Marketplace Delivery Fraud: Sellers are at risk

[Lord777]

People tend to be more wary when they buy a product with their hands than when they act as sellers. But it is precisely in a situation where a person does not expect any problems that he becomes an easy victim for scammers.

There are several bulletin boards in Runet that sell hand-made goods. These are, for example, "Avito", "Yula" and others. They are also used by scammers.

Most often in the position of victims are sellers who:

• don't have any sales experience on the site or have sold one or two items;
• they put up products that cost several thousand rubles or more (usually from 10,000 rubles or more);
• if you haven't read or haven't read the site's terms of use carefully, scammers can find out this fact in just one or two questions.

There are three main schemes for deceiving sellers.​

In the first case, the buyer loses money in the amount of the price announced for the product, and possibly more than once.

1. The fraudster responds to the ad.
2. They offer to use the service's delivery service (a positive move: they say everywhere that this delivery is safe).
3. In most cases, the user has not encountered this delivery and asks the "buyer" to explain the rules to him instead of reading it himself on the site where he is located.
4. For clarification, the conversation is transferred to a messenger linked to the phone number (WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, etc.). The inexperienced seller takes this positively: he thinks that now he has the buyer's phone number, but this is not the case: scammers use fake numbers.
5. In the messenger, the scam artist reports that he has paid for the purchase, and sends a link, ostensibly so that the seller confirms the delivery and receives the money.
6. The link leads to a phishing site designed very similar to the seller's personal account on the bulletin board. The fraudster asks the seller to click the "confirm delivery" button.
7. By clicking the button, the victim goes to the form for entering payment details of the card to which the money is to be deposited.
8. After entering the data, the merchant receives an SMS with a confirmation code for debiting funds. If you enter the code, the money is predictably debited. However, fraudsters distract the victim in the process and convince them that the bank is sealed, but in fact there will be a transfer.
9. The victim enters the code, and the money goes to the fraudster.
10. If the victim informs the fraudster that the money was not received or that a debit was made, the attacker advises to repeat the operation, and the lost amount is doubled.

A variation of the scheme – a phone call allegedly from the technical support of the bulletin board. This is possible if the seller did not hide their contacts when registering the profile. A fake employee reports that the seller was sent a link to the form for receiving money. The link leads to the same form on the phishing site.

To protect yourself from this type of fraud, you need to::

• carefully read the terms of use of the service and believe them, and not other users;
• when registering, disable all methods of communication with you, except for the internal chat platform – here users are warned about possible fraudulent actions;
• in any case, do not go to instant messengers or use other communication methods, even if the buyer is "uncomfortable" using the platform's chat.;
• read SMS messages from the bank carefully: it is technically impossible to confuse deposits and debits in them, and you don't need a code to add funds.;
• to transfer money to a bank card, you only need the number, and the issue date and CVV are required when you need to pay for something.

In the second scheme, the buyer's money remains in place, but the product is lost.

1. The fraudster creates two different accounts on the bulletin board.
2. He finds an inexperienced salesperson.
3. The attacker buys the product from himself and gets a real delivery track number.
4. He sends the number to the seller, pretending to be technical support for the bulletin board.
5. The seller brings the product to the delivery point, calls the track number and sends the product.
6. There was no sale through the bulletin board, so he doesn't get any money.

In order not to fall for this scheme, you need to study in the terms of use of the service what real sales notifications look like, and carefully check the received messages for authenticity. If you have any doubts, please contact our support team.

The third scheme is substitution when returning an item.​

1. The fraudster makes a purchase of the product, which, according to the rules of the service, can be returned within 15 days.
2. After some time, he issues a refund, but puts in the box the wrong product that the seller sent him.

The seller is left without the goods, and he is forced to return the money.

To avoid this situation, you need to take photos and videos of sending the goods and receiving a refund. In case of problems, you need to fix them and contact the service administration. Then the buyer will not have to return the money.

Scammers rush the victim, not giving her time to think. It is the rush that leads to elementary mistakes that sellers make. If you are forced to hurry when preparing a deal on an ad site, take a time out. The seller does not lose anything until he personally transferred the money to the scammers. There will always be another buyer for a good product.