Reading this post: 15 Ways to Avoid Fraud on eBay and some of the points I had not come across before as an eBayer:
10 Check your PayPal Account for Payments
Once you get a payment for a sale through PayPal, you will get an email telling you that the payment has gone through to your account. Fraudsters can send out fake emails telling you that you have been paid in the hope that you will send the goods without checking. Always check your PayPal account to make sure the funds have arrived before sending out the goods.
Well I never. The cheeky things! I am really bad at reading my paypal or ebay emails and just always check my accounts as standard.
and
11 Second Chance Offer Fraud
Second Chance Offer emails are sent, via eBay, by sellers to unsuccessful bidders if they have additional items to sell or the winner fails to pay. Always check that it has come from a seller you have been dealing with for something you have previously bid on. Fraudsters use bogus Second Chance Offer to get people to send payments to them as opposed to the legitimate seller for items that do not exist, or as a way to get hold of personal data. If in doubt, view your emails in My eBay.
Wonders never cease, but surely eBay could guard against this.
My main worry is that children bid and buy also on eBay.
My 12 year old niece buys Sylvanian Family items on eBay and once a seller asked for her card details in an email as he ‘didn’t accept paypal’. She gave him her children’s bank account card number (which is in no way a debit or credit card, cash only) and managed to charge £90 to it. The bank acted quickly and she got an letter off the site which has processed the payment. The site was VERY unsuitable for children (and a large proportion of Adults) but also a reputable company in its field and refunded the money almost straight away.
This is a totally new criminal target, the teenage or child eBayer. My sister had to force the information out of my niece that she had sent her card details in an email, she only caught her when she was walking back from the computer room with her cash card.
If your child lost £90 because they ‘did something wrong’ which involved a transaction on eBay, would they tell you? Would that exclusive yu-gi-oh golden dragon force card (the Japanese version) be worth the risk to them? Are they really aware of the nasty individuals out there? Not at 12. Children have different priorities so can criminal ‘toy’ sellers be targeting the kids?
Many children in the UK use their parents eBay accounts to bid and buy and the criminals know this.
