Triangular fraud on portals such as PayPal and eBay Kleinanzeigen has been known for years, but unfortunately users often only notice too late when they have been ripped off.
We would therefore like to warn at this point about triangular fraud, which is a form of advance payment fraud, as we received a description of a current case from our user inquiries that was only identified early on by chance.
What happened: User A offered an iPhone 8 for sale in the classifieds on eBay Classifieds for €360. User A is the legitimate seller who also owns the goods.
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User B contacted him. User B is a fraudster in the triangle scam. User B agrees to buy the item for €360. What user A doesn't know: User B also placed an ad for an iPhone XS for €360. The XS is a higher quality product that would be easy to sell for the price. However, user B does not own this product. It's a bogus advertisement. User C contacts us and announces his interest. This is an honest buyer.
What happens now: User B asks User A for the PayPal contact address for payment. At the same time, user B begins a sales conversation with user C in the mock advertisement. User B forwards User A's PayPal payment address to User C.
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This is where things get exciting with triangle fraud: User C, as an honest buyer, sends the amount to user A (who he thinks is user B). User A receives the money and considers it to be his legitimate sales amount. User B informs User A that he will have the iPhone picked up as soon as the amount has been received.
What happens in the end: User B has the goods picked up. User C never receives the goods and thinks User A is the seller because he transferred the money to him. He demands the money back. User A is the loser: the goods are gone and so is the money.
Triangular fraud in our current case
Fortunately, in our case, the triangle fraud was noticed in time because PayPal intervened as a security mechanism. The transaction was frozen until the sale could actually be confirmed by all parties.
Since this was not the case, the fraud could not be carried out.
Please note: In order to prevent triangle fraud, you should always insist on payment upon delivery.
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Here's what you can do to prevent triangle fraud:
- Match addresses and descriptions when making PayPal payments! Delivery addresses are also stored with PayPal. If these differ from the delivery address, you should be careful.
- Safe shipping! If shipping has to be done, then if possible, only send by registered mail or as an insured package. Although this doesn't help an honest buyer in this case, it does help the honest seller because he can provide proof of shipping.
- Unfortunately, there is only one protection for sellers: keep the original invoice and document all processes. This also prevents you from getting the wrong device as an alleged return.
- Healthy skepticism! This applies to all sales and purchases. You can only trust yourself first and foremost. Any kind of inconsistencies should be treated with caution.
- Collection and cash payment! That might be the safest way. If in doubt, also acknowledge the payment and handover on site and also check the money for authenticity.
This might also be of interest:
Ripped off on eBay classifieds
Article image by fizkes / Shutterstock.com
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )