Ebay fraud - Datron 4910 - Voltage reference

[SilverSolder]

Shamelessly "researched" from https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

I have never seen a computer system which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere.

So, as a public service, I’m going to list assumptions your systems probably make about names.  All of these assumptions are wrong.  Try to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.

    People have exactly one canonical full name.
    People have exactly one full name which they go by.
    People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
    People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
    People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
    People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
    People’s names do not change.
    People’s names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
    People’s names are written in ASCII.
    People’s names are written in any single character set.
    People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
    People’s names are case sensitive.
    People’s names are case insensitive.
    People’s names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those.
    People’s names do not contain numbers.
    People’s names are not written in ALL CAPS.
    People’s names are not written in all lower case letters.
    People’s names have an order to them.  Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
    People’s first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
    People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared by folks recognized as their relatives.
    People’s names are globally unique.
    People’s names are almost globally unique.
    Alright alright but surely people’s names are diverse enough such that no million people share the same name.
    My system will never have to deal with names from China.
    Or Japan.
    Or Korea.
    Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have “weird” naming schemes in common use.
    That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
    Confound your cultural relativism!  People in my society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
    There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly.  (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the input.  You get a gold star.)
    I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it.
    People’s names are assigned at birth.
    OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
    Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
    Five years?
    You’re kidding me, right?
    Two different systems containing data about the same person will use the same name for that person.
    Two different data entry operators, given a person’s name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if the system is well-designed.
    People whose names break my system are weird outliers.  They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.
    People have names.

This list is by no means exhaustive.  If you need examples of real names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I will happily introduce you to several.

LOL so many traps for young players!

The thing that has always worked for me is to just assume that a "name" is any characters the user is able to enter into the field.

So if you want to be known as the Ascii(7) character, be my guest! 

[Cerebus]

Attempting to get a driver's license in the US, I ran into the problem that the DMV wouldn't accept my social security card...  because the name on the card was truncated compared to the passport.  Reason:  the social security card has a limitation on the number of characters it can have in the name field, so they shortened it down...   (It eventually got resolved but a supervisor had to be called over to talk sense into the clerk.)

Hah, I can surely relate to that. I have four names/surnames and a preposition in the middle. Try to fit that into First Name, Middle Initial and Last Name.

That's how "Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Grecia" ends up in a database somewhere as "Mr. Phillip A King" or if he's lucky as "Mr. Felipe A King". 

[try]

Hello all,

the fraudsters are back:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/224375502875?ul_noapp=true

I just notified Ebay.

"Und samstags grüßt das Murmeltier!".

[ScoobyDoo]

Hello Folks,

These gangsters always hack ebay accounts based in UK (or Germany) while goods are located in US.

Best regards
ScoobyDoo

Further reading:
https://www.watchuseek.com/threads/has-anyone-ever-bought-a-watch-from-ebay-rednose125-aka-pw-shop-live.5280656/

[picburner]

Just stopped on a store but they immediately start hacking another store....
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143970076038
.....flooding it with thousands of bogus adverts.

[Kean]

I am suprised eBay don't have something to detect and block email addresses in listing images.

[try]

Picburner, thanks for letting me know. I just called Ebay up.

@Kean, as the gear is not real Ebay does not incure dammage - only their customers.

[Kean]

Picburner, thanks for letting me know. I just called Ebay up.

@Kean, as the gear is not real Ebay does not incure dammage - only their customers.

Of course it damages eBay.  Any fraud on their platform damages their reputation.  And they have to pay staff to deal with the angry customers or hacked merchants, or to deal with our reports of these fake listings.

[try]

What about flash flooding the sellers expressing our buying interest and starting to negotiate the price? 

[try]

Fresh fakes anybody?

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Datron-Wavetek-4910-DC-Voltage-Reference-Standard/174670764477

Datrons grow like weed. 

[SilverSolder]

What about flash flooding the sellers expressing our buying interest and starting to negotiate the price? 

Flash flooding eBay with complaints about the listings is likely to be more effective!

[SilverSolder]

Fresh fakes anybody?

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Datron-Wavetek-4910-DC-Voltage-Reference-Standard/174670764477

Datrons grow like weed. 

"Wir haben überall gesucht.  Anscheinend existiert diese Seite nicht. Für weitere Hilfe besuchen Sie unsere Hilfeseiten."

Nice work! 

[LazyJack]

I just can't fathom why these scams work. Because they work, otherwise they would not be popping up every day. Apparently there are enough stupid people to fall for these.

[SilverSolder]

Even a smart person can fall for a scam of some kind, if you are busy/preoccupied with something else.

That's why scammers should be tarred and feathered, and mounted on spikes in prominent areas of the city, pour encourager les autres!

[tggzzz]

Even a smart person can fall for a scam of some kind, if you are busy/preoccupied with something else.

Very true.

One of the first programmers who helped create the first commercial computer, Mary Berners-Lee, fell victim to a scam. You may have heard of her son.

