posted on June 20, 2005 06:59:39 AM
On an item with a starting bid of $2,999.99, we got this message:
dear seller, I decide to purchase this items below that you listed at ebay website. Please tell me total cost including shipping to below address information: Name : XXXXX City : Singapore State or Province : Singapore Zip or Postal Code: XXXXXXX Country : Singapore If you accept payment with Mastercard or Visa directly, I send my credit card information later. I will waiting for your confirmation. Regards. XXXXXX
Well, OK, most of our very biggest-ticket items are from international buyers and we've not had a fraud attempt thus far. However, for some reason, this is setting off my Spidey-Sense. Is Singapore known for fraud? I know it's the most technologically advanced nation in the world, but still...
posted on June 20, 2005 07:07:26 AM
you need to give more info,what is the item and what city and what street addr and the name of the buyer/
Singapore was under martial law at one time and is still a no nonsense state,you go to jail for not obeying the pedestrian signs.
but i need to see if this is really a Singapore order.
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 08:54:59 AM
The buyer's name was a fairly common English name with a last name of Chang; the zip code some 6-digit number. That's the only information I got. That's good to hear about Singapore though.
posted on June 20, 2005 08:56:50 AM
Oh, and the item is a solid 18K gold + diamonds Piaget wristwatch. If it were one of our typical collectibles, I wouldn't worry, but obviously this is an item all con artists would love to get their hands on...
posted on June 20, 2005 09:00:11 AM
k... got something very suspicious looking... he emailed me back, and his email addy is chanmupeng.com ... it was created in 2001, but it is registered in Indonesia. Is this a red flag?
posted on June 20, 2005 09:01:26 AM
Chang is a chinese surname,but the full address??
if this is AMEX,you can call AMEX and verifiy it,but if it were MC/VISA,you can ask him to fax the statement and you can call the office there,they speak English.
Singapore for some reason,makes it diffcult to buy bank money order or drafts.
How can you ship if all you have is a zipcode??
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 09:08:11 AM
please forward that to [email protected] and then kindly ask them ,,,,how in the HELL did this scammer get your soooooooooo well protected e mail address? you got that e mail DIRECT, correct? I get them from time to time too....
posted on June 20, 2005 09:08:25 AM
I assume he'd give us a full shipping address after he bids. (?) But, thanks, we certainly will verify with VISA/MC.
posted on June 20, 2005 09:11:54 AM
how can the watch get there if everything is singapore?
i bet you this guy may not be chinese but indonesian in indonesia.
Singapore post office is known to reroute mail to Indonesia if it cannot be delivered in Singapore,look closer and it will say Jakarta,ID,Singapore.
ID is indonesia.
Worse,some sellers sent by Fed exp Or UPS and got to Australia or HONG Kong or Singapore and the UPS office there forwarded to Indonesia and then turn around and ask you for more money for rerouting/
Same goes for Nigeria,order shipped to Norway and then rerouted to Nigeria.
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 09:12:16 AM
I would be weary too!
First of all, how can you give the total with shipping when you don't know what the final bid will be?
Unless you take credit cards directly and are set up to check for fraud - not sure I'd be willing to take a chance with that. Paypal is totally out of the question IMO.
I guess I'm not very trusting anymore after 7 years on ebay but as they say "Better safe than sorry"
posted on June 20, 2005 09:14:28 AM
He first asked through eBay's Ask-Seller-A-Question program and then when we responded, he replied using "Hit Reply" rather than emailing us. I'll definitely advice my manager & the owner to put him on the BBL, but I doubt they'll go for it...
posted on June 20, 2005 09:17:43 AM
ask him for the full address and we can tell if this is Singapore or Indonesia.
