Possible fraud

David, it's good to be on your guard all the time. Did the seller have automatic payment instructions, or have they emailed you with payment instructions? Have you paid? if so was it by internet banking or did you use one of the Buyer protection payment methods ie Ping or Afterpay? Are they a regular seller or more of a buyer? Have a good look at the email address in case it has something that looks not right eg an extra full stop or spelling mistake and maybe email again.

You could also place feedback now and you can change it later, asking the seller to please check their emails as you have had emails to them returned with no such address.

Depends on answers to these questions as to what to do next really.

Thx, they have been registered since 2001, but no sales since 2012, and no purchases since 2017. No negative feedback on their account.

The only email I've received is from TM for confirmation of the sale.

The only payment method was bank transfer, none of the protected methods (although due to fees I kind of understand that choice.

I'll give them another day to make contact.

Is there an escrow type of payment service where I can pay the purchase but it is not released if the goods are not delivered ?

I'd be inclined to wait as they may be away for the weekend or out doing something. As their email is bouncing back they probably haven't received an email from Trademe advising of the sale either, so it may rely on them checking in to Trademe to see. There used to be a Trademe escrow system called Safetrader where the money was held until the goods were delivered and buyer happy, but that was stopped a few years ago.

From announcements....

SafeTrader has closed

Yeah, a busy time of the year and also it is an xtra email address. My recollection is that Spark changed email back ends a few years ago so maybe the trader has forgotten to update stuff and the email address registered with TM is dead.

Unfortunately they do not have anything else for sale, otherwise I'd give them a reminder via the Q&A section of their other auction.

Although it says they are an authenticated member. How often is that reconfirmed, and is it just via a physical letter  or also via email ?

Authenticated simply means they have paid some money in to their account at some stage. Once that's done, you are authenticated for life. Address verified is no longer offered to regular members so if a member shows Address verified, it was done some time ago and is not updated at all. New special members can still manually get address verified though eg if a bricks & mortar store opened an account here and listed 1,000 items.

I've just search expired listings and found the same auction (same words and a subset of same pictures) on a TM auction from a brand new seller in Aus that closed in Nov.

So the auction I won is https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/building-renovation/tools/power-tools/saws/listing/4470599554?archive=1&bof=SADRYoxr

And the other one is https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/building-renovation/tools/power-tools/accessories-consumables/listing/4401641565?archive=1&bof=GZybhsL0

So I will definitely not be sending any money their way. Either one of these, or both are dodgy as heck.

(Edited by Trade Me to remove inappropriate language)

Many people with xtra and yahoo email accounts abandoned them years ago when they had multiple hacking issues. For a long time member but seldom trading it's most likely they just haven't updated their email address on here. I often get buyers with xtra or yahoo accounts that bounce. With automatic login to Trade Me they simply don't realise their email account is an old inactve one.

But still, if you have that gut feeling, it's good to trust it. One thing I like to do if I'm not feeling confident is tell the seller I would like to collect the item and ask for an address and phone number(s). If you know someone in their location you can ask them to collect on your behalf. Even if you don't actually intend to collect or ask someone to you could call the provided number and check out the address. There are ways to crossmatch the address with the name. Especially if they are a home owner. Then say you changed your mind and are happy to go for shipping if everything seems legit. 

But obviously all that stuff can only occur once you have made contact with the seller somehow.

Thanks Callum. I think a little more checking out is justified.

A reverse image search did not return anything obvious.

Kia Ora David,

As this is highly suspect for you, you can clear the Trade with a TradeMe staff member, who you can contact through "Live Chat" for instant assistance here.

 - Cheers.

S. The previous removed auction was a completely different seller, now disabled, and listed in Australia. Something strange happening here for sure. Sometimes people do steal others genuine listing details and photos to make a fake listing.

Cheers Callum, - I didn't explore, 

Well worth reporting in to TM here!

So I got two emails from the seller yesterday, from a different email domain but the user bit on the left was the same as the xtra email address, so probably the same person. The first asked me to deposit the money into a westpac account, followed by another 3 hours later saying "should I wait for the payment, if not feel free to cancel".

I replied saying "he" needed to update his email address in TM and that I would get a friend to collect and asked for the address. So far there is no reply from the seller but a request from TM this morning saying the seller has asked for a refund of the fees as the trade is not going ahead.
I have declined that as I would like to complete the trade.  The funny thing is when I submit the answer to TM I get a 500 error (slipped up), which is the same as when I click on his feedback icon. 

Has he blocked me ?

I will contact TM to see what they advise.

Hi David. the 501 error is because the member has been banned or they closed their account themselves. I know it's not a very helpful error message. I would say you dodged a bullet here.