[picburner]

They started again, this time not on the weekend, and they changed the kind of items for sale.
I found them by chance and already reported them to eBay, so the link may soon no longer exist.
www.ebay.com/itm/284213852508

Edit: eBay took about 3 hours from my referral to remove the scam listing but left all other fake listings in the same shop :
https://www.ebay.com/usr/antcar_neave5qg

Edit2: finally now, after 8 hours, they have cleaned up the whole shop.

[ScoobyDoo]

This morning we found multiple fraudulent listings in "HP 3458A" and "KEITHLEY 2002 DMM" groups on Flebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Hewlett-Packard-3458A-Agilent-Digital-Multimeter-8-8-5-Digits-w-Option-2/184708117830?hash=item2b01763546:m:mRyjOnTZ44ZBgmkOm-Zbu1g

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Keithley-2002-Multimeter-8-12-Digit-DMM-2000-SCAN-10-Channel-Scanner-Card/193953239291?hash=item2d288390fb:m:mTqi6aG5_7sE5wcr0udcO8g

They changed their name from "pawnstore" to "ebshop" ...

[SilverSolder]

This morning we found multiple fraudulent listings in "HP 3458A" and "KEITHLEY 2002 DMM" groups on Flebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Hewlett-Packard-3458A-Agilent-Digital-Multimeter-8-8-5-Digits-w-Option-2/184708117830?hash=item2b01763546:m:mRyjOnTZ44ZBgmkOm-Zbu1g

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Keithley-2002-Multimeter-8-12-Digit-DMM-2000-SCAN-10-Channel-Scanner-Card/193953239291?hash=item2d288390fb:m:mTqi6aG5_7sE5wcr0udcO8g

They changed their name from "pawnstore" to "ebshop" ...

Hehe it is kind of funny how you are stalking the bad guys.  Make them work for their money!   

[ScoobyDoo]

A few hours later today they were back again - but apparently these SCAMMERS are active in lots of listings for Metrology gear ...

I start to believe these are regular EEVBLOG visitors ...

eBAY should grey out "auction" bullet in Metrology section - that would help

More EE members should flag these fraudulent SCAMMERs so they go elsewhere ...

[Kean]

Yep, earlier today I came across listings with this new ebstore contact detail on hacked accounts "gkrepairs", "katestore", and "mimamodparis".  All reported a few hours ago, but so far they've only removed listings from the first and last ones.  I think those stores are in UK, USA, and FR respectively, so reports are probably handled by different teams in different timezones.

I start to believe these are regular EEVBLOG visitors ...
eBAY should grey out "auction" bullet in Metrology section - that would help

They list a wide range of products of high value.  I think high end test gear is just one area, there are also watches, bicycles, guitars, and machinery.  As they keep listing the same items each time, they keep appearing in my searches and getting reported.  The prices are way too low to be genuine, and then you see the image with contact details each time.

[ScoobyDoo]

They are active in KS oscilloscope section too - e.g. this is an auction

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-MDO4104-6-4-Channel-1GHz-Mixed-Domain-Oscilloscope/274718753738?hash=item3ff68383ca%3Am%3AmMU-ZjWrQ0QzqrC3KaSqzRg&LH_Auction=1

[SilverSolder]

They are active in KS oscilloscope section too - e.g. this is an auction

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-MDO4104-6-4-Channel-1GHz-Mixed-Domain-Oscilloscope/274718753738?hash=item3ff68383ca%3Am%3AmMU-ZjWrQ0QzqrC3KaSqzRg&LH_Auction=1

The listing has already been removed - maybe eBay will get used to the fact that we will be complaining every time, so it is easier for them to just block the scammers! 

We should do the same with not-as-described components (fake components), get the sellers used to saying "Used Components" instead, and not waste time remarking them!

[ScoobyDoo]

Folks - the impostors were back this morning - five nine twelve listings using stolen pictures under auction in 3458A section

Hopefully they will be removed very soon ...

It would be good if some Voltnuts check out ebay every Saturday morning and report these fraudulent listings to Fleepay.

They also change their modus operandi - they invite people to divert to their fake website:

https://www.ebay.com.4953236.com/CT/A81.html

[mansaxel]

  A good CIVIL lawsuit and a substantial financial judgement against them (and their ISP and anyone else connected to them) by E-bay and/or PayPal would soon put an end to this kind of business.

Shooting the messenger is what dictators and media industry lawyers practice.  Sensible people might think twice.

"mere conduit"

[tggzzz]

  A good CIVIL lawsuit and a substantial financial judgement against them (and their ISP and anyone else connected to them) by E-bay and/or PayPal would soon put an end to this kind of business.

Shooting the messenger is what dictators and media industry lawyers practice.  Sensible people might think twice.

"mere conduit"

If only it was that clear cut and simple.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_v_Demon_Internet_Service