Hey Ben, basically you're right about them hoping some people forget about the refund option, but more importantly: since u have to adhere to THEIR third party refund policy, they can request whatever information they want to issue you the refund. And from there they can either sell ur info, keep it, and do whatever they want
Remember those random packages people got while ago from China, where people have no idea what is inside of it since they didn't ordered. I am wondering if this is how they get people's address?
The reason they create the tracking number is to keep their account from getting auto flagged and taken down for not shipping the item. Amazon will also release the funds to the seller once the “item has shipped”. Source: sold on eBay and Amazon since 2014
That explanation is specious because most of these scammers don't care about the accounts, they are disposable; they make an account, scam as many as possible, then let the account burn and just make a new one. The reason they provide a fake tracking number is to BUY TIME. By waiting as long as possible to pretend to have shipped it, then giving a fake number and saying to wait for it to arrive, they can delay long enough to pass deadlines to file a dispute, request a refund, leave negative feedback/reviews, do a charge-back, etc. They'll usually apologize and offer to send it again to buy even more time, even if you asked for a refund. I've seen it _many_ times on eBay. 😒
@@I.____.....__...__ One of the main points TransistorBased and Brandon Nicholson made was that the scammers don't get paid until they ship the items: the fake tracking numbers are to "prove" they shipped the items (which they don't).
I will not buy anything unless it is shipped or sold by Amazon. If Amazon ships it but someone else sells it I'll buy it but I will not buy anything if somebody else's ships it and someone else sells it. And it doesn't matter if it's a $15 Foundation or a $250 Bissell floor cleaner that I just bought. I was looking for an upholstery cleaner a few months ago and I saw one the price was really good and when I scroll down to see if Amazon warehouse was selling it it wasn't it was somebody else selling and shipping and I had read in there refund policy that if it isn't sold or shipped by Amazon they won't take responsibility for it and thank God I didn't buy it the one I bought was from Amazon and there was a problem with it and they took it right back. This is a good video for anybody who's looking to buy anything from Amazon especially during the holidays they won't get scammed.
You pinned the wrong comment. as a former Amazon seller with over 25 million in sales I can tell you exactly why they're doing it and how they're doing it. Amazon pays out every two weeks to the day for all sales that have occurred over the previous 14 days, as long as that order has a tracking number associated with it. This means that if a dispersal is scheduled to happen on the 14th and they sell half a million dollars worth of product on the 10th, as long as they show a tracking number by the 14th they will get paid all of that money directly to their bank account in China. Then when people start filing claims that seller is gone with the wind. If a refund is issued it's Amazon paying it and not the seller. The seller has already moved to a new account and starts the process over with a new bank and rips off more hardworking Americans.
The Amazon scam that annoys me the most is where the scammer hijacks an old 5-star listing and adds a different product to it. And people think that the new product is great because it has 5 stars. And it means that you have to really dig down into the old reviews and see if the people reviewing them are talking about the same item. For example you might look at a listing for a kettle, and the recent reviews will have 1 star saying the kettle is crap, but the reviews from 2-3 months ago talk about how it feels nice and soft against your skin, and it fits nicely into the washing machine.
@@bookedsam Yes, this is why when i leave a review i always write what model and item i'm talking about. Nothing dumber than people who go great,,,,, but they might be meaning green eggs and spam.
Just like when I got scammed when I bought a soundtrack to a movie. The reviews were all five star and what not, great sound quality, original packaging etc. When I got the item, the cover of the CD was completely different from the one advertised, and the audio had scratchy music as well as dialogue from the movie. Unfortunately the return window had expired. I left a scathing review and the seller disappeared from Amazon. I was so mad. 😡
Found one like this, it was a little heater that had hundreds of great reviews, but you go to the reviews and they are all for a creeper (a thing you lay on that rolls, great for working under cars)
Amazon gets worse every single day 😵💫 - they even block you from reviewing if you point out obviously problems with an item, but the (big) seller disputes them. It’s insane.
@@richardjohnson8796Amazon doesn’t censor, if the product is bad it’s never shown to you. You have to actively look for the bad products that are rated low. They want to make money so any product that is not good is not shown or just axed completely. You never see a poorly rated item unless you search for it. Yu also have to consider the the seller, big sellers have a reputation to keep out so you will have better experience buying from big brands then the small ones.
Sellers will often "accidentally" create a discount code that makes an item free or heavily discounted so that they can become a top seller, then some of them will send you a message asking you to cancel the order because if you don't they will get fired. They want you to cancel the order because that way they won't lose their top seller badge. It happened to me recently with a mini desktop PC.
Lol i ordered pc parts and used a random promo code i found online that somehow worked which made it almost free, i just paid for shipping but then the seller contacted me and told me to cancel the order or pay extra, i waited first but then felt bad for them and just canceled the order :P
@@elizaevans2345 oh no…. Don’t ever do that… tell them that its not you that should pay for their mistakes…. They’re trying to scam you… never fall for it… it’s better to do an Uno reverse on them…😉
I had a similar experience this summer when I purchased a special pillow and they did the same thing with creating a tracking number and saying my order was taking longer than expected. I contacted the seller and didn’t receive a response. I decided to file a dispute with my credit card company. I had to wait a couple months for the dispute to become finalized but my credit card company refunded my money. So glad I went that route be asking for the refund the other way. Thank you for helping us navigate these scams. Your are the best! Can’t wait to see you back in the SP call center again. 🎉
Ask amazon to refund you first. This gives amazon a chance to do the right thing. If amazon won't do it, then go through the credit card company. Amazon may lose an extra $20 (or more) for customer charge back.
I think he ordered with no intention of losing $128 dollars and hoped the real thing showed up. When he looked further into it, he realized his mistake and thought "Hey, I can do a video on it and make my mistake look better". In other words, he could have pointed out every scam detail without actually ordering it, but he didn't".
@@SpaceCadet4Jesus Considering that his whole channel is about digging as deep as he can into scams, pretty sure this was very intentional and he bought the pizza cooker knowing he might not see those $120 ever again.
Nah, sometimes I receive fake replica from them and damaged books. As for books I usually go for 3rd party seller with the highest rating - never Amazon. They always package them well. Amazon just throws it in a box w/o wrap.
First off, just as someone else said, you can easily still receive fake products shipped from Amazon. Second, you do not have to buy stuff only sold from Amazon. There are a ton of great sellers on Amazon. I use Amazon daily and purchase everything I need from them. The majority of what I purchase is sold by other sellers and not Amazon themselves. I very rarely have a problem but when I do, 99% of the time it's damage to a product that happens during shipping, by Amazon. Not the seller. I highly advise to not purchase items being shipped by another company unless it is a well established company (there are many of them on Amazon).
I deal with credit card disputes and Facebook sponsored ads at prices too good to be true at work often. These disputes always lead to shipping taking months for cardholders to receive in the US. When a product eventually arrives, it is a tiny, bubble mailer with customs form indicating an item weighing a few ounces with a value of $5 and nothing like huge, expensive product consumer ordered. I've seen bouncy balls, fake sunglasses, soap dishes, handkerchiefs sent when cardholders expected things like huge patio furniture set, adjustable 50 pound dumbbells, electric car, motorized scooter, sewing machine table, etc. In my view, the reason for the garbage product being shipped is so it will appear cardholder received item purchased when disputed with credit card company. Keep the videos coming!
I've had an Ooni pizza oven for a few years now. It makes good pizza, but being pellet fired its a little bit of a pain in the butt to use and clean. Hopefully everyone who got scammed will get their money back.
Thanks for pointing out where to find the actual seller. I’ve always just looked to see if it was shipping from Amazon or a third party store. In this example I would have thought it was coming from Ooni. Update: I went to Amazon last night to check this out. Sure enough when I clicked on one of the Ooni pizza ovens listed for $150, then clicked on the seller’s listings, I found a bunch of high end items…all listed for $150. Some of those $150 “bargains” were brand new sectional sofas! Who, in their right mind, would think you could order a sectional sofa, online, for $150??? Just the shipping alone would probably run you close to $1,000! My husband and I purchased two electric bikes years ago, from the lower 48, and we paid $1,000 to ship them to Anchorage. We then had make the four hour round trip to Anchorage to pick them up. Needless to say I wouldn’t fall for a $150 sofa on Amazon. Amazon’s reputation and credibility will suffer if they continue to allow these scammers to utilize their website.
Same thing happened to me back in the spring. Had a pair of headphones in my wish list and suddenly they were $50 cheaper from a 3rd party on the official listing. Seller name was identical. I bought knowing it could be fake but Amazon has pretty good support when it comes to this stuff. In the end, I got a refund pretty quickly.
@@fayelinae Things that are in their original package/unopened are resold. When returned goods are destroyed it's usually for health or safety issues. If they resell something that's in a dangerous condition they'd be liable for any injuries/damages that resulted from that.
It could be a few things. Number one is what you said. No matter what, if even just one person doesn't ask for a refund, it's a net win for the scammers. Number two could be them promoting their storefront in the algorithm to set up a future legit store and be already a bit better in the rankings. Finally, it could also be a brushing scam. It is when you collect real customer addresses and ship random crap to be able to mark them as legit customers on a different website to boost rankings.
I actually bought the Xbox you showed. Similar seller situation, but mine was actually marked as “delivered” to an address in Virginia. I live in Michigan. I chatted with an Amazon rep and they took care of it immediately as if it is a regular occurrence. I was surprised that it said delivered in Virginia and Amazon, knowing I am in Michigan, didn’t catch on. Strange new scam we have going on how huh? 😳
I bought a friend a hydroponics planter that had really high reviews and none of the accounts looked like bots. I have no idea who I actually bought it from because the item is no longer available for purchase, but the thing was completely broken in under a month. I'll definitely double and triple check next time I order something from Amazon.
You can go to your order history, find the order in question and click "View Invoice." In the top portion of the invoice page, beneath the "Items Ordered" section that shows the entire name of the item you purchased, you should see "Sold by" followed by the seller's name and a little blue link you can click on called "Seller Profile." From the seller profile page, you can look at their feedback history and contact them if you need to. I just checked on my own account and I can do this for orders dating all the way back to 2003.
A friend and I each ordered a heavily discounted air-fryer through Amazon marketplace last year, knowing that if there was a problem we could claim a refund. It never actually got that far, though, as a day later both of our orders were automatically cancelled as “this item is no longer in stock”. On reflection we both got off lightly without having to put in a claim from a, now obvious, scam listing.
This whole problem stems from Amazon letting anybody they want become an affiliate seller. You used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to sell anything through them. Now you can literally just buy a bunch of inventory online of some item and have Amazon handle all of your shipping and handling.
This is called Listing Hijacking. People who shouldn't be selling it jump onto someone else's listing. It's terrible that Amazon won't fix it. They usually do this when the REAL seller runs out of inventory. Then these trolls come in with the fake offers and take advantage of the reviews on the listing itself. This is bad for the customer for obvious reasons and the negative reviews that the product will get could ABSOLUTELY ruin the real sellers hard work by all the negative reviews the product will then get. The issue is people don't understand the difference between a seller review and a product review. We've had this happen with some of our products over the years and Amazon SUCKS at doing anything about it. It's an absolute shame!
This is why when using Amazon I tend to buy exclusively from prime backed sellers. If not I look into the seller prior to buying anything. It's really not too difficult to protect yourself online against these things. Secondly, as you yourself said, if it's too good to be true, that's because it probably is. If you follow these steps the likely hood you'll fall for one of these scams drops drastically
Especially 3rd party sellers that have no connection to Amazon other than selling through their site. Once Amazon transfers your payment to the seller, it's between you and the seller, it seems.
Former UPS store employee. People need to definitely pay attention to this cause if it doesn’t work or whatever and you need to ship it back, it technically wasn’t through Amazon so you’re not getting a free label you have to mail it back to China which is insanely expensive. So you pay $50 for this knock off product that broke after a week. And shipping it back to Hong Kong China it’s gonna cost you of the $600. And I think I’m being nice by saying that.
I learned the hard way to check the reviews on the store front and not the product. I ordered cat litter and canned dog food, was sent a Fed Ex tracking number that was fake and was unable to contact the seller. When I finally got around to checking the store front I discovered that about 85 other people had ordered and not received their orders. Lesson learned. And I will now avoid third party sellers unless I am very sure they are genuine. I
I ordered Sailor Moon beanies from Amazon for winter and found out it was a scam. They advertised as high quality adult beanies instead of got really cheap quality beanies with a really bad blurry screen print that was off centered. They looked like toddler sized beanies. I did some investigating, and they came from China. Amazon ended up refunding me and told me I didn't need to send them back.
@@mlong9475 Try returning a large heavy item like furntiure and it clearly states returnable with no mention that you have to haul it to UPS. What happened to disclosure
I take all these steps and more on every single thing I buy online, usually eBay or Amazon. It's just what you learn to do when you grow up on the internet. You know it's the wild west and anything goes as long as you don't get caught, so you have to watch out for yourself. Normies don't know this, they'll learn the hard way.
Thanks for teaching people about all these shady operations. Personally, I don't buy anything through Internet, but many people do, so once again you did a great job. 👍👏
Thank you very much for doing this for everybody, I’ve been hooked on your channel forever now and hope to actually do good for the world like you when I grow up.
I see a lot of comments of people pinning this on Amazon to step up their game to clear out these 3rd party scam sellers. But we also have to take responsibility for our own actions and read who we are exactly buying it from if it's not directly coming from Amazon or Amazon fulfilled orders from 3rd party vendors. Do 10 seconds of research to avoid a week or more worth of headaches
That sucks Amazon is letting people get away with this and their team should be more organized and proficient at handling third party sellers. It puts those who genuinely do sell on Amazon in a bad spot as that is their business. Also thank you for the extension. I know I will highly use it when I shop online this season.
Looking at that pure gibberish Chinese "name", and comparing it to some I've seen in English, I'd say that the names are randomly generated. Which means that some of these sellers are probably generated en masse with gibberish names to fill the fields out and gets something out there quick for sale. There are probably far, far too many on Amazon for them to reliably keep up with.
I have a similar story about a product I was trying to buy. A product that was almost $1000 off of it’s $1900 price tag. They used the same storefront visit link(from an American company) on the page but when you looked at the seller, it was a 3rd party from China. I had saved the product in a list because I wanted to think about it. I went back in 24 hours and noticed the price was back up to the 1900 which seemed kind of odd. The product was no longer selling on that 3rd parties page anymore, strike 2. It reverted back to an American company I was looking at for the product almost a year ago. I messaged the seller and they made up some excuse about Covid, never answered any of my other questions. I had dodged a bullet and figured it was a scam. I’m glad I waited and thought about it because things didn’t add up. It made me chuckle seeing this video because it was only a month after I had this encounter. Be safe out there everyone. Be careful. And if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Amazon really needs to change their interface to better show if it’s a new third party seller, verified third party seller, or if it’s from Amazon themselves. Having it be a tiny link in the corner that most casual shoppers won’t even notice is deceptive.
amazon needs to stop letting people leave product reviews for things they've never received or things that were as a result of damaged in shipping, things damaged in shipping is a seller's fault, not the product.
Hey pleasant !! I’m your biggest fan! I come home from lunch everyday to watch you ! Only RUclipsr I actually watch everyday. Please keep doing what you are doing and always keep uploading ❤
I recently accidentally bought from a scalper on Amazon, selling an item for twice retail, and when I realized and asked for a full refund & return he told me I have to cover shipping both ways, essentially assuring he's still getting paid for scalping me and I'm losing money with nothing to show for it. Amazon just put me back in contact with the seller when I tried to escalate it
I did one of those nugget ice makers for 19.99 type deals. After shipping and what not I think it was 35.00 dollars. After many many weeks I finally got a delivery and was super excited until I saw the package and it was a.....ice scoop. 😀😄😂
I blame Amazon. That trillion dollar organization should be held liable for more than just giving refunds. They should be class action sued for attempted fraud, because we don't go to amazon for EBAY like items.
Hey Pleasant Green, just wanna say love your content. Anyways, just wanna say that I've order overseas quite a bit. Postal tracking numbers (such as the one you had gotten, which is also called EMS (Express Mail Service)) sometimes doesn't always update in the USPS tracking site until it reaches the states (cause forever reason tracking updates doesn't always comes through to it even though it's supposed to be globally connected). For that reason I usually always go to the shipping country's site by googling something like, in your example, "china ems tracking" which usually has a lot more details of what's happening from the shipping country's point of view. Hope this gives you a bit more insight for that. I'm curious what that tracking show when using China's EMS tracking site compared to USPS.
Bro I love these videos. Me and my wife love watching these together. I can spot these scams from a mile away but I love seeing how it plays out when you actually buy this trash
They create the tracking number to try and fool the customer into thinking it was shipped in hopes it delays the amount of time it takes for them to make a claim probably with the hopes that the cash goes through and they can withdraw it before the account is forced to be refunded. They might even possibly try to close the account associated with the sale before the refund goes through so it becomes Amazon's loss and not the scam sellers... At least that's my guess.
I purchased some inexpensive stuff from chin and the tracking number that I received was for domestic tracking. It does not update travel from china to the US
@@cliftonmassey3143 I don't worry about refunds since I only purchase a couple dollar items from china. Obvious, I don't trust it enough for $100 purchases.
I kept seeing the ads. So I looked them up at Walmart. They were on sale normally $199 but the sale price was $59. I rushed down to my store because they only had two left. When I was checking out it rang up for $25. I thought it was wrong so I had a manager check. And yes it was. They were just trying to get rid of them. So this scam got me a real pizza oven.
I am very lucky to have you in my subscribe list, I was just about to buy a laptop, but I watched this video, tried the FakeSpot extension and basically dodged a 900USD bullet. THANK YOU !
This reminds me of the time I order an $18 Bissell Crosswave lol. Also I miss the good old days where you could look at REAL reviews that weren't paid for.
Be careful who you buy from period on the internet. My husband ordered me an animal crossing mini amiibo card set on Walmarts app, package never delivered to correct address, and when the USPS got involved, it wasn't even what was ordered. Walmart could never get a hold of the "seller" and we're still waiting for our money back 😑. Hell, we thought we were buying from Walmart.
I am bad about reading the whole page of a listing. But I should. Listings tell you where the product is coming from, and other information that you might wish you had known. Private sellers are a mixed bunch. It can mean a horrific shipping charge if you otherwise are an Amazon Prime member and should be getting free shipping. Be sure to read your final order before pushing "place order." I have caught many shipping charges on items I wanted because I didn't notice it was not eligible for Prime. Luckily, you can delete any product that does not qualify for Prime if you want to. In our haste and focus to find certain products, the third party seller thing is easy to overlook. Not all third party listings are scams, but many are. Beware of extra low prices! Also, many will make up for low price by charging a ton for shipping!
Or I will find the website for the actual maker, and buy it from them directly. Either in person or online, I agree with you. Buying direct from seller is easier and there are less traps to avoid. :)
I totally agree, especially if it’s medication, vitamins, make-up, basically anything you consume or put on your skin. I’ve read about a lot of fakes being sold on Amazon , causing allergies and rashes on people.
I had something similar happen to me this summer on Amazon. Found some nice shorts selling for $1 to $5 dollars. Got a few and went to buy and the total was over $100.00 dollars. The shipping and handling was over $ 30 dollars for them. Didn't buy
Hey Ben, The other part of this is that the A to Z guarantee is backed by Amazon, not the seller. The fake tracking number is because Amazon releases funds to the seller after the product is shipped. So they can keep the money and Amazon reimburses
I just want you to know how much I love your channel!!! ❤ I love your style of presenting information I look forward to the day you reach a million subs because you deserve way more subs to help get the message of fighting scammers out to the public. Thanks for being a valuable asset to fighting against scammers and all your colleagues !! Great work!!😊
Last week I ordered something from Amazon and it would arrive by the 16th. The day after I ordered I was looking at the item page and it said order within the next 5 hours and I would get it the same day. I considered canceling my original order and reordering it but decided I could wait. On the 16th it didn't arrive and Amazon gave me the option to cancel so I canceled and went to a local store and bought a similar version but it was at a higher price.
Oh man am I glad I saw this video when you first posted it because I was just about to buy a radeon 7900xt graphics card for $400 then I saw the name was some long ass name from China. I was so close to pressing complete order but this video saved me from falling for it. Thank you Ben!
I ordered a sofa bed and a pair of sunglasses turned up with that tracking number, it took over 8 weeks to arrive from paying to the glasses turning up. I got a refund eventually.
The problem was: You didn't pay enough shipping for the sofa bed so it was shipped on a rowboat with a small skinny Chinese guy with glasses (the glasses lower the sun's glare off the water). Takes weeks to cross the Pacific ocean like this, you know. Unfortunately a bad storm came up mid ocean and sunk the rowboat. The poor glasses wearing skinny Chinese guy only had the floating sofa bed to hang onto for a few days, but alas, it became water logged and you know the rest, it sank. Our even-poorer glasses wearing Chinese guy had to start paddling and again hit another bout of misfortune with a shiver of Tiger Sharks heading north. Its said the only thing the U.S. Coast Guard found and picked out of the water was a set of glasses and a shipping label to your house. You should be ashamed of yourself! See all the trouble you caused, all for the love of a sofa bed?!! Oh, by the way, there's a help wanted sign outside the Chinese sofa bed factory.
i wish my mom would understand this. I can't tell you how many times shes complained to me about stuff like this.. and those facebook ads.. "but it was on facebook/amazon so it must be legit"
Ben, I have a serious health issue that means that I must depend upon multivitamins for the rest of my years. I thought that I was being clever buying them in large quantities from what seemed like directly from the manufacturer's store front, on Amazon. However, months later my gums receded, my nails snapped and cracked, my lips were permanently dry, my hair fell out and became sparce. I started feeling weak and under the weather. So, I changed my supplier and bought directly from a UK famous pharmacy - Boots the Chemist. Within, days I was feeling better. I believe that I was seriously scammed into buying FAKE multi-vitamins. I am so upset as I now have some teeth with receded gum lines which are wobbly. It will cost me thousands of pounds to dentally correct. I do not like the word ' hate,' because to me it means the same as 'murder' and 'death' but in this situation I believe it aptly applies. Ben - much blessings to you and yours.
Amazon's customer support has always been pretty great with refunds for me. I once got scammed with the Pokemon TCG Sword/Shield UPC where I was sent the box but all of the cards were opened and all of the good cards and loot was already taken. Amazon's CS didn't even ask for proof, they just listened to my explanation and gave me a refund to buy another one from another seller.
Who buys things without checking the seller???? You don't have to search, oh so much, on the page to find it and no one tries to hide it from you. It is always in the same place on the page. That's the first thing I check. If there is a chinese shop, I'll definitely not order. Just don't be lazy and gullible and everything works fine. And if you are lazy, you can chose Amazon as seller during your search and only products sold through Amazon will be shown. All this is common knowledge...
Looking at the reviews themselves is also always important because the seller I just bought a laptop from has 521 reviews, mostly 5 star, but a few standout 1 star ones... But when I look at them the complaints are about requiring someone to be home to collect the package. That's not worth 1 Star.
This sort of thing happened to me with a printer. The sellers link went to HP. I thought that was who I was purchasing from. The printer they sent me seemed to be a used and not new. So I returned it that same day. They kept $130 bucks or so for a "shipping fee". It was the store's return policy that was the reason they could keep my money for shipping out a used item instead of a new one. I spent $130 for the "privilege" of packing up their junk, standing in line, and ending up with no printer.
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Hey! I encountered this same scam last year, with a terrace propane heater. It was on sale (through Prime too, funny enough) for $50 (they usually go for $300 or so). I ordered 2, knowing I would receive them… well, I actually received 2 heater covers! I contacted the seller, told him I understood his scam, and he gave me my full money back, plus let me keep the covers. In your case, you’ll notice that there was an option for the pizza oven alone, or the oven with a digital infrared thermometer. They will likely send you a cheap $5 thermometer alone from China (pretty sure about that), and edit or delete their listing shortly after they completed the sale. If they get 1,000 clients to order (total $120,000 revenue), and only have 80% chargebacks (i.e. 20% not taking the time/energy to do so), they’ll still pocket $24,000 for a 1-time scam. So you see why they keep doing these! If you want me to give you more details on these practices, I know quite a bit. Let me know, I’ll be more than happy to chat!
Everyone shopping on Amazon should be aware of the differences between 1) "Ships From *and* Sold by Amazon", 2) "Ships From Amazon, but SOLD by a 3rd-party seller", and 3) "Ships From *and* Sold by a 3rd-Party Seller." In the first two cases, Amazon's comprehensive refund & return policy applies, and returns are very straightforward. In the third case, it's vital to check the seller's feedback, as PG pointed out! A return always involves the 3rd-party seller, and you're often stuck "waiting for the seller to reply" to your return request. Then they'll often try to pull some crap like "replacement", "partial refund", etc. Just stand your ground and insist on a refund, if that's what you want. If they don't provide it, call Amazon customer service and they will take care of it. Alternatively, you can just wait and see what happens, i.e. see what comes by the alleged delivery date. If nothing arrives, just call Amazon customer service directly and they will handle the interaction with the seller. (Oh and btw - "social" media sucks 😒.)
I started using Amazon very late. It's just not used as much in my country. First I have to locate where the seller is, because import tax is a thing :/ and usually those sellers in China are shit... After, I have to read reviews that give 5 stars but are negative or just reviews that doesn't state enough info 😐 OR IT'S FOR ANOTHER PRODUCT??? Too much effort for thigh high socks. I don't understand why anyone would use this website if not for my reasons: couldn't find product elsewhere. At least in a country where it's not widely used. I see Americans and Germans getting benefits that matter from having Amazon Prime!
For a company being international... It's really not. It's worth it for my reason or if you live somewhere where you can benefit from their perks. (Very rarely I see this opinion. Mostly it's painted as "generally good but shit at times")
So just an Inside info (or a well known maybe for some). You need only to put EAN to recognize the AMAZON as the product. Its actually very well shown if its an amazon listing or a 3rd party seller. So yeah.. items like that are on AMAZON.. but its easy to avoid actually if you just check for 5 secs on your right of the screen.
I am glad that Amazon has had my back in these kind of deals. I even got a free item and a refund once because of an intentional item description deception. Also, Amazon's warehouse sometimes makes mistakes. The customer service for Amazon does a great job of fixing these mishaps.
Amazon has shifted the last several years into working with brands and focusing on products. They don’t value or care much about their 3rd party sellers who essentially built up their business. Now they allow anyone to sell and create accounts and use bots to weed them out. It is costly to both buyers and good sellers. I was one of the first invited into Amazon in ‘06 and I’m sad to see how it’s changed over the last 6-7 years.
Thank you for this video!! I fell for this late one night last summer except it was from the actual company website that the Chinese scammers somehow spoofed. PayPal would not refund me saying it was legit 🙄 Had to make a claim through my credit card company linked to my PayPal...I have since cancelled PayPal over this ordeal and their lack of support. I got a tracking number as well that eventually said the stove was delivered INSIDE my parcel box. If this was the actual pizza oven it would never fit inside a tiny parcel box. I don't know how they managed that scam because nothing was actually ever delivered??? This was the scammiest scam I've ever been scammed by and a big lesson learned!
And this is why I hardly ever buy off Amazon anymore. I used to buy stuff off then all the time years ago. Now I'm back to mostly buying at local stores it's just to much trouble to weed out the Amazon scammers. Amazon needs to get their damn house in order.
I learned something interesting from your video. Thanks!!! I just had something similar happen. I bought something that had a really great price, about $20-30 less than the other listings for the same thing. It wasn't a prime item so I knew the shipping would take longer. and I was ok with that. Finally, I got the delivery notice. When I went to pick up the package the UPS store didn't have anything for me. I showed them the Amazon page for my orders and the delivery notice. My son thought to Google the tracking number and it showed up in the China Post tracking. It showed there as delivered as well. And at the exact same time as the Amazon notice showed. However... It also had a bit more information. It was saying that my package was delivered to the Post Office in Palmer, Alaska!!! And I live in the Southeast, nowhere near Alaska. I ended up talking to someone at Amazon and after being transferred through 4 different people/departments I was issued a refund to my account which showed up within about 30 minutes.
And when I asked the last person at Amazon I talked to if the seller was going to be allowed to continue selling she said that the seller had a record of doing this and she was going to send a recommendation to pull them from selling to the appropriate department. (I can't remember what she called it.)
I learned a lesson from Facebook, I ordered this thing called RAD-VCR , where are you can record your VHS tapes to DVD, $299 gone, total scam, I felt like an idiot. Oh yeah, it still hasn’t gotten here in 18 months.
I have a similar story, a few months back I ordered some garage shelves for extremely cheap. About $30 for a item that cost from average $50-$80. Never got mine it was from a Chinese seller/shipper as well. Mine said out for delivery and I was waiting patiently in my living room by my door and boom says delivered. Opened my door and nothing was there. Thankfully I had a ring as well to check. I was at least able to get a refund which was pretty easy but I can see how someone who may not be to savy may not request for one.
Thank you. I just purchased an item like this from Amazon just hours before. Then I saw this video and sure enough it was shipping from China with a long weird Chinese name. I was able to cancel my order before it shipped. Saved me $80.
Those sellers are shameless. I also had to report multiple Amazon sellers selling my business partner's photography or our designs on various items without permission and Amazon needs a proof for who owns the rights to the original artwork
Thank you for making this, I just called into Amazon to report a similar scam with a elf on the shelf kit that I’ve been having similar red flags with especially the mystery tracking number and never heard of the tracking service that they’re using so I just canceled the item, it’s scary this is happening on there but then again I’m not very surprised. But thank you for making everyone aware👍👍
Ohhh they said I can’t get a refund until the magical delivery date on December 13 because they want you to forget like you said in video how interesting 😅what a joy this is lol
A few years ago, I ordered a mini refrigerator and then looked it up and saw that it was a scam. I requested a refund from my bank and got it immediately. A bunch of people ordered it and it wasn’t that much cheaper, so it was not obvious. First time I ordered anything and now I know. A good lesson.
![Coheed and Cambria - Searching for Tomorrow [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hDsYGLbmadg/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey Ben, basically you're right about them hoping some people forget about the refund option, but more importantly: since u have to adhere to THEIR third party refund policy, they can request whatever information they want to issue you the refund. And from there they can either sell ur info, keep it, and do whatever they want
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Remember those random packages people got while ago from China, where people have no idea what is inside of it since they didn't ordered. I am wondering if this is how they get people's address?
The reason they create the tracking number is to keep their account from getting auto flagged and taken down for not shipping the item. Amazon will also release the funds to the seller once the “item has shipped”.
Source: sold on eBay and Amazon since 2014
Yep, I was going to say the bit about the funds being released but you beat me to it. These sellers are terrible
That explanation is specious because most of these scammers don't care about the accounts, they are disposable; they make an account, scam as many as possible, then let the account burn and just make a new one. The reason they provide a fake tracking number is to BUY TIME. By waiting as long as possible to pretend to have shipped it, then giving a fake number and saying to wait for it to arrive, they can delay long enough to pass deadlines to file a dispute, request a refund, leave negative feedback/reviews, do a charge-back, etc. They'll usually apologize and offer to send it again to buy even more time, even if you asked for a refund. I've seen it _many_ times on eBay. 😒
@@I.____.....__...__ One of the main points TransistorBased and Brandon Nicholson made was that the scammers don't get paid until they ship the items: the fake tracking numbers are to "prove" they shipped the items (which they don't).
Yep. This 👆
I will not buy anything unless it is shipped or sold by Amazon. If Amazon ships it but someone else sells it I'll buy it but I will not buy anything if somebody else's ships it and someone else sells it. And it doesn't matter if it's a $15 Foundation or a $250 Bissell floor cleaner that I just bought. I was looking for an upholstery cleaner a few months ago and I saw one the price was really good and when I scroll down to see if Amazon warehouse was selling it it wasn't it was somebody else selling and shipping and I had read in there refund policy that if it isn't sold or shipped by Amazon they won't take responsibility for it and thank God I didn't buy it the one I bought was from Amazon and there was a problem with it and they took it right back. This is a good video for anybody who's looking to buy anything from Amazon especially during the holidays they won't get scammed.
You pinned the wrong comment. as a former Amazon seller with over 25 million in sales I can tell you exactly why they're doing it and how they're doing it. Amazon pays out every two weeks to the day for all sales that have occurred over the previous 14 days, as long as that order has a tracking number associated with it. This means that if a dispersal is scheduled to happen on the 14th and they sell half a million dollars worth of product on the 10th, as long as they show a tracking number by the 14th they will get paid all of that money directly to their bank account in China. Then when people start filing claims that seller is gone with the wind. If a refund is issued it's Amazon paying it and not the seller. The seller has already moved to a new account and starts the process over with a new bank and rips off more hardworking Americans.
The Amazon scam that annoys me the most is where the scammer hijacks an old 5-star listing and adds a different product to it. And people think that the new product is great because it has 5 stars.
And it means that you have to really dig down into the old reviews and see if the people reviewing them are talking about the same item.
