WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 You guys aren't gonna believe the deal I just got. 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:08.060 800 bucks for a brand new RTX 4090 on eBay. 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:16.560 Oh, well, I guess it was too good to be true. 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:21.320 But no worries, eBay, Amazon, even Aliexpress, 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:25.440 they've got robust buyer protection schemes that make it simple to get your money back 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:29.440 if your product doesn't show up or isn't as advertised. 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:35.440 So the question then is, why are these scam listings still all over these platforms 00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:38.920 if they can't possibly work? I had to find out for myself. 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:42.400 So I hit buy it now on an obvious fake listing 00:00:42.400 --> 00:00:46.040 and well, it didn't happen exactly like we just showed, 00:00:46.040 --> 00:00:49.080 but we did learn a ton about how scammers 00:00:49.080 --> 00:00:54.080 are operating on these platforms and how they could still get your money 00:00:54.080 --> 00:00:58.680 and leave you empty handed. But you know who would never leave you empty handed? 00:00:58.680 --> 00:00:59.520 Our sponsor. 00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:13.440 This topic originally came up on The WAN Show when a viewer pointed us to this listing 00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:18.160 and asked, hey, what gives with this? And then I impulsively responded with, 00:01:18.160 --> 00:01:23.560 I don't know, let's order it and find out. Well, we didn't even get as far as placing our order 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:29.520 before another helpful viewer reached out and laid out how they almost lost their money 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:34.200 with a similar listing. As it turns out, these scammers have found some ways 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:39.080 to get valid tracking numbers without actually shipping you anything. 00:01:39.080 --> 00:01:42.080 We'll get to the how later, but what you need to know for now 00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:45.720 is they can just pick a tracking number that's going to your city 00:01:45.720 --> 00:01:49.200 and then give that to eBay or another marketplace seller 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:52.520 to prove delivery, making it much more difficult 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:57.440 for you to file a dispute. But like, that shouldn't work, right? 00:01:57.440 --> 00:02:02.000 Well, whatever the reason for it, have you noticed how couriers give less 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:06.600 and less information about a shipment these days? Forget about a zip code, 00:02:06.600 --> 00:02:12.040 you're lucky to even get an origin and destination city. And because eBay can't see the specifics 00:02:12.040 --> 00:02:17.240 of the tracking number that our scammer provides them, any delivery to roughly the same area 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.480 and roughly the same timeframe will make it seem 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:26.100 like the seller has done their job. So dispute closed, but here's the problem. 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:29.520 You still don't have your GPU or your money. 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:33.840 So what can you do? Reaching out to the scammers a waste of time, 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:38.440 they already know it's a scam and you could try to escalate your dispute with eBay, 00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:41.480 but how do you prove that you didn't get your shipment? 00:02:41.480 --> 00:02:46.000 The tracking says you did, plain as day. Well, okay, how about the courier then? 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.720 Surely they can see that the tracking number has nothing to do with you and they can, 00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:55.740 but that's actually a problem too. Because they're not supposed to give out information 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:59.980 about shipments that seemingly have nothing to do with you. 00:02:59.980 --> 00:03:04.900 And then even if you do convince the courier's support representative that your story is true, 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:11.200 eBay is gonna want something tangible, not just an email from a neat based chatbot. 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:16.620 So what happened with our viewer then is they ended up having to physically go to the UPS store 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:21.900 and convince an agent there to provide a note on UPS letterhead that stated 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:27.820 that the tracking number that the seller provided was not associated with the buyer's address. 00:03:27.820 --> 00:03:33.060 Only when that was scanned and sent to eBay was a refund finally approved. 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:37.620 So how does the scam work? Well, in a nutshell, the scammer hopes 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:41.460 that either you aren't persistent enough to go get that hard evidence 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:45.300 or that the courier's support team is too stubborn to give it to you. 