VERIFYING THAT SELLER WHEN EBAY WON'T--The many ways to Check up on whether that ebay seller is Legitimate--REMEMBER THAT IF ANY OF THE VERIFICATION PROCEDURES BELOW GIVE YOU A DOUBTFUL FEELING, STAY AWAY FROM THE TRANSACTION!! NOTE: I BUY EXPENSIVE $$$ ITEMS ONLY FROM VERIFIABLE BUSINESSES RATHER THAN INDIVIDUALS BECAUSE VERIFIABLE BUSINESSES HAVE A HIGHER LEVEL OF VERIFICATION TO JUMP THROUGH BASED ON THIS WEBPAGE.:

CONTACT SELLER BY PHONE IF THE ITEM IS HIGH PRICED $$$:

The majority of scammers have false contact information. I can not stress this enough, BEFORE you just digitally or manually mail off hundreds or thousands of $$$, CALL THE SELLER on his contact phone number listed on ebay and ask him or whoever is there if he listed your auction and the other auctions

  • thru ebay(only possible for bidders INSIDE the U.S.) by clicking:

    1. SEARCH on top of ebay page
    2. FIND MEMBERS on top of next ebay page
    3. CONTACT INFO somewhere near middle/bottom of page.

After that, check with the area's phone operator or on the internet to check that ALL of these data MATCH EXACTLY TOGETHER:

  • name or business name
  • address, making sure the address is not a P.O. Box or PMB# (where the P.O. Box or Suite#(which is not really a Suite) or PMB#[from a Mailboxes, etc. or other mail service] can be closed at any time)
  • phone number that is not just any cell phone number which can be closed at any time or any other weird area code number that scammers use

I've heard the ebay Contact Info no longer has the address. That's right-->>Ebay just makes it easier for bad/scam sellers to SCAM. THAT MEANS AS A BUYER YOU NOW ARE DEALING WITH A TOTALLY ANONYMOUS PERSON. IT'S SCAM CITY ON EBAY. I CAN ONLY RECOMMEND THAT IF THAT PHONE NUMBER THAT'S GIVEN ON EBAY HAS NO PHYSICAL LOCATION IN THE YELLOW PAGES WHICH YOU HAVE VERIFIED, DO NOT SEND PAYMENT!! IN FACT, TELL YOURSELF 1000 TIMES TO NOT BID ON EBAY AFTER THAT!!

(by going to an internet phone directory like http://www.person.langenberg.com, [making sure it comes from a phone directory listing like Verizon or Smart Pages and not just any Internet listing that only lists it as an internet address and not a bricks and mortars address] or call up the international phone operator)- because remember a scammer could be an account hijacker (can just lock out the legitimate seller out of his account by changing the contact info to the scammer's info) or can just lie about his contact info. If by searching on the phone directory offline or online the name doesn't match with the phone number with the address, RED FLAG!! If you can't get anything from the Verizon or Smart Pages searches, I go to Google and type in the phone number in this format XXX-XXX-XXXX and usually I'll get whose phone number it belongs to. Usually it's somebody totally different with a totally different address from what's described on the website or ad or email which is a RED FLAG!!

BE CAREFUL BECAUSE MANY SCAMMERS ARE NOW ADDING THEIR "COMPANY NAMES" INTO INTERNET PHONE DIRECTORIES, PHONE OPERATOR 411 DIRECTORIES AND NOW LOCAL PHONE BOOK DIRECTORIES. FOLLOW ALL OF THE STEPS ON THIS WEBPAGE AND IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS, DON'T DEAL WITH THIS SELLER OR COMPANY.

Also, be careful since ootUS Scammers can buy VoiceMail Services thru stolen CC numbers, so make sure you talk to a person live since scammers can use a US-based telephone number with voicemail.

If the contact info is wrong, report this immediately to ebay so they can NARU and kick him off ebay. This could possibly help in saving you from losing lots of your $$$'s.

YOU CAN ALSO CALL NEIGHBORING BUSINESSES OR PERSONS NEAR THE SELLER (by looking thru the phone directory or internet). Ask the neighboring businesses these questions: IF YOU CAN'T GET THESE QUESTIONS OR THE ANSWERS YOU GET ARE DOUBTFUL LIKE THE NEIGHBORING BUSINESSES DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE COMPANY OR SELL 10 CENT TRINKETS WHEN THEY'RE AUCTIONING OFF CARS,THEN STAY AWAY FROM THE TRANSACTION. YOU MAY BE DEALING WITH SCAMMERS.

