I was going to throw in some anecdotes about other scams I've been involved in as a preface but decided against it for now.
Anyhow, when I was eighteen years old, I decided I was going to eBay some of my unwanted games and old systems/accessories. One day I decided I wanted to get Zelda for game boy and got into a bidding war on a poor condition but working copy with someone named Tom. We got to talking about video games and stuff and he told me he was making good cash selling retro carts with fixed rate shipping except he couldn't keep the volume of listings high enough to his satisfaction.. and he hired me. One big problem: He lived in the seattle area and I was in norcal.
I moved to seattle or so I attempted to, and did a lot of listing 25-cent video games..
damn, I'm starting to feel too lazy to make this story proper.
Anyway, he got hooked up with a friend who went to NYC and discovered Canal street. She had started distributing fake designer fashion accessories right after. She was only selling mary-kay style through social networking though, because she wasn't savvy. That's why she brought some merchandise to Tom- she knew he was getting into the action with eBay. He started selling the products one by one very cautiously. everything sold. usually BuyItNow. momentum picked up right away. he would give her like $300 to stock him with stuff that was popular cause he didn't know shit about trends. It doubled and tripled, even after fees and restocking returned items. By this time he had nearly 2000 positive feedback and very few neutral/negs. We had a very clear term of sale in our auction: Buyer MUST email prior to payment. We tried to tell every winning bidder that authenticity was uncertain. Some people cancelled the order. We gave quick refunds. We also had a policy to do a full refund if they decided they wanted to go ahead with the sale and changed their mind after inspecting the product. We tried to be as honest about it as possible without getting busted by rights verification program.
some real life stuff happened and I couldn't stay in seattle and I didn't have my own source for stock until many months later when I moved to Long Island to be with a boyfriend- I checked out canal street and spent $80 on 3 handbags that were great quality knockoffs of recent Dior and LV designs. I sold two of the bags through BuyItNow with satisfied customers, but the third auction was a red crocodile skin Dior saddlebag that I hadn't set a buyout on because I could not find a similar authentic item anywhere.
Lets say I spend $25 on a handbag that would be $450 if it was authentic. I usually sold them for $75 and if they went higher I discounted the price to the winning bidder so long as they were comfortable with receiving a replica product. The red dior bag was a freaking hot auction, far hotter than I expected it to be. I think I spent $30-40 on it.
A man living in Sweden or Switzerland won the auction and paid for it immediately via PayPal. He had won the auction for ~$192 + S/H.
I needed the money because I had spent all I had on medicine and rent after a long case of bronchitis. I needed the money bad, and I felt like shit taking his money.
He recieved the bag very quickly for an overseas package, and left me positive feedback right away. He still hadn't contacted me apart from the positive feedback.
A few days later, I got a brief email.
"I bought this bag as a gift for my fiancee. She likes it, but she doesn't think it is real."
I felt awful. But I never responded and he did not contact me again. He had already left me positive feedback, and, at least back then, you could not retract positive feedback.
But as a woman, I put myself in his fiancee's shoes--
It would fucking suck to receive a sincere and valuable gift from my partner that was a fake.
Anyhow, when I was eighteen years old, I decided I was going to eBay some of my unwanted games and old systems/accessories. One day I decided I wanted to get Zelda for game boy and got into a bidding war on a poor condition but working copy with someone named Tom. We got to talking about video games and stuff and he told me he was making good cash selling retro carts with fixed rate shipping except he couldn't keep the volume of listings high enough to his satisfaction.. and he hired me. One big problem: He lived in the seattle area and I was in norcal.
I moved to seattle or so I attempted to, and did a lot of listing 25-cent video games..
damn, I'm starting to feel too lazy to make this story proper.
Anyway, he got hooked up with a friend who went to NYC and discovered Canal street. She had started distributing fake designer fashion accessories right after. She was only selling mary-kay style through social networking though, because she wasn't savvy. That's why she brought some merchandise to Tom- she knew he was getting into the action with eBay. He started selling the products one by one very cautiously. everything sold. usually BuyItNow. momentum picked up right away. he would give her like $300 to stock him with stuff that was popular cause he didn't know shit about trends. It doubled and tripled, even after fees and restocking returned items. By this time he had nearly 2000 positive feedback and very few neutral/negs. We had a very clear term of sale in our auction: Buyer MUST email prior to payment. We tried to tell every winning bidder that authenticity was uncertain. Some people cancelled the order. We gave quick refunds. We also had a policy to do a full refund if they decided they wanted to go ahead with the sale and changed their mind after inspecting the product. We tried to be as honest about it as possible without getting busted by rights verification program.
some real life stuff happened and I couldn't stay in seattle and I didn't have my own source for stock until many months later when I moved to Long Island to be with a boyfriend- I checked out canal street and spent $80 on 3 handbags that were great quality knockoffs of recent Dior and LV designs. I sold two of the bags through BuyItNow with satisfied customers, but the third auction was a red crocodile skin Dior saddlebag that I hadn't set a buyout on because I could not find a similar authentic item anywhere.
Lets say I spend $25 on a handbag that would be $450 if it was authentic. I usually sold them for $75 and if they went higher I discounted the price to the winning bidder so long as they were comfortable with receiving a replica product. The red dior bag was a freaking hot auction, far hotter than I expected it to be. I think I spent $30-40 on it.
A man living in Sweden or Switzerland won the auction and paid for it immediately via PayPal. He had won the auction for ~$192 + S/H.
I needed the money because I had spent all I had on medicine and rent after a long case of bronchitis. I needed the money bad, and I felt like shit taking his money.
He recieved the bag very quickly for an overseas package, and left me positive feedback right away. He still hadn't contacted me apart from the positive feedback.
A few days later, I got a brief email.
"I bought this bag as a gift for my fiancee. She likes it, but she doesn't think it is real."
I felt awful. But I never responded and he did not contact me again. He had already left me positive feedback, and, at least back then, you could not retract positive feedback.
But as a woman, I put myself in his fiancee's shoes--
It would fucking suck to receive a sincere and valuable gift from my partner that was a fake.
choice is tough
