Quoted from MikeS:
You may actually get a real BM66, but it would be because of triangulation fraud:
Triangulation fraud
This is one of the most common and simplest types of fraud that is currently happening at this level. Mostly because it is not only simple, but safe for the fraudsters. They start by setting up a reseller account on eBay or Amazon and post ads to sell legitimate goods. When a customer buys an item from them on these sites, the money goes into their personal account. Then they take that order information to another retailer which sells the same item, buy the item using stolen credit card data, and has it shipped to the address on the original customer that is expecting it. If the authorities follow up, they head to the home of the innocent party as the fraudster makes off with the money.
https://www.radial.com/insights/understanding-triangulation-fraud
Hmm, I think this is exactly what I fell prey to a few years ago. But it wasn't anything so blatantly obvious as an $89 pinball machine!
My wife always wanted a nice KitchenAid mixer. I'd watched them long enough to know they almost never go on sale. Christmastime 2014 (or 2015) rolls around and Ebay promotes aggressive "deals" on their home page - you know the kind - which occasionally highlight KitchenAid mixers. But of course the ones specifically highlighted in eBay's homepage promotion aren't the nicer model / color combo my wife wants. Still, the deals are decent for what they are so I continue to check over the next couple weeks, expand search terms, etc...
…Eventually the Model / Color my wife wants shows up at a sizeable discount. Not something obscene like a $50 total, but more like a $400 marked to $250 or something like that - still almost entirely unheard of, but just plausibly reasonable (30% off, given other ebay / Xmas / black Friday promotions...?) to not seem entirely alarming.
Yet some red flags were apparent to me: 1) the items were marked "to be" in stock; 2) The seller was relatively new with minimal feedback; 3) There were several model / color combos available... but the seller had NO other items (what, they specialize in mixers, only now)? It was enough to give me pause. I even joked with friends that given the seller's New Jersey location, the mixers were probably "scheduled to fall off a truck". BUT legit surplus / overstock / liquidation / repo / black-Friday-discount merchandising works in all sort of random ways, by which this one seemed plausible enough as a "really unusual if not obviously criminally insane" deal, so I placed an order *using my credit card not paypal*.
I received a tracking number. And I even received the exact mixer I ordered, ahead of time! Brand new in a perfect box... labeled as shipped from a Kohl's (in TX, more on that later), not some rando in New Jersey. To an unknown name with my address.
Uh-Oh.
I did some sleuthing on the name and shipping label - it was a person some 60 miles away. I was able to decipher the KOHL's order number on the label, which led to a *different* person and Kohl's store account based in TX. Nothing made logistical sense, so it was then apparent to me that I'd become involved in some kind of scam, but I didn't understand precisely how, since all I did was pay for and get what I ordered?
I thought about contacting the individuals and/or Kohl's directly but didn't want to be mistaken as the one directly responsible for scamming them. So I instead called the Police and my Credit Card company. The police came to the house and took my statement and info but left the merch "for now" pending investigation, since they were similarly confused. I explained to the CC that I might have inadvertently compromised my own account number and advised them of the police investigation, so they canceled my card number and sent a new one. Not knowing if the police would come get the merch or follow with Kohl's or what, I told the CC I wasn't sure what to do with the mixer... they said to keep it and after an investigation on their end, they actually refunded it (!)
But I still had the mixer! Which was "tainted" as "quasi-stolen goods" in my opinion, so I really didn't want anything to do with it. My wife inevitably heard the fallout over my attempted gift so the "surprise" was ruined. [Fortunately I found an identical mixer on the Amazon Outlet that was like new but needed a switch repaired, discounted about the same (see, my pricing ideas weren't so out of line!). Amazon further discounted it after they botched the shipping, and the switch was easy to fix, so I came out alright on my original intent for even less money, oddly enough].
As for the scam: later another random package arrived, again from Kohl's, to a random name. This time the police took it (it was small). But they never took the mixer. So we donated that to a charity auction. I figured that was the best outcome of a messy situation with possibly tainted goods. Fortunately we received no other packages.
The ebay account was canceled after a few weeks - from feedback left up until then, I was actually one of the "lucky" ones who got a mixer.
The police in my small town were/are obviously too busy to be bothered with issues of petty interstate commerce - as the officer told me then.
In the end I got lucky / came out ahead / paid it forward, but the old adage rings: if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. I felt foolish for falling for it, but still say it seemed plausible enough; nonetheless, my spidey-sense said to take appropriate measures which proved to be correct.
If you're going to take the bait on chance, make sure to protect yourself.