already covered by your listing.

Please be aware that Amazon does NOT provide the buyer information in the "Sold, Dispatch Now" e-mails. A "Sold, Dispatch Now" e-mail showing an address for dispatch has not been sent by Amazon.

This business action was taken in order to further protect the Buyer and Seller information, ensuring that sellers will now need to log onto their Seller Account in order to verify the sale and obtain the dispatch address.

If you are using the "Sold, Dispatch Now" e-mails as your primary means of order notification, you will need to check the validity of the order in the "Manage Your Orders" section of your Seller Account before dispatching the item.

You can always determine the validity of your transactions online from your Seller Account. There are two easy ways to access your Seller Account:

- Click the Your Account link at the top of our home page, and then

click on "Your Seller Account" in the box on the right.

- Go directly to this URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/selleraccount

Next, under the heading Manage Your Orders, click to "Search your Marketplace orders". On the search page itself, select the search option you prefer and then click the "Search" button. You can click on the order ID for your sale to view order details, including the delivery address. You can also print a packing slip from the Order Details page by clicking on the "print shipping label and packing list" link.

We would appreciate your reporting any future requests for direct payment, or fraudulent e-mails, to: stop-spoofing@amazon.com and thank you for your vigilance.

Thank you for selling at Amazon.co.uk.

Best regards,

Carol

Amazon.co.uk Seller Support

Check your seller account: http://www.amazon.co.uk/selleraccount

To contact us again about this issue, please use the Contact Us form using the following link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/contact-us/selling-at-amazon.html?caseId=5492462

Please note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

 

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Subsequent to this, I have had two more spoof emails from more Nigerian scamsters and their emails are: Rebecca Barton [rebeccabarton250c@rediffmail.com]

and chika.mero@yahoo.com .

If Amazon doesnt do anything about this soon, This is going to be a big problem!

Beware of your sales on Amazon.

Cannot register as a seller on eBay – text of exchanges with dumb customer support!

I`ve been trying to sell a few items on Ebay and have been unable to do so for more than a month as eBay does not allow me to pay my seller fees. I searched a lot of forums and was unable to find a solution. However, I discovered that this problem was very common, and had people speculating if eBay was intentionally doing this to reduce the number of sellers (dont ask why)
Anyway after trying all options to pay including Paypal, credit card, debit card and direct debit, I hit a stone wall with it refusing to allow me to pay after giving me blatant lies such as –technical difficulties or invalid card! (hell it worked as a buyer on ebay itself!)
So I fnally got in touch with their customer support. Here`s what ensued. The blue text is my mail, the green text is their reply!
 
Message: Hi,
I`ve been trying to register as a seller for the past One month. But 
everytime, i get to the payment page and try to make payment by Paypal 
it gives me this message:
Sorry. We're currently experiencing technical difficulties and are 
unable to complete the process at this time. 
(for 1 month?!!)
So I try to pay with a credit card and it says:
This is an unsupported card brand. Please try another card brand.
(Mastercard is unsupported?)
I`ve checked the internet and I`m not the only one having such issues.
Please help.

 

Hello Thomas,

Thank you for your email regarding the issue you are facing while 
setting up a seller account.

Based on the error message yu've received, it seems that you are using a
prepaid or cash cards (Duh! i clearly mentioned it was a Mastercard!). For your reference, eBay's Seller Verification 
System requires all users who wish to sell on eBay.co.uk to enter:

- credit (Visa/MasterCard) or debit (Switch/Solo/Visa Delta/Visa 
electron) card details and
- current bank account details.

For further investigations, kindly write back to us with the information
below:

- Kind of card you are using
- Logo of your card
- Exact error message you've received
(all of which as you can read I already mentioned!!!)
Thank you again for your cooperation. We look forward to hearing back 
from you.

Kind regards,

Mary Dunne
eBay Customer Support

anyway, I replied again:

 

Hi,
You have obviously failed to read my mail with attention. I have already
mentioned all the information you have asked for! Anyway, here it is 
again.
I am not using a prepaid card. My card is a credit card. It is a 
Mastercard.
The exact error message is " This is an unsupported card brand. Please 
try
another card brand." 
I tried another brand and that doesn't work either.
I tried using paypal and this is the exact error message : " Sorry. 
We're
currently experiencing technical difficulties and are 
unable to complete the process at this time."
I know its not a temporary hitch because I have been trying for a month 
now.
Please help with this.

 

and the stupid morons reply thus:

Hello Thomas,

Thanks for getting in touch about setting up your credit card for 
automatic monthly billing on eBay.

Credit card companies don't tell us why cards are declined, so I'm 
afraid I can't tell you why the authorization failed. But there are some
things you can do now. 

First of all, there are a few things you should check - for some of 
these, you'll need to contact your credit card company. If you find the 
problem, re-submit your details. I've included the instructions further 
down.

