E-Bay is a renowned virtual marketplace, whose success has made it one of the biggest targets by scammers.  In the process, some people selling or buying through the platform lose huge sums of money to eBay frauds. Crooks prey on unsuspecting bidders, and accounts belonging to the sellers are hijacked. People who fall victim to the fraudsters lose trust in eBay. They usually extend their mistrust to friends and family by painting the site as a site riddled with fraudsters.

Some of the common eBay frauds include identity hijacking, phony sellers and account hi-jacking. In identity hijacking, a fraudster hacks an identity that belongs to a genuine seller, and steals his identity. He then uses the identity to list phony items and charges the items to the genuine seller’s account. This may continue as long as the seller does not notice. Once discovered, the fraudster usually disappears into the cyberspace never to be traced.

The second most common form of eBay fraud is done through establishing a phony identity on eBay. The fraudster then offers non-existent goods using his phony identity, collects money from ‘successful’ bidders and he is discovered. Such fraudsters usually have multiple IP domains and addresses thus making it hard for the relevant authorities to pursue them. This form of fraud is worsened by the simplicity and low costs through which people can acquire new domains. 

Account hi-jacking is the third most prevalent type of eBay fraud. Here, the fraudster can use different techniques to breach PC firewall or intrude into one’s firewall. Probing techniques employed by the fraudsters include port scans, ping sweeps and logging into websites using keystrokes. Phishing e-mails are also commonly used by the fraudsters to harvest account data and passwords through hyperlinks attached to innocent-looking emails. Usually, such emails contain EBay messages urging the account holder to update their eBay accounts. 

EBay fraud propagates largely due to the need for buyers to get a good bargain. If they chance upon the ghost sellers, who practically sell nothing at very low prices, then they pay for it, but never get the product. Red flags that could indicate that a seller is not genuine include the seller’s level of feedback, and how long his account has been in existence. One can also check the seller’s transaction records before purchasing a product. 

EBay fraud has been a major cause of concern for the online retailer. As a result, eBay encourages any one buying products to look into the seller’s reputation, his previous transactions and if possible get referrals from other shoppers. EBay also advices people to understand the refund or return policies on each retailer before purchasing a product. Using a secure checkout or payment process is also advisable, while staying away from bargains that seem too good might be the only way to ensure that one is not swindled of his money.

In the past eBay launched an eBay fraud insurance that would cover the buyers and pay back the buyer should the product not get to them. However, this program does not cover shipping mishaps or errors. The program however covers instances where the buyer gets a different product from what he had purchased from the eBay e-market.  A buyer who makes a transaction through PayPal and senses the purchase was a fraud can immediately fill the buyer complaint form provided by PayPal. If this is done early enough, then the transaction can be cancelled. Paypal and SquareTrade provide buyer protection programs.