So a little follow up and a question. First, the check did clear and everything is good on my end. I noticed yesterday someone left this person a negative feedback, going through the same thing that some of us have gone through, yet it looks as Ebay has now removed it. I still have a copy of this because I gave this over to the Sheriffs office to be included with everything else. Why would Ebay remove feedback left by the buyer? Because he ended up cancelling the transaction after finding out it was fraudulent? I don't understand this at all....
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Here is how the Travel4You5 (& National Resort Title) Ebay Scam (and Feedback Manipulation) Works
As an established eBay seller for 18+ years I am quite familiar with the eBay payment systems, feedback hacking, and resolution systems. I fully understand what is and is not protected through ebay so I generally feel comfortable making purchases from questionable sellers on ebay. I’ve seen my fair share of scams from the seller side but rarely on the buyer side.
I "purchased" a Marriott Timeshare from travel4you5 partially out of curiosity. The deal was too good to be true and I'm fascinated by how all of this work. They sent over incorrect forms and I actually had a fun call with "Josh" before he hung up on me. As soon as I asked him about the Gillespies he hung up and never returned my phone calls, emails, or messages after that.
So, how does the scam work?
2 Parts:
Part 1: Ebay feedback hacking. Travel4You5 (and others like it) will not allow you to checkout through the ebay system. They only offer 'pay on pickup' and payment outside of eBay. They effectively will not allow or report that you have paid for your item. Ebay will then flag the transaction and 'Buyer didn't pay'. In the eBay system, a seller can automatically have negative feedback removed from non paying bidders. In fact, I've tracked their feedback for a while and almost every night they have a negative timeshare feedback that "magically disappears' the next day. I left a negative feedback similar to the one above only to have it removed. I actually went a step further and called ebay after the transaction to give them the details of the scam. I called again after my feedback was removed and gave them additional details. Essentially, if you have a certain number of legitimate transactions (see their sports cards sells), it will water down the negative reports and scam warnings to ebay. They actively manipulate their feedback to appear legitimate - this is their only real marking tool. If you were scammed by them, call ebay and explain the scam before leaving negative feedback (this is an important step to shutting them down, even if the feedback gets removed). Eventually, eBay will shut them down after enough calls.
Part 2: Take money and delay. The second part of the scam is simply to take the money and delay as long as possible. They will try to delay out to the 90 or 180 day windows for credit card and bank clawbacks. They do this by a variety of fraudulent paperwork and lies. As many know on this forum, legitimate resells take forever so this is actually less difficult than it may seem. Effectively, they try to communicate just enough to get past the windows then stop answering any calls / emails etc.
Lastly, they basically out-patience people and let them give up. If you have experienced fraud, contact ebay (via call) then call the Sevierville Sheriff office. The more reports, the faster action is taken.
Cleary eBay does not care...