For example you might look at a listing for a kettle, and the recent reviews will have 1 star saying the kettle is crap, but the reviews from 2-3 months ago talk about how it feels nice and soft against your skin, and it fits nicely into the washing machine.
I love my carpeted kettle that feels very soft and fits nicely into the washing machine
@@bookedsam Yes, this is why when i leave a review i always write what model and item i'm talking about. Nothing dumber than people who go great,,,,, but they might be meaning green eggs and spam.
Just like when I got scammed when I bought a soundtrack to a movie. The reviews were all five star and what not, great sound quality, original packaging etc. When I got the item, the cover of the CD was completely different from the one advertised, and the audio had scratchy music as well as dialogue from the movie. Unfortunately the return window had expired. I left a scathing review and the seller disappeared from Amazon. I was so mad. 😡
Found one like this, it was a little heater that had hundreds of great reviews, but you go to the reviews and they are all for a creeper (a thing you lay on that rolls, great for working under cars)
You don’t clean your kettle in the washing machine?
Amazon gets worse every single day 😵💫 - they even block you from reviewing if you point out obviously problems with an item, but the (big) seller disputes them. It’s insane.
Amazon is no more trustworthy than any random site online.
They once were, but now they're not
Yes this happened to me!!
@@richardjohnson8796 yet i buy items regularly that are more than perfect and trustworthy
@@richardjohnson8796Amazon doesn’t censor, if the product is bad it’s never shown to you. You have to actively look for the bad products that are rated low. They want to make money so any product that is not good is not shown or just axed completely. You never see a poorly rated item unless you search for it. Yu also have to consider the the seller, big sellers have a reputation to keep out so you will have better experience buying from big brands then the small ones.
Yes, banned me for writing a negative review of their amazon brand led dimmable light bulbs that wouldn't dim.
Sellers will often "accidentally" create a discount code that makes an item free or heavily discounted so that they can become a top seller, then some of them will send you a message asking you to cancel the order because if you don't they will get fired. They want you to cancel the order because that way they won't lose their top seller badge. It happened to me recently with a mini desktop PC.
Why would they lose the top seller badge though?
@@sammy_sand_utubeyt6901 because Amazon is shi*t for sellers too.i pray in these scams Amazon losing money not customers.
Lol i ordered pc parts and used a random promo code i found online that somehow worked which made it almost free, i just paid for shipping but then the seller contacted me and told me to cancel the order or pay extra, i waited first but then felt bad for them and just canceled the order :P
@@elizaevans2345 where did you find the promo code?
@@elizaevans2345 oh no…. Don’t ever do that… tell them that its not you that should pay for their mistakes…. They’re trying to scam you… never fall for it… it’s better to do an Uno reverse on them…😉
I had a similar experience this summer when I purchased a special pillow and they did the same thing with creating a tracking number and saying my order was taking longer than expected. I contacted the seller and didn’t receive a response. I decided to file a dispute with my credit card company. I had to wait a couple months for the dispute to become finalized but my credit card company refunded my money. So glad I went that route be asking for the refund the other way. Thank you for helping us navigate these scams. Your are the best! Can’t wait to see you back in the SP call center again. 🎉
Ask amazon to refund you first. This gives amazon a chance to do the right thing. If amazon won't do it, then go through the credit card company. Amazon may lose an extra $20 (or more) for customer charge back.
Thank you for doing us all a solid. Very educational for people who are not familiar with scams!
Did he do a solid? He just asked for and got a refund. You could do that, too. It’s more runny than solid
I think he ordered with no intention of losing $128 dollars and hoped the real thing showed up. When he looked further into it, he realized his mistake and thought "Hey, I can do a video on it and make my mistake look better". In other words, he could have pointed out every scam detail without actually ordering it, but he didn't".
I did a solid a few minutes ago. Well . . . it was fairly solid - Flushed away ok
And even those who are very aware of scams. Anybody can get scammed. Just takes the right set of circumstances. So many scams these days.
@@SpaceCadet4Jesus Considering that his whole channel is about digging as deep as he can into scams, pretty sure this was very intentional and he bought the pizza cooker knowing he might not see those $120 ever again.
I am so surprised that Amazon lets this happen. I’m giving Amazon the side eye now. Thank you so much Ben for exposing this you are amazing 😘
Amazon is notoriously known for fake reviews as well. I use Fakespot, too. It's super helpful in spotting shoddy products.
Or just be a smart buyer . That's it. Been shopping on Amazon for almost 7,8 years and rarely came across these issues.
You are surprised Amazon is nefarious? Capitalists
Do you really think Amazon cares about you no just the almighty dollar period
Amazon routinely uses 3rd parties. Mostly from China.
This is why I always buy products shipped/sold from Amazon. Buying from 3rd party sellers can be sketchy AF. Buyer Beware!
Yup never buy from these weird Chinese sellers. Avoid anything with an all caps or made up name too
I bought something like this and a random credit card appeared on my Amazon account
Nah, sometimes I receive fake replica from them and damaged books. As for books I usually go for 3rd party seller with the highest rating - never Amazon. They always package them well. Amazon just throws it in a box w/o wrap.
First off, just as someone else said, you can easily still receive fake products shipped from Amazon. Second, you do not have to buy stuff only sold from Amazon. There are a ton of great sellers on Amazon. I use Amazon daily and purchase everything I need from them. The majority of what I purchase is sold by other sellers and not Amazon themselves. I very rarely have a problem but when I do, 99% of the time it's damage to a product that happens during shipping, by Amazon. Not the seller.
I highly advise to not purchase items being shipped by another company unless it is a well established company (there are many of them on Amazon).
Same here
Thanks for the PSA. Always count on Ben Dover to keep us up to date on these scammers.
ha ha ha ha
Lol, hope you know that isn't his real name tho, would be extremely embarrassing if it was 😅
@@CryNoM0 yeah
@@CryNoM0 No, his real name is Mike Krotch
@@sd2go lmao, but in all seriousness his name is Ben Taylor
I deal with credit card disputes and Facebook sponsored ads at prices too good to be true at work often.
These disputes always lead to shipping taking months for cardholders to receive in the US. When a product eventually arrives, it is a tiny, bubble mailer with customs form indicating an item weighing a few ounces with a value of $5 and nothing like huge, expensive product consumer ordered.
I've seen bouncy balls, fake sunglasses, soap dishes, handkerchiefs sent when cardholders expected things like huge patio furniture set, adjustable 50 pound dumbbells, electric car, motorized scooter, sewing machine table, etc.
In my view, the reason for the garbage product being shipped is so it will appear cardholder received item purchased when disputed with credit card company. Keep the videos coming!
sending a fake small product is a common scam. How do you deal with it or avoid it?
I've had an Ooni pizza oven for a few years now. It makes good pizza, but being pellet fired its a little bit of a pain in the butt to use and clean. Hopefully everyone who got scammed will get their money back.
Thanks for pointing out where to find the actual seller. I’ve always just looked to see if it was shipping from Amazon or a third party store. In this example I would have thought it was coming from Ooni.
Update: I went to Amazon last night to check this out. Sure enough when I clicked on one of the Ooni pizza ovens listed for $150, then clicked on the seller’s listings, I found a bunch of high end items…all listed for $150. Some of those $150 “bargains” were brand new sectional sofas! Who, in their right mind, would think you could order a sectional sofa, online, for $150??? Just the shipping alone would probably run you close to $1,000! My husband and I purchased two electric bikes years ago, from the lower 48, and we paid $1,000 to ship them to Anchorage. We then had make the four hour round trip to Anchorage to pick them up. Needless to say I wouldn’t fall for a $150 sofa on Amazon. Amazon’s reputation and credibility will suffer if they continue to allow these scammers to utilize their website.
Same thing happened to me back in the spring. Had a pair of headphones in my wish list and suddenly they were $50 cheaper from a 3rd party on the official listing. Seller name was identical. I bought knowing it could be fake but Amazon has pretty good support when it comes to this stuff. In the end, I got a refund pretty quickly.
same thing happened to me but for a shower appliance. It was in shipping for over a month. I got refunded as well though
they rely on the people who are too lazy to follow-up and get a refund
Refunds are a potential headache and a hassle. Buy smarter.
Work smart
Compare the market
Pay a decent price
STOP TRYING TO BE CHEAP.
@@mumrah73 And those that want something for almost nothing
I am in awe at how many people see amazon as this reputable company that is not shady at all.
Amazon is a reputable company. The people who use it to scam aren't.
@@DavidKen878 tbh i think its shady to destroy returned goods instead of reselling them for cheaper
@@fayelinae Why is that shady? I don't understand where you're coming from.
@@fayelinae Things that are in their original package/unopened are resold. When returned goods are destroyed it's usually for health or safety issues. If they resell something that's in a dangerous condition they'd be liable for any injuries/damages that resulted from that.
I've never had an issue but I also don't fall for shit like this always check reviews and definitely check dimensions of the package!
It could be a few things. Number one is what you said. No matter what, if even just one person doesn't ask for a refund, it's a net win for the scammers. Number two could be them promoting their storefront in the algorithm to set up a future legit store and be already a bit better in the rankings. Finally, it could also be a brushing scam. It is when you collect real customer addresses and ship random crap to be able to mark them as legit customers on a different website to boost rankings.
Or a combo of all three, which is likely as well. The more milage they get out of each transaction the better for them.
I actually bought the Xbox you showed. Similar seller situation, but mine was actually marked as “delivered” to an address in Virginia. I live in Michigan. I chatted with an Amazon rep and they took care of it immediately as if it is a regular occurrence. I was surprised that it said delivered in Virginia and Amazon, knowing I am in Michigan, didn’t catch on. Strange new scam we have going on how huh? 😳
I bought a friend a hydroponics planter that had really high reviews and none of the accounts looked like bots. I have no idea who I actually bought it from because the item is no longer available for purchase, but the thing was completely broken in under a month. I'll definitely double and triple check next time I order something from Amazon.
You can go to your order history, find the order in question and click "View Invoice." In the top portion of the invoice page, beneath the "Items Ordered" section that shows the entire name of the item you purchased, you should see "Sold by" followed by the seller's name and a little blue link you can click on called "Seller Profile." From the seller profile page, you can look at their feedback history and contact them if you need to. I just checked on my own account and I can do this for orders dating all the way back to 2003.
A friend and I each ordered a heavily discounted air-fryer through Amazon marketplace last year, knowing that if there was a problem we could claim a refund. It never actually got that far, though, as a day later both of our orders were automatically cancelled as “this item is no longer in stock”. On reflection we both got off lightly without having to put in a claim from a, now obvious, scam listing.
This whole problem stems from Amazon letting anybody they want become an affiliate seller. You used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to sell anything through them. Now you can literally just buy a bunch of inventory online of some item and have Amazon handle all of your shipping and handling.
I never think about Amazon having scams. This is very helpful.
amazon can be really confusing sometimes, even using it regularly i feel like i have to check everything 5 times for not receiving bad surprises
This is called Listing Hijacking. People who shouldn't be selling it jump onto someone else's listing. It's terrible that Amazon won't fix it. They usually do this when the REAL seller runs out of inventory. Then these trolls come in with the fake offers and take advantage of the reviews on the listing itself. This is bad for the customer for obvious reasons and the negative reviews that the product will get could ABSOLUTELY ruin the real sellers hard work by all the negative reviews the product will then get. The issue is people don't understand the difference between a seller review and a product review. We've had this happen with some of our products over the years and Amazon SUCKS at doing anything about it. It's an absolute shame!
This is why when using Amazon I tend to buy exclusively from prime backed sellers. If not I look into the seller prior to buying anything. It's really not too difficult to protect yourself online against these things. Secondly, as you yourself said, if it's too good to be true, that's because it probably is. If you follow these steps the likely hood you'll fall for one of these scams drops drastically
It’s crazy how a big company like Amazon let’s this happen. Just because Amazon is a “trusted” site doesn’t mean all of its sellers are legit
They used to be better but like all who get big they seem to let things slip
Especially 3rd party sellers that have no connection to Amazon other than selling through their site. Once Amazon transfers your payment to the seller, it's between you and the seller, it seems.
Former UPS store employee. People need to definitely pay attention to this cause if it doesn’t work or whatever and you need to ship it back, it technically wasn’t through Amazon so you’re not getting a free label you have to mail it back to China which is insanely expensive. So you pay $50 for this knock off product that broke after a week. And shipping it back to Hong Kong China it’s gonna cost you of the $600. And I think I’m being nice by saying that.
Whenever pleasant green uploads I'm so excited to watch his videos it's unbelievable
bot
@@HercadosP nah I'm real don't worry
I learned the hard way to check the reviews on the store front and not the product. I ordered cat litter and canned dog food, was sent a Fed Ex tracking number that was fake and was unable to contact the seller. When I finally got around to checking the store front I discovered that about 85 other people had ordered and not received their orders. Lesson learned. And I will now avoid third party sellers unless I am very sure they are genuine. I
I ordered Sailor Moon beanies from Amazon for winter and found out it was a scam. They advertised as high quality adult beanies instead of got really cheap quality beanies with a really bad blurry screen print that was off centered. They looked like toddler sized beanies. I did some investigating, and they came from China. Amazon ended up refunding me and told me I didn't need to send them back.
The only good thing Amazon does is they have a good refund policy.
@@mlong9475 Try returning a large heavy item like furntiure and it clearly states returnable with no mention that you have to haul it to UPS. What happened to disclosure
Moon Prism Power!
I take all these steps and more on every single thing I buy online, usually eBay or Amazon. It's just what you learn to do when you grow up on the internet. You know it's the wild west and anything goes as long as you don't get caught, so you have to watch out for yourself. Normies don't know this, they'll learn the hard way.
Thanks for teaching people about all these shady operations. Personally, I don't buy anything through Internet, but many people do, so once again you did a great job. 👍👏
It’s a scary world. People should be extra extra careful and warn their elders and family and friends to be careful of these scammers
Thank you very much for doing this for everybody, I’ve been hooked on your channel forever now and hope to actually do good for the world like you when I grow up.
I see a lot of comments of people pinning this on Amazon to step up their game to clear out these 3rd party scam sellers. But we also have to take responsibility for our own actions and read who we are exactly buying it from if it's not directly coming from Amazon or Amazon fulfilled orders from 3rd party vendors. Do 10 seconds of research to avoid a week or more worth of headaches
That sucks Amazon is letting people get away with this and their team should be more organized and proficient at handling third party sellers. It puts those who genuinely do sell on Amazon in a bad spot as that is their business. Also thank you for the extension. I know I will highly use it when I shop online this season.
Amazon is massive so when you are this big, things will always slip,through the gaps.
Looking at that pure gibberish Chinese "name", and comparing it to some I've seen in English, I'd say that the names are randomly generated. Which means that some of these sellers are probably generated en masse with gibberish names to fill the fields out and gets something out there quick for sale. There are probably far, far too many on Amazon for them to reliably keep up with.
I have a similar story about a product I was trying to buy. A product that was almost $1000 off of it’s $1900 price tag. They used the same storefront visit link(from an American company) on the page but when you looked at the seller, it was a 3rd party from China. I had saved the product in a list because I wanted to think about it. I went back in 24 hours and noticed the price was back up to the 1900 which seemed kind of odd. The product was no longer selling on that 3rd parties page anymore, strike 2. It reverted back to an American company I was looking at for the product almost a year ago. I messaged the seller and they made up some excuse about Covid, never answered any of my other questions. I had dodged a bullet and figured it was a scam. I’m glad I waited and thought about it because things didn’t add up. It made me chuckle seeing this video because it was only a month after I had this encounter. Be safe out there everyone. Be careful. And if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Amazon really needs to change their interface to better show if it’s a new third party seller, verified third party seller, or if it’s from Amazon themselves. Having it be a tiny link in the corner that most casual shoppers won’t even notice is deceptive.
No it's not,. I look to see if it's sold by or shipped from Amazon, or 3rd party. THEN. I place the order.
I know where it is, and I still have a hard time finding it!
Hands down my favorite channel on RUclips. Thanks for the new video Ben!
You taught me so much things! Almost got scammed and I used your methods. Thank you so much!
Now you just have to learn correct grammar
@@lewiskelly14 No one cares about being proper unless its a requirement. Chill out.
amazon needs to stop letting people leave product reviews for things they've never received or things that were as a result of damaged in shipping, things damaged in shipping is a seller's fault, not the product.
Hey pleasant !! I’m your biggest fan! I come home from lunch everyday to watch you ! Only RUclipsr I actually watch everyday. Please keep doing what you are doing and always keep uploading ❤
I appreciate that Zachary!
Hai sir, how are you?
I recently accidentally bought from a scalper on Amazon, selling an item for twice retail, and when I realized and asked for a full refund & return he told me I have to cover shipping both ways, essentially assuring he's still getting paid for scalping me and I'm losing money with nothing to show for it. Amazon just put me back in contact with the seller when I tried to escalate it
I did one of those nugget ice makers for 19.99 type deals. After shipping and what not I think it was 35.00 dollars. After many many weeks I finally got a delivery and was super excited until I saw the package and it was a.....ice scoop. 😀😄😂
No problem Susan. Break out the mint chocolate chip ice cream and let's have at it !!
I blame Amazon. That trillion dollar organization should be held liable for more than just giving refunds. They should be class action sued for attempted fraud, because we don't go to amazon for EBAY like items.
Hey Pleasant Green, just wanna say love your content.
Anyways, just wanna say that I've order overseas quite a bit. Postal tracking numbers (such as the one you had gotten, which is also called EMS (Express Mail Service)) sometimes doesn't always update in the USPS tracking site until it reaches the states (cause forever reason tracking updates doesn't always comes through to it even though it's supposed to be globally connected). For that reason I usually always go to the shipping country's site by googling something like, in your example, "china ems tracking" which usually has a lot more details of what's happening from the shipping country's point of view.
Hope this gives you a bit more insight for that. I'm curious what that tracking show when using China's EMS tracking site compared to USPS.
Bro I love these videos. Me and my wife love watching these together. I can spot these scams from a mile away but I love seeing how it plays out when you actually buy this trash
They create the tracking number to try and fool the customer into thinking it was shipped in hopes it delays the amount of time it takes for them to make a claim probably with the hopes that the cash goes through and they can withdraw it before the account is forced to be refunded. They might even possibly try to close the account associated with the sale before the refund goes through so it becomes Amazon's loss and not the scam sellers... At least that's my guess.
Amazon should be held accountable for not vetting the sellers and how items are advertised on Amazon.
I think the fake sellers give tracking numbers to make refunds more complicated and the fake sellers try to time out the refund policy.
I purchased some inexpensive stuff from chin and the tracking number that I received was for domestic tracking. It does not update travel from china to the US
@@twin2482 there probably timing out the refund option
@@cliftonmassey3143 I don't worry about refunds since I only purchase a couple dollar items from china. Obvious, I don't trust it enough for $100 purchases.
I kept seeing the ads. So I looked them up at Walmart. They were on sale normally $199 but the sale price was $59. I rushed down to my store because they only had two left. When I was checking out it rang up for $25. I thought it was wrong so I had a manager check. And yes it was. They were just trying to get rid of them. So this scam got me a real pizza oven.
Dope
I am very lucky to have you in my subscribe list, I was just about to buy a laptop, but I watched this video, tried the FakeSpot extension and basically dodged a 900USD bullet. THANK YOU !
This reminds me of the time I order an $18 Bissell Crosswave lol. Also I miss the good old days where you could look at REAL reviews that weren't paid for.
They paid me to leave a review on a Bissell item once - I got the item for free for a review.
The plant with a solitary ornament made my day.
Be careful who you buy from period on the internet. My husband ordered me an animal crossing mini amiibo card set on Walmarts app, package never delivered to correct address, and when the USPS got involved, it wasn't even what was ordered. Walmart could never get a hold of the "seller" and we're still waiting for our money back 😑. Hell, we thought we were buying from Walmart.
I am bad about reading the whole page of a listing. But I should. Listings tell you where the product is coming from, and other information that you might wish you had known. Private sellers are a mixed bunch. It can mean a horrific shipping charge if you otherwise are an Amazon Prime member and should be getting free shipping. Be sure to read your final order before pushing "place order." I have caught many shipping charges on items I wanted because I didn't notice it was not eligible for Prime. Luckily, you can delete any product that does not qualify for Prime if you want to. In our haste and focus to find certain products, the third party seller thing is easy to overlook. Not all third party listings are scams, but many are. Beware of extra low prices! Also, many will make up for low price by charging a ton for shipping!
Hello
Your videos are incredibly enlightening. Ads on Amazon and social media get me so excited, and I end up with a hill of crap items.
This is the reason I always buy from the real retail stores in real life and rarely online.
Or I will find the website for the actual maker, and buy it from them directly. Either in person or online, I agree with you. Buying direct from seller is easier and there are less traps to avoid. :)
I totally agree, especially if it’s medication, vitamins, make-up, basically anything you consume or put on your skin. I’ve read about a lot of fakes being sold on Amazon , causing allergies and rashes on people.
And this is why I only buy products that’s being shipped and sold from Amazon if I’m using Amazon.
I had something similar happen to me this summer on Amazon. Found some nice shorts selling for $1 to $5 dollars. Got a few and went to buy and the total was over $100.00 dollars. The shipping and handling was over $ 30 dollars for them. Didn't buy
Hey Ben,
The other part of this is that the A to Z guarantee is backed by Amazon, not the seller. The fake tracking number is because Amazon releases funds to the seller after the product is shipped. So they can keep the money and Amazon reimburses
As a Chinese person, I am ashamed of what some of my people are doing. I hope Amazon steps up to this
I just want you to know how much I love your channel!!! ❤ I love your style of presenting information I look forward to the day you reach a million subs because you deserve way more subs to help get the message of fighting scammers out to the public. Thanks for being a valuable asset to fighting against scammers and all your colleagues !! Great work!!😊
wow.. and to think how many people blindly trust amazon...
In my opinion Amazon is complicit and should be held responsible.
Last week I ordered something from Amazon and it would arrive by the 16th. The day after I ordered I was looking at the item page and it said order within the next 5 hours and I would get it the same day. I considered canceling my original order and reordering it but decided I could wait. On the 16th it didn't arrive and Amazon gave me the option to cancel so I canceled and went to a local store and bought a similar version but it was at a higher price.
Oh man am I glad I saw this video when you first posted it because I was just about to buy a radeon 7900xt graphics card for $400 then I saw the name was some long ass name from China. I was so close to pressing complete order but this video saved me from falling for it. Thank you Ben!
I ordered a sofa bed and a pair of sunglasses turned up with that tracking number, it took over 8 weeks to arrive from paying to the glasses turning up. I got a refund eventually.
The problem was: You didn't pay enough shipping for the sofa bed so it was shipped on a rowboat with a small skinny Chinese guy with glasses (the glasses lower the sun's glare off the water). Takes weeks to cross the Pacific ocean like this, you know.
Unfortunately a bad storm came up mid ocean and sunk the rowboat. The poor glasses wearing skinny Chinese guy only had the floating sofa bed to hang onto for a few days, but alas, it became water logged and you know the rest, it sank.
Our even-poorer glasses wearing Chinese guy had to start paddling and again hit another bout of misfortune with a shiver of Tiger Sharks heading north. Its said the only thing the U.S. Coast Guard found and picked out of the water was a set of glasses and a shipping label to your house.
You should be ashamed of yourself!
See all the trouble you caused, all for the love of a sofa bed?!!
Oh, by the way, there's a help wanted sign outside the Chinese sofa bed factory.
Hai
I like pizza. But $700 for my own pizza oven? Guys, just order a good pizza.
i wish my mom would understand this. I can't tell you how many times shes complained to me about stuff like this.. and those facebook ads.. "but it was on facebook/amazon so it must be legit"
I know somebody like that, with the "information" found on Facebook. It's got to be true or Facebook wouldn't let you post it !?!
Hai
Ben, I have a serious health issue that means that I must depend upon multivitamins for the rest of my years.
I thought that I was being clever buying them in large quantities from what seemed like directly from the manufacturer's store front, on Amazon. However, months later my gums receded, my nails snapped and cracked, my lips were permanently dry, my hair fell out and became sparce.
I started feeling weak and under the weather. So, I changed my supplier and bought directly from a UK famous pharmacy - Boots the Chemist. Within, days I was feeling better.
I believe that I was seriously scammed into buying FAKE multi-vitamins. I am so upset as I now have some teeth with receded gum lines which are wobbly. It will cost me thousands of pounds to dentally correct.
I do not like the word ' hate,' because to me it means the same as 'murder' and 'death' but in this situation I believe it aptly applies.
Ben - much blessings to you and yours.
Amazon's customer support has always been pretty great with refunds for me. I once got scammed with the Pokemon TCG Sword/Shield UPC where I was sent the box but all of the cards were opened and all of the good cards and loot was already taken. Amazon's CS didn't even ask for proof, they just listened to my explanation and gave me a refund to buy another one from another seller.
This is has happened to me, and I fault my for lack diligence. Buying direct from Amazon is the best idea.