  1. HOW MANY YEARS has the business operated?
  2. WHAT DO THE MAIN BUSINESS OWNER(s)LOOK LIKE? Are they old, young, hair color, voice accent etc. ? and does this description match with all the other neighbors? Does this description match with the person you talked with over the phone?
  3. HOW MANY CUSTOMERS on average each day does the business have coming in and out?
  4. Have the neighboring businesses spoken to them or bought anything from them or seen items on display and if so what type of items are they selling for how much?
  5. Who are the SUPPLIERS for the company?
  6. Are most or all of the customers happy dealing with the company?

Here is info on phone numbers you should be wary of that scammers use:

www.keepmoney.com/scams.html
Phone Scams - 809/500/700 phone #'s

The 1-876-xxx-xxxx and 1-900-xxx-xxxx phone numbers in the US have an extra cost per minute charge. That is, there are many phone numbers one can call that cost large amounts of money to call. These phone numbers when residing in the US require a notice saying that there is a cost per minute and certain amount of time to hang up. (This is common knowledge.) However, in the Carribean, one can have numbers like this, and NOT have to warn consumers. The numbers are dialed like any US phone number (no country code is required). Hence, unless you know WHO you are calling, you may wish to avoid the following area codes: 242, 246, 264, 268, 284, 345, 441, 473, 664, 758, 767, 784, 787, 868, 869, 809. These CAN be legitimate normal phone lines. However, they also CAN have extra pay per minute lines. Note that 500 and 700 lines are often pay per call numbers as well for adult entertainment.

  • MANY HIJACKED ACCOUNTS WILL HAVE SCAMMERS "UPDATING" THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT HOLDER'S EBAY REGISTERED EMAIL, ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER TO THEIR ADDRESS. SO BEWARE YOU MAY BE TALKING TO THE SCAMMER ON THE PHONE.

    YOU MAY WISH TO TAKE THE EXTRA STEP OF EMAILING MANY OR ALL THE FORMER FEEDBACKERS TO ASK THEM WHAT THE ADDRESS/PHONE/CONTACT NAME WAS WHEN THEY DEALT WITH THIS PARTICULAR EBAYER AND WHAT THEIR EXPERIENCES WERE WITH THIS PERSON.

    http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6647/auction2.htm is a good website with good links to find out if a seller may be a definite scammer

    CHECK THE SELLER'S LOCAL TAX BOARDS AND BUSINESS LICENSES: All reputable businesses must pay taxes and many locales demand a business license. ASK THE SELLER FOR HIS BUSINESS LICENSE NUMBER along with exact name and exact business address and exact phone number that's on that license and check if that exact license exists in the state where the business is located. Any reputable seller will be more than happy to give this info to you to show his legitimacy. If the seller doesn't give his business license, THEN WALK AWAY FROM A POSSIBLE SCAMMER!! Check with the governmental organizations involved with these and see how long they've been in business, if they have been paying their taxes & fees on time, any complaints, etc. Look for the Attorney General's Office in the state where that business is located. The state's Attorney General's Office will CERTAINLY have complaints from the victims about the business. CHECK THAT THIS SAME NAME/ADDRESS/PHONE NUMBER MATCHES IN ALL MAJOR PHONE DIRECTORIES FOR MANY YEARS.

    *******This same address/name/phone on the business license MUST ALWAYS BE THE ONLY address/name/phone number you should be sending payment to once you've confirmed legitimacy and good reviews from neighbors and past bidders as well as having thoroughly analyzed feedback (look at feedback analysis section on this website). IF THE PERSON ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE TELLS YOU TO SEND PAYMENT TO ANOTHER ADDRESS OR ANOTHER PERSON AT THE SAME ADDRESS, WALK AWAY FROM A POSSIBLE SCAMMER!! IF THE ITEM IS HIGH $$$, ALWAYS USE YOUR BUYER-FAVORABLE DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD(CHECK WITH YOUR BANK OR THE CREDIT CARD BANK IF THEY'LL BACK THE TRANSACTION) and if the seller won't accept, WALK AWAY FROM A POSSIBLE SCAMMER!! Most legitimate medium to large sellers have merchant accounts to handle high priced goods. If the seller won't accept your Buyer-favorable Credit Card/Debit card, then he obviously DOESN'T HAVE A MERCHANT ACCOUNT. To have a merchant account with the large credit card companies, a seller must have thousands of $$$ secured with the credit card company and as i say most medium to large legitimate companies will therefore have merchant accounts because they do a LARGE AMOUNT OF $$$ BUSINESS, SO IF THE SELLER WON'T ACCEPT YOUR CREDIT CARD, WALK AWAY!!
    OTHER NON-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES or RATINGS SITES TO CHECK OUT bearing in mind that you should be reading WITH BIG GRAINS OF SALT or reading between the lines:

    Other places to see if there are complaints are:

    • Ripoffreport.com
    • Complaints.com
    • Better Business Bureau
    • badbusinessbureau.com
    • Epinions.com
    • PlanetFeedback.com

    Look at these agencies or any other agencies WITH BIG GRAINS OF SALT since as I said, I would report a business as being bad and yet the BBB in my geographical area would continue to give the business a satisfactory rating (Look at Phishing Websites Part 2) even after I continued to supply evidence. Obviously, since the bad business I was involved with "wanted to become a BBB member"(which meant $$$ to the BBB) in reply to BBB's queries, the BBB looked the other way.