1) Are you entering your billing address exactly as it appears on your 
credit card statement? You have to enter it exactly the same, including 
capital letters, periods and spaces.

2) Are you entering the exact same ZIP or postal code as the one on your
credit card statement? For better verification, enter your nine-digit 
ZIP code - you can get it here: 

 http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.htm 

3) Are the number and expiration date on your credit card valid? 

4) Is your account in good standing? 

5) Is there enough credit available on your account to cover a $1.00 
authorization hold? We charge a temporary $1.00 'hold' to your account 
to verify that the card is valid. (If you don't have at least $1.00 
available credit, your card will be declined). The hold charge is 
removed by your bank or credit card company within 5-7 business days.

6) Does your account have a block on Internet and phone orders? 

7) If it's a new credit card, has the account been activated? 

8) Are you using a debit card instead of a credit card? A debit card 
isn't a credit card, even when it has a credit card logo on it. Debit 
cards may have daily and/or transaction limits. Contact your bank to ask
if there are daily and/or transaction limits or any other restrictions 
that may be causing your card to decline.) 

9) Also make sure you enter only the numbers without any dashes ("-"), 
slashes("/") or spaces while entering your credit card number.

Here's how to re-submit your credit card information:

1. Go to My Account > Payment Information.
2. Click 'Edit Payment Information'. You'll need to enter your password.
3. Type in your details carefully. You need to make sure they're exactly
the same as how they appear on your statement, including capital 
letters, periods and spaces.

The change will take effect on your account within 24 hours. 


I hope this information helps you find the problem and set up your 
credit card for automatic payment. If there's anything else we can help 
with, please get in touch.

Kind regards,

Yan Pommel
eBay Customer Support 

 

Are the customer support people illiterate or just pure morons! This was really getting to me, so I replied again:

I am not asking why my credit card was declined. For your information, 
it
was NOT declined! My card works fine on every other site including as an
ebay buyer. Please read through my original message. My problem is that 
I
cannot register as a seller. Please stop sending me irrelevant 
information
and help me register as a seller.

 

Finally someone decides its time to stop toying with me and acknowledges that theres a real problem:

Hello,

Thank you for your email about creating a seller?s account.

We have received similar reports and have now managed to identify the 
issue. Based from our investigation, this problem is caused by the old 
PayPal verification process that members are getting when creating a 
seller's account. 

To resolve this, you will have to select Direct Debit or credit card as 
your automatic payment method instead of PayPal for eBay fees. 

I fully understand your frustration and I apologise for any distress or 
inconvenience that this matter may have caused you. If you need any more
information please get in touch.

Kind regards,

Maurice Trent
eBay Customer Support 

whew, I head back to the site and this time Paypal is not a payment option. I use a credit card and it appears to let me through. Finally!!!

How to get feeds for sites that do not have RSS feeds or customize existing site feeds.

I love the Google reader and I subscribe to all my favourite websites through RSS feeds. However, some sites do not offer full feed function and I often just get a preview of the content in my reader. For example a website may not offer images in its feed and it may be annoying to click through to get its full content. Worse still some websites dont have an RSS feed. How do you get RSS feeds from a site that doesnt offer RSS feeds? I was looking for a solution and found Dapper.

Using Dapper you can make feeds for feedless web sites or customise existing feeds. It may be a little confusing at first but they offer step by step instructions and tutorials as you go along.

But heres a few of mine to help you get started.

1. First click on create a new dapp link at the bottom of the search box.

2.  Paste the address of the website whose feed you want. Either use an existing feed or start with the website itself. You can choose the Dapp XML to start with.

when  you click “Next”, the Dapp engine finds and loads your site.

3. now, instead of loading the home page, click on a post to get the page for that individual post. When that loads, click “add to basket”.

Now, go back to the home page using the green arrows next to the URL and click on another post and load that to the basket. Repeat that for a few pages. What we are trying to do is add many representative pages for the engine to find similarities.

4. In the next step, the engine analyses your pages and finds similar bocks such as titles, images, posts, ads etc.

Now as you move the cursor over the page you will see boxes, select a box and allot a name to it. If you select title, the engine will recognize the same thing in all the pages you added. Similarly you can add images  and text. Include only the content you will need to receive in your final feed.

5. In the next step, you need to group all the above step. For instance, in my feed title, image and text compose a single feed, so I group them as a post. As you select groups, u get an instant preview of what the resulting feed will look like.

 

6. Save your Dapp . You have the option of making it private.

Once saved, you get the result as a Dapp feed. You then have the option to convert it as any type of RSS or Atom feed;

which then gives you an option to choose what to put as your feed title and what to put in the feed text and previews the feed. It also gives you the feed address:

which you can then add to your feede reader to get the customised feed:

In my case I have successfully customised my feed to include pictures where the original feed came without images or detailed text.