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:50.540 Now, I think that many of us would be pretty persistent when it comes to recovering that amount of money, 00:03:50.540 --> 00:03:56.260 but here's the thing. If a scam didn't work, nobody would be trying to pull it. 00:03:56.260 --> 00:03:59.900 All right, that's the short version. But this scam didn't just pop, 00:03:59.900 --> 00:04:03.260 fully formed into someone's brain. So how did we get here? 00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:06.300 Well, it's kind of a funny story because get this, 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:10.940 it didn't actually start out as a scam. Rather, it started as a clever way 00:04:10.940 --> 00:04:15.140 to deal with marketplace restrictions. So before we get into that, 00:04:15.140 --> 00:04:19.020 let's do a quick refresher on online marketplaces and dropshipping. 00:04:19.020 --> 00:04:23.220 I'm sure you've seen these little sold-by notices when you shop on basically 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:26.740 any major online retailer these days. Well, just like eBay, 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:29.780 these sites are acting as marketplaces. 00:04:29.780 --> 00:04:34.540 The benefit for smaller sellers is it allows them to list and sell their items 00:04:34.540 --> 00:04:37.760 on large recognizable brand name stores 00:04:37.760 --> 00:04:41.500 in order to reach a wider customer base. The benefit for the marketplace 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:46.400 is they get a cut of every sale without needing to do inconvenient and costly things 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:51.160 like maintaining inventory, or in some cases, even fulfilling the orders. 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:57.320 This system allows just about anyone to list their product on, say, BestBuy.com. 00:04:57.320 --> 00:05:01.100 But hold on, they're gonna need a warehouse and a logistics team, right? 00:05:01.100 --> 00:05:06.200 Nope. Thanks to dropshipping services, the seller can just give the marketplace 00:05:06.200 --> 00:05:09.480 a list of items and inventory that they have access to 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:13.720 through third-party warehouses, and then they wait for someone to place an order, 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:18.080 quickly buy it from a supplier, who packages it up, sticks the seller's logo on it, 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:21.720 usually for an extra fee, and then ships the product to you. 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:25.400 In these cases, neither the retail site that you used, 00:05:25.400 --> 00:05:29.560 nor the seller, ever even touched the product that they sold you. 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:32.620 It is nothing like buying from LTTstore.com, 00:05:32.620 --> 00:05:36.120 where you can check out our new Labs collection and rest assured that we are involved 00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:39.800 in every step of the process, from design, to ordering, to warehousing, 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:43.000 to shipping, to customer service. Sorry, where was I? 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:47.640 Oh, right, I'm sorry. Marketplaces. In spite of this lack of control, 00:05:47.640 --> 00:05:50.740 marketplaces, they still wanna keep their brand respectable, 00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:54.160 so they do take precautions to protect their customers, 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:57.240 like for example, holding onto the money for a couple of weeks 00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:02.200 to ensure that the order actually gets delivered, or insisting that the seller provide 00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:06.480 a tracking number for the shipment. And it's that last point that brings us, 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:12.480 finally, to the tracking number piece of the puzzle. See, no retailer likes to send you off-platform. 00:06:12.520 --> 00:06:16.960 So, when you wanna track your order, they like to pull the tracking details 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:21.320 from the courier's API and then wrap it up in their own pretty little interface. 00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:24.680 Well, that means that they need to limit their sellers 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:28.000 to the couriers that they have integrated into their site. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:32.740 Now, sellers mostly played along at first, but as marketplace fees have risen, 00:06:32.740 --> 00:06:36.100 sellers have felt the need to get more creative 00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:40.600 to preserve their profitability. Say, for example, by using discount couriers 00:06:40.640 --> 00:06:44.360 that their marketplace doesn't support. Well, somewhere along the line, 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:48.160 someone had the bright idea to use discount Joe's delivery, 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:51.360 but then give the marketplace a made-up string of numbers 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.840 and hope that, well, as long as the item arrives, no one's gonna notice or care. 00:06:55.840 --> 00:07:00.400 And that worked, at least for a little while. But then the marketplace is wised up 00:07:00.400 --> 00:07:03.960 and they demanded that the tracking number be valid. 