    So if the business you're researching is listed UNSATISFACTORY with one of these agencies, you KNOW they must be bad since it's difficult for a bad/scam business to get a bad rating with agencies like certain BBB.

    If the business is NOT LISTED with these agencies OR even worse, is giving SATISFACTORY ratings to them which is not deserved (and only the victims know if it's deserved or not), then you have to consider that:

    • many businesses are not listed with the agency. In many BBB's only 1/4th of the businesses in that location will be listed.
    • possibly there were no complaints filed by victims even though they had problems with a bad business--you know this trick which is common on ebay--->>>-Scammer satisfies every loud mouth buyer(like me) who complains and scams the silent buyers(sometimes I'll be a silent buyer if it's not worth going after).
    • THE BUSINESS MAY STILL BE BAD OR A SCAM OR SCAM BUSINESS.

    As posted on ripoffreports:

    http://www.ripoffreport.com/view.asp?id=1343
    BBB- THE FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE

    It has been reported to the "badbusinessbureau.com" that, the BBB encourages and solicits money from the very businesses they monitor! How could this be beneficial to the consumer?

    Consumers have reported, the BBB DOES NOT report consumer complaints which are under investigation, even when they know the business is under criminal investigation and is about to be shut down. ......(see victim's story down below)

    What the BBB does, is give the business that is being reported the opportunity to respond. If the business responds many times this is enough to give the business a satisfactory rating, no matter what their response is!

    Most BBB offices do not report any past history of a business, even when that business continuously victimizes different consumers. Even when the business just continuously satisfies each costumer complaint, you will never know of this information in the future. All you might know is, ...."they have satisfied their complaints." ..GIVING THEM A SATISFACTORY RATING.

    Even when a business does have complaints that are unsatisfied, they still might get a satisfactory rating. The BBB Better Business Bureau will not tell you what the complaints were even when they tell you, they satisfied all complaints. The BBB must realize what a consumer must have gone through before resorting to filing a complaint! And for every consumer that did file a Complaint, there are 20 others that did not complain. And you can be next!

    When consumers see that Better Business Bureau plaque, this gives the consumer a false sense of security. Consumers need to be made aware of this rip-off & misconception nationwide.

    Remember, all you need to do to become a BBB member and get that very impressive, overrated BBB plaque, is to call the BBB and tell them you want to be a member. You can tell the BBB any lie you want about yourself, ...they will never check it out. That's correct! They never check it out. All that BBB plaque means is, they paid their dues. (Period)

    The above information about the BBB may vary form state to state, where some BBB offices may be more scrutinizing in their efforts to check on business when becoming a member and some BBB offices might be more thorough and revealing in reporting than the BBB offices we have investigated around the United States.

    One case involved a bad business which was under criminal investigation by the state's Attorney General Office and the specific BBB for that area KNEW this yet kept "SATISFACTORY' ratings for this bad business while many victims kept getting ripped off.

    To again cite from ripoffreports:
    To understand why the why the BBBs are far less effective than they are purported to be, you need to understand how they operate. A popular misconceptions that Better Business Bureaus are local government agencies. They're not. They actually began life 83 years ago as citizens' vigilance committees formed to warn the public about shady companies false advertising claims. Today they are private, independently operated, nonprofit corporations designed to protect consumers from bad business practices of all kinds.

    Each local bureau has its own CEO and unpaid board of directors, who determine what services will be offered and what dues members are charged--which range from $120 a year to $5,000.00 or more. The BBBs' main product is information: They keep files on all their members and create files for any company that a consumer inquires or complains about. Most BBBs assign ratings of satisfactory or unsatisfactory to most companies on file, based on their record of complaints. But though most bureaus offer formal arbitration and mediation services, BBBs are not enforcement agencies and cannot order an uncooperative company to award a refund or even acknowledge a complaint.

    BONDING:
    Lately, more and more sellers are getting "bonded," meaning bonded with an insurance company so that trust between buyer and seller comes easier. You may want to look out for this in the future as another preference as to whether you want to deal with the seller or not.
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