It's sounding more and more like the original genuine members account was hacked, and a scammer has taken it over and listed item(s) for sale that don't actually exist.

Usually TM are pretty quick in emailing to warn you not to complete the trade in these cases. So perhaps the only surprising thing here is that you haven't already been contacted by Trade Me.  If you did want to contact them they could definitely advise you if it was safe to proceed or not.

Thx Callum. It is a 500 error (not sure if that is significant). It happens when I try to submit the "fees refund" request, or click on the sellers feedback. If I click on their name I get a page saying they have no listings.

Yes sorry 500 banana error. They're gone burgers. The only way the account could become live again is if the legitimate account owner gets in contact with Trade Me and re-secures their account. 

About the only interaction you can have now is viewing their feedback, but to do that you will have to leave them feedback first. 

I sent a copy of my previous email (using the email account I use everyday - not gmail) via gmail. Here's his response. Very sketchy. Is that really his name.

And that response came in a 3:10am this morning.

TM have responded to me in a very generic way asking for more details.

Now this bit is where I get a bit grumpy. If I try to view the sellers feedback I get a stupid banana error with no hint given as to what has happened* So no visibility and no warning apart from what looks like a problem with the TM site. In the meantime I could have decided to go ahead with this trade and deposited the $2k into the provided bank account - and never seen the $ or the goods again.

So instead I decided to dig a bit more, logged into BidBud, clicked onto my trade and then clicked on the sellers feedback (via bid bud link). Now I'm getting somewhere ... clicking the link

shows

Why did TM not send me a warning to say be cautious about proceeding as we have disabled the account of this member. Note it has not been closed as it can still be seen.

I think I might play along as the dumb victim for a bit longer to see if I can discover a bit more about this fraudster.

* Note that I could view the feedback before the sale as I knew when the seller had last had feedback placed both buying (201) and selling (2012).

I have now checked the original email address on https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Yes, compromised 5 times. So my guess is an inactive TM account has been hacked (same password as the hacked xtra account) and then used to create a fake listing.

Their original email was

Thanks for winning my auction.

Please deposit payment (including shipping) into my bank account:

04-2021-0102320-96 NZD

Thanks for your purchase and please remember to place feedback.

Kind regards,

Nabil

So I've looked up the first two parts (bank and branch) and it is some ANZ Institutional branch.

My guess is a Wise account or similar.  I will now need to report this through to ANZ and Wise

Hi David. As per my post up there somewhere, you can view their feedback if you leave them some. It's probably only for interest sake now as Trade Me have disabled the account.

Thanks Callum, their feedback was okay when I checked it (prior to purchase when I could read it). TM have confirmed the account has been disable. My problem with them is they did not alert me to that - I could have paid the scammer in the interim. Also their stupid 500 error indicates an internal problem with the site, when it is nothing of the sort - it is as much use as 418 "I'm a teapot" response.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/418

Unfortunately TM was sold to a money grubbing investment fund a few years back, which has resulted in fee hikes and staff cuts to pay the "yield" the investors want. Kiwis get screwed over as a result.

Hi David, unfortunately I was the victim of this and did actually pay the seller (quite a large amount of money). Just 2 nights ago. Different email address/account though. Funny enough, the same exact bank account. I’m wondering how you got on with contacting Wise and ANZ? I’m having trouble getting in contact with Trademe at the moment in regards to this (joys of Xmas time).

Hi all, I have just yesterday afternoon fallen victim to a hijacked account scam. Unfortunately I have a tendency to wrap things up in the transaction department promptly and hence my funds are gone (to the tune of $2800). What a ding dong I am. I contacted my bank in the wee hours and filed a police report this morning but  I'm not optimistic. All I got from TradeMe was an "URGENT Do not complete the transaction" message this morning (too late as I figured it out for myself the middle of the night) and have tried to follow up with them but it is seemingly impossible to reach anybody there for assistance. And no, I didn't use PING so I'm screwed I imagine - it was a bank transfer to a BNZ account. Silly me, I was a bit frantic yesterday and made the purchase in haste so it is on me. But please be careful everyone and if sellers won't support PING it ain't worth it eh.

Hi Mitchell. Sorry to hear that, and yes, many people learn the Ping lesson the hard way!

All is not lost. Having those bank details and the Police report is probably your best chance here. It's pretty much impossible to open a bank account in New Zealand using false details. So those bank details will link to a real person. Simple phone call from the Police to the bank to get the ID on the account holder. Perhaps the tricky part is actually getting the Police to be interested. You might have to hound them a bit and the wheels can turn very slowly. In the past they tended to eyeroll a bit when you mentioned TradeMe or facebook scam. Hopefully things have changed.

Thanks Callum for your kind response, it's appreciated. Mitch