00:07:03.960 --> 00:07:07.480 Okay, so now our sellers need a more legit fake tracking 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:11.600 number, how do they get it? Well, a quick Google search shows how these numbers 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:17.160 are formatted and most couriers will let you check dozens of tracking numbers at a time on their website, 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:21.680 hundreds if you use their API. So, what if we just write a bot that generates 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:25.240 and then checks tracking numbers, logging any that work into a database 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:29.040 so that we can use them later? But line is, you say. 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:33.680 Writing that bot could take dozens of minutes if you've never heard of chat GPT. 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.880 Well, don't worry, there's an even easier way. A quick search surfaced a wide selection 00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:44.160 of professional looking websites that offer valid active tracking numbers for sale. 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.880 I'm not talking about the dark web here, guys. This is plain old boring internet. 00:07:47.880 --> 00:07:51.400 Let me show you. All I gotta do is select a destination city. 00:07:51.400 --> 00:07:58.600 Let's say Surrey, Canada. I can specify an approximate estimated delivery date range, 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:02.240 shipment status in transit, and I want it to come from the States. 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:05.000 I click get tracking number and, 00:08:05.880 --> 00:08:09.760 dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Dah! 00:08:09.760 --> 00:08:15.000 There it is. Origin Kernersville US shipped yesterday. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.120 You can even pick details like the approximate weight of the package if you want to get fancy. 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:23.040 And that's it. We now have the tracking number for someone else's shipment 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:26.640 for the low low price of just 25 freedom cents. 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:30.040 Now, some of these sites claim that you are 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:34.800 trading tracking numbers while others try to imply that your actual shipment 00:08:34.800 --> 00:08:41.240 will totally be trackable with the number you're buying. But in both cases, that is obviously complete bulls***. 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:45.280 These services are all about tricking marketplaces. 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:49.240 But the thing is, solving this is not as simple as you'd think. 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:53.200 Because the marketplace isn't the shipper or the receiver, 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:58.200 even if they had someone on staff whose job it was to check that everything lines up, 00:08:58.280 --> 00:09:05.000 both carriers wouldn't be at liberty to share any information about a shipment that doesn't involve them. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.840 And, let's be real, even if the marketplace did notice the tracking was sus, 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:14.440 what are they gonna do? They're gonna email the seller and then wait for a response. 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:18.720 A response that will almost certainly be, oh, sorry about that, that was a mistake. 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:21.920 Let me get back to you with the right number. Well, that's gonna buy discount, Joe, 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:25.040 at least a couple more days to scooter up to your driveway 00:09:25.040 --> 00:09:28.240 with that e-girl keyboard that you so desperately need. 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:32.160 At which point, everyone loses interest in the investigation. 00:09:32.160 --> 00:09:36.640 But where are these fake, real tracking numbers coming from? 00:09:36.640 --> 00:09:40.760 Did these guys hire a guy on Fiverr to whip up some of those bots we talked about? 00:09:40.760 --> 00:09:44.520 Well, maybe. But we also came across another possibility 00:09:44.520 --> 00:09:49.440 while digging through eBay forum threads. Have you ever used one of those third-party tracking apps 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:54.720 or websites to track your shipments? You know the kind. They promise to track any parcel from any courier, 00:09:54.720 --> 00:10:00.360 no matter how obscure, which saves you the arduous work of typing in multiple three-letter domain names. 00:10:00.360 --> 00:10:05.760 Well, many of these sites are in countries with what's called a loose data protections. 00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:09.320 And if you take the time to peruse their terms and privacy policies, 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:15.160 you'll find that they generally do not consider tracking numbers to be personal or private information. 00:10:15.160 --> 00:10:18.720 So we've got these sites that are just slurping up 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:23.400 active tracking numbers all day, every day, keeping track of where they're going and when. 00:10:23.400 --> 00:10:28.160 And we combine that with the market that happens to exist for valid tracking numbers. 