Just say your shipping dept wants it .
see if he bids high and win ,you will be wasting your time relisting the item
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
[ edited by stopwhining on Jun 20, 2005 09:19 AM ]
posted on June 20, 2005 09:37:00 AM
As long as someone else is willing to assume the risk for fraud, why worry about it? Let him bid and ship it as soon as the CC payment comes through. There are 2 ways to find out about fraud. The first is to experience it first handed as a victim. The second is to come here and glean the experience from those who are on guard against this sort of thing every day. Looks like your manager chose the first method. I wish him luck.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on June 20, 2005 10:11:10 AM
OK... here's his addy for all you fraud sleuths... he not only emailed his credit card information to me, he scanned both sides in as a JPG (???) as well as his driver's license. (???)
I'm gonna block him behind my manager's back if this turns out to be bogus. His billing + shipping address is:
Street: 115 Airport C Road #02-22 QQ Barong Utama Pte. Ltd
Fastrans F Services
City : Singapore
State or Province : Singapore
Zip or Postal Code: 819466
Country: Singapore
posted on June 20, 2005 10:20:55 AM
looks like a legit singapore address but the company Barong Utama are indonesian words/names.
You need to call the cc issuer to confirm his identity.
What if you say it is a big pain to accept foreign cc,can you wire me the fund??
I know MBNA is now charging extra for foreign card transactions.
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 10:27:25 AM
I know Singapore folks like luxury watches and the Malay being muslim like emerald.
You really have to ask yourself -are you willing to eat the loss if he files chargeback or this turns out to be a stolen card.
He could still file chargeback if this is his card.
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 10:36:21 AM
Hmm... Could it be a forwarding service to Indonesia? When I searched for that zip + Singapore on Google, I got a bunch of forwarding service businesses.
I'm just an employee so I'm not the one eating the loss--or else I would definitely have blocked him completely. In this case it's more like deciding whether my love for my company is enough to risk losing a sale.
posted on June 20, 2005 10:45:16 AM
yeah,it is by the airport!!
You can insist on wire transfer or bank draft,it is a big pain but if they are in business,they know how to deal with it.
By the way.didn't we see that email before,someone else recently post an email like that??
here is another idea-Bidpay would only allow up to 700 dollars per auction ,what if you list several items and ask him to bid on it,then you get the money orders and he saves all the hassle of going to the bank.
-sig file -------
Eat grass,kick ass,never go belly up!
posted on June 20, 2005 08:32:16 PM
C'mon on. This is 100% fraud. Don't waste your time investigating adresses or even answering any of the e-mails.
.
.
.You have only 1 thing to gain here, if you want.
.
.
. Be adamant in your insistence that this is a fraud to the OWNER of your company, along with your recommendation to NOT do the deal. Get your manager to sign off in writing if he/she is so sure....but advise him/her that you think they are wrong. When the s..t hits the fan 2 months from now and the credit card chargeback happens you may be the new manager.
posted on June 21, 2005 06:41:58 AM
Thank you for your advice and recommendations all. I told him that we had a 3-hour meeting over him and we decided to not to accept his offer due to his many ties to Indonesia, and so I have added him to the BBL behind everyone's back.
posted on June 21, 2005 10:19:47 AM
I had a similiar question from an ebay member today. It was on a book that I had for sale with a buy it now. the email was basically that he wanted to buy the book as a gift for his girlfriend in England, would pay substanially extra for gift wrapping and would pay using a usps money order. Somehow this seemed strange to me as the book was a vintage technical electronics book not the typical gift for a girlfriend (not to be sexist but a strange gift for a girl generally speaking) I then looked at his ID saw that he was registered in Singapore had just on registered today on eBay, had zero feedback, had won several items today, all fairly expensive books and had gotten suspended today as well! A very busy one days activity. I think the general rule is a pretty good one to follow "If it sounds to good to be true" it probably is!
posted on June 21, 2005 06:39:39 PM
There's probably a shop in Jakarta where he has mastercards and driver's licenses printed up a dozen at a time. Who would be able to tell the difference between a fake Singapore drivers license and a real one besides someone from Singapore?
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