You should do more collab work with the other scambaiters. I can't get enough!
Who buys things without checking the seller???? You don't have to search, oh so much, on the page to find it and no one tries to hide it from you. It is always in the same place on the page. That's the first thing I check. If there is a chinese shop, I'll definitely not order. Just don't be lazy and gullible and everything works fine. And if you are lazy, you can chose Amazon as seller during your search and only products sold through Amazon will be shown. All this is common knowledge...
amazon is turning into a more professional version of wish lol
Looking at the reviews themselves is also always important because the seller I just bought a laptop from has 521 reviews, mostly 5 star, but a few standout 1 star ones... But when I look at them the complaints are about requiring someone to be home to collect the package. That's not worth 1 Star.
Thank you so much for getting scammed just for us 😂 Ben Dover is awesome 💪🏻
Hai
This sort of thing happened to me with a printer. The sellers link went to HP. I thought that was who I was purchasing from. The printer they sent me seemed to be a used and not new. So I returned it that same day. They kept $130 bucks or so for a "shipping fee". It was the store's return policy that was the reason they could keep my money for shipping out a used item instead of a new one. I spent $130 for the "privilege" of packing up their junk, standing in line, and ending up with no printer.
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This is why i try to avoid third party sellers where possible, always prefer amazon or FBA.
Hai
Hey! I encountered this same scam last year, with a terrace propane heater. It was on sale (through Prime too, funny enough) for $50 (they usually go for $300 or so). I ordered 2, knowing I would receive them… well, I actually received 2 heater covers! I contacted the seller, told him I understood his scam, and he gave me my full money back, plus let me keep the covers.
In your case, you’ll notice that there was an option for the pizza oven alone, or the oven with a digital infrared thermometer. They will likely send you a cheap $5 thermometer alone from China (pretty sure about that), and edit or delete their listing shortly after they completed the sale. If they get 1,000 clients to order (total $120,000 revenue), and only have 80% chargebacks (i.e. 20% not taking the time/energy to do so), they’ll still pocket $24,000 for a 1-time scam. So you see why they keep doing these!
If you want me to give you more details on these practices, I know quite a bit. Let me know, I’ll be more than happy to chat!
Everyone shopping on Amazon should be aware of the differences between 1) "Ships From *and* Sold by Amazon", 2) "Ships From Amazon, but SOLD by a 3rd-party seller", and 3) "Ships From *and* Sold by a 3rd-Party Seller." In the first two cases, Amazon's comprehensive refund & return policy applies, and returns are very straightforward. In the third case, it's vital to check the seller's feedback, as PG pointed out! A return always involves the 3rd-party seller, and you're often stuck "waiting for the seller to reply" to your return request. Then they'll often try to pull some crap like "replacement", "partial refund", etc. Just stand your ground and insist on a refund, if that's what you want. If they don't provide it, call Amazon customer service and they will take care of it. Alternatively, you can just wait and see what happens, i.e. see what comes by the alleged delivery date. If nothing arrives, just call Amazon customer service directly and they will handle the interaction with the seller. (Oh and btw - "social" media sucks 😒.)
Easy rule: Don't buy anything on Amazon unless it says "Sold by Amazon".
I started using Amazon very late. It's just not used as much in my country.
First I have to locate where the seller is, because import tax is a thing :/ and usually those sellers in China are shit...
After, I have to read reviews that give 5 stars but are negative or just reviews that doesn't state enough info 😐 OR IT'S FOR ANOTHER PRODUCT???
Too much effort for thigh high socks.
I don't understand why anyone would use this website if not for my reasons: couldn't find product elsewhere.
At least in a country where it's not widely used. I see Americans and Germans getting benefits that matter from having Amazon Prime!
For a company being international... It's really not. It's worth it for my reason or if you live somewhere where you can benefit from their perks.
(Very rarely I see this opinion. Mostly it's painted as "generally good but shit at times")
As long as Jeff Basos gets a percentage he doesn’t gaf
So just an Inside info (or a well known maybe for some).
You need only to put EAN to recognize the AMAZON as the product.
Its actually very well shown if its an amazon listing or a 3rd party seller.
So yeah.. items like that are on AMAZON.. but its easy to avoid actually if you just check for 5 secs on your right of the screen.
I am glad that Amazon has had my back in these kind of deals. I even got a free item and a refund once because of an intentional item description deception. Also, Amazon's warehouse sometimes makes mistakes. The customer service for Amazon does a great job of fixing these mishaps.
I usually like to go with the ole “If it sounds too good to be true… it is more then likely, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE”
Amazon has shifted the last several years into working with brands and focusing on products. They don’t value or care much about their 3rd party sellers who essentially built up their business. Now they allow anyone to sell and create accounts and use bots to weed them out. It is costly to both buyers and good sellers. I was one of the first invited into Amazon in ‘06 and I’m sad to see how it’s changed over the last 6-7 years.
Maybe it's just me but I always check the Ships from and Sold by before adding something to my cart.
Thank you for this video!! I fell for this late one night last summer except it was from the actual company website that the Chinese scammers somehow spoofed. PayPal would not refund me saying it was legit 🙄 Had to make a claim through my credit card company linked to my PayPal...I have since cancelled PayPal over this ordeal and their lack of support. I got a tracking number as well that eventually said the stove was delivered INSIDE my parcel box. If this was the actual pizza oven it would never fit inside a tiny parcel box. I don't know how they managed that scam because nothing was actually ever delivered??? This was the scammiest scam I've ever been scammed by and a big lesson learned!
And this is why I hardly ever buy off Amazon anymore. I used to buy stuff off then all the time years ago. Now I'm back to mostly buying at local stores it's just to much trouble to weed out the Amazon scammers.
Amazon needs to get their damn house in order.
I learned something interesting from your video. Thanks!!! I just had something similar happen. I bought something that had a really great price, about $20-30 less than the other listings for the same thing. It wasn't a prime item so I knew the shipping would take longer. and I was ok with that. Finally, I got the delivery notice. When I went to pick up the package the UPS store didn't have anything for me. I showed them the Amazon page for my orders and the delivery notice. My son thought to Google the tracking number and it showed up in the China Post tracking. It showed there as delivered as well. And at the exact same time as the Amazon notice showed. However... It also had a bit more information. It was saying that my package was delivered to the Post Office in Palmer, Alaska!!! And I live in the Southeast, nowhere near Alaska. I ended up talking to someone at Amazon and after being transferred through 4 different people/departments I was issued a refund to my account which showed up within about 30 minutes.
And when I asked the last person at Amazon I talked to if the seller was going to be allowed to continue selling she said that the seller had a record of doing this and she was going to send a recommendation to pull them from selling to the appropriate department. (I can't remember what she called it.)
I learned a lesson from Facebook, I ordered this thing called RAD-VCR , where are you can record your VHS tapes to DVD, $299 gone, total scam, I felt like an idiot. Oh yeah, it still hasn’t gotten here in 18 months.
I have a similar story, a few months back I ordered some garage shelves for extremely cheap. About $30 for a item that cost from average $50-$80. Never got mine it was from a Chinese seller/shipper as well. Mine said out for delivery and I was waiting patiently in my living room by my door and boom says delivered. Opened my door and nothing was there. Thankfully I had a ring as well to check. I was at least able to get a refund which was pretty easy but I can see how someone who may not be to savy may not request for one.
Thank you. I just purchased an item like this from Amazon just hours before. Then I saw this video and sure enough it was shipping from China with a long weird Chinese name. I was able to cancel my order before it shipped. Saved me $80.
Those sellers are shameless. I also had to report multiple Amazon sellers selling my business partner's photography or our designs on various items without permission and Amazon needs a proof for who owns the rights to the original artwork
Thank you so much for the warning. Checking the seller is a great habit to get into.
Thank you for making this, I just called into Amazon to report a similar scam with a elf on the shelf kit that I’ve been having similar red flags with especially the mystery tracking number and never heard of the tracking service that they’re using so I just canceled the item, it’s scary this is happening on there but then again I’m not very surprised. But thank you for making everyone aware👍👍
Ohhh they said I can’t get a refund until the magical delivery date on December 13 because they want you to forget like you said in video how interesting 😅what a joy this is lol
A few years ago, I ordered a mini refrigerator and then looked it up and saw that it was a scam. I requested a refund from my bank and got it immediately. A bunch of people ordered it and it wasn’t that much cheaper, so it was not obvious. First time I ordered anything and now I know. A good lesson.