00:10:28.160 --> 00:10:31.560 And well, let's just say there's some synergies 00:10:31.560 --> 00:10:36.160 to leverage, as they say. Now, to be clear, I don't have any hard evidence 00:10:36.160 --> 00:10:39.640 and I'm not saying that all of these tracking sites are selling data. 00:10:39.640 --> 00:10:43.920 I'm just saying that I would be shocked if at least some of them weren't. 00:10:43.920 --> 00:10:47.080 And if they are, well, up until this point, 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:50.160 it isn't that bad of a scam. 00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:54.400 It is dishonest and it completely defeats the purpose of tracking, 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:57.480 but most of the sellers that are buying these tracking numbers 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:01.240 really are shipping your product and you really will get it. 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:05.400 Eventually, they're just trying to jump through marketplace hoops and ship from the most 00:11:05.400 --> 00:11:10.000 advantageous sources, most of them. But eventually, someone realized 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:13.400 that they could use those numbers to gain their metrics. 00:11:13.400 --> 00:11:18.320 Let's say someone places an order for this, here, this gaming mouse. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:23.440 After the order comes through though, their supplier goes out of stock and they can't get it. 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:26.640 Well, marketplaces don't take kindly 00:11:26.640 --> 00:11:33.680 to sellers who take orders that they can't fulfill. So I'm in a pickle that is until I get an idea, 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:38.560 an awful idea, a wonderful, awful idea. 00:11:38.560 --> 00:11:43.120 I can avoid a strike on my account if I just buy one of those tracking numbers 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:46.120 and then just not actually ship anything. 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:50.600 Then, when the tracking says delivered and the customer inevitably reaches out asking, 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:56.320 hey, where's my order? I can say, oh, I'm so sorry, the courier must have messed up. 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.840 But don't worry, I'm already processing a refund for you. 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:04.200 At that point, as far as the marketplace is concerned, it's the courier that screwed up. 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:07.560 I'm off the hook. Well, once that little technique spread 00:12:07.560 --> 00:12:11.200 around the dropshipping community, it was probably a matter of minutes 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:14.520 before someone thought of using it to just straight up scan people, 00:12:14.520 --> 00:12:19.520 which brings us finally to my GPU here. 00:12:19.640 --> 00:12:25.280 Now, I got lucky and they terminated this guy's account before he could pretend to ship my order. 00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:29.080 That made it much easier for me to file a dispute and get my money back. 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:33.780 But it should be noted, I still had to manually file my dispute 00:12:33.780 --> 00:12:39.160 and you might not be so lucky. So then, what can you do to avoid falling victim 00:12:39.160 --> 00:12:43.200 to the scam? Well, step one is to exercise restraint. 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:46.480 Before you yell, shut up and take my money. 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:52.600 Take a breath, really look at the listing. Is the price too low, like, unreasonably low? 00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:57.760 That's a red flag. Look at the seller. Do they have no or low feedback numbers? 00:12:57.760 --> 00:13:01.320 Red flag. What else are they selling? Nothing? 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.080 Totally unrelated knickknacks? Why are you even still looking at this? 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:11.200 That's all the red flags you need. You gotta ask yourself, what's more likely that someone totally ignorant 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:15.200 got their hands on a Newman box 4090, realized it was worth money, 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:21.800 signed up for a brand new eBay account and then listed it for maybe half of what it's worth? 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:24.840 Or that someone knows that a cheap 4090 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:30.080 is gonna bring all the boys to the yard and that you should just yell, that's my purse 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:34.380 and kick them in the plums. Bottom line, be careful out there. 00:13:34.380 --> 00:13:39.520 The 50 series launch means that there are going to be plenty of perfectly trustworthy bros out there 00:13:39.520 --> 00:13:42.520 that are looking to upgrade and move their older cards 00:13:42.520 --> 00:13:46.520 onto new owners. And I'm a huge advocate for buying secondhand hardware 00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:50.420 to save money and selling it so that somebody can be using it. 00:13:50.420 --> 00:13:54.000 Just take your time, find a good deal. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.440 Not too good of a deal. And when you're done, 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:00.440 take some time to check out our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video, 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:04.760 maybe check out the one we did on fake SSDs being sold on Amazon. 00:14:04.760 --> 00:14:07.160 Why do people feel they need to scam each other?