Drop shipping
In case anyone is searching for information on something similar, there is a scam going around at the moment where Ebay drop shippers are selling for below your RRP on Amazon, then claiming refunds.
Firstly this refers to a D2C product that we sell, RRP £9.99 via prime. Our brand is trademarked, and this product does well. Two months or so ago, our product suddenly jumped massively in refunds being initiated by Amazon. This is not an easy product to damage and all refunds seemed to be for items not received. This item fits through a letterbox.
We've been having terrible trouble with refunds, all to odd buyer names, who have sent a "gift" to a different address. To try and counteract this, we reported to Amazon - didn't really get anywhere, but also reported the sellers to Ebay. Ebay does take the listings down, but the sellers just put them straight back up again.
We decided to open an Ebay shop and sell for RRP, ie below what the drop shippers can sell for. However one drop shipper then changed their price to £1 below RRP. At this point I wondered did they have stolen property in their possession as they wouldn't be making any money buying at a higher price from Amazon. I had a family member order from them on Ebay to get a better idea.
The item was received from Amazon, with amazon's paperwork and a slip saying it was a gift. Two days later the same name on the gift cert receives a full refund from Amazon, not only for this item, but for another "gift" item to someone else. My family member's name was on the order for delivery address.
On looking back with a fine tooth comb through my refunds for the last few months, 70% of them are to odd names, ie double letters where they shouldn't be, back to front names etc. and for "gifts" to a different delivery address. We believe there's a team of people at this so that any one person doesn't get penalised for too many refunds.
Just to make anyone else on here wondering about their refunds rising aware.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
Sadly, scammers will stop at nothing, and are becoming more and more 'clever' in their cons.
Seller_Fg2fqaWOnEtha
As they are paying nothing for the products, they can afford to sell them for not very much. As the orders have Amazon packaging and paperwork and some eBay customers boycott Amazon by choice and might be upset to receive their orders from them.
I wouldn't call them dropshippers, as dropshipping can be a proper business model, if done properly. For instance, if you are selling furniture it makes more financial and environmental sense to dropship straight from the manufacturer and avoid one journey. But you must have an agreement with the manufacturer. These people are scammers.
Seller_ae51e0CJoHqCX
It is sad that this is something Amazon need to work on with sellers and should be happy when they receive this sort of information and be all over it.
I run checks on my refunds through FBA and thankfully I don't get that many and is consistent with the amount of claims I get directly.
I seem to have more issues with Amazon writing to customers to tell them that the order is delayed and giving opportunity for them to make a claim.
Thanks for posting though, it is useful to be aware of what can happen and for us to try and be ahead of the game.
Seller_Fg2fqaWOnEtha
Actually, I bought some bicarbonate from eBay last weekend and received yesterday from a Prime guy with Prime packaging and paperwork. The box was badly packaged and damaged and part of the powder had escaped. I am not complaining that the box is damaged because I wanted to give it as a present (like some of my customers claim) but because part of the content was all over the place.
The reason I buy from eBay is that I am trying to avoid Amazon Prime as much as I can because of their poor delivering practices and here we go; I pay more, wait longer and I still get a damaged box. What's going on here?
Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM
I don't think I would want to be your friend! :)
