Octascammers

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Just a heads up for the elektronauts community; someone’s pulling a fast one on reverb selling cheap octatracks. I’ve seen the same gray octatrack sell 4 times in the past week, same description from different owners. It’s always 600 or under, with a description “beautiful condition octatrack, which to my eyes is almost immaculate. I’m struggling to find a mark on the top and sides”.

The person will yank your money, then state they didn’t sell it, and attach a UPS tracking number to your hometown. I’m wrestling with reverb and PayPal as we speak. The one in question used a medical supply run to a hospital near me as proof of delivery.

Just a warning, as I’ve seen this multiple times on reverb over the past few days. I’ve flagged this, but not had a response yet.

Cheers, and stay safe guys.

PS:
I am unsure if this post is against community guidelines, if it is, the moderator team is more than welcome to remove this post. This is not a witch hunt, hence me not sharing seller names, more a friendly warning!

EDIT: UPDATE FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO’S STRUGGLING WITH THIS

PayPal have closed my case twice, despite me getting email confirmation from the medical company and UPS that this was delivered to a hospital.

It looks like PayPal require a specific document; a proof of delivery certificate PDF from UPS with a UPS letter head. I obtained this information from PayPal support on the phone. If you speak to UPS support, they should be able to send this to you.

Without this specific document, you can’t tell where the object in question has been delivered, it will only be marked as your home town. With the POD, you should have access to the signer’s name and the address of delivery. Forward this to PayPal after opening a dispute, and you might get somewhere.

If your dispute is already closed, phone PayPal support and try to talk to them about your PayPal credit account. Explain what has happened and you will get forwarded to the dispute department. From here you can reopen your case instead of the phone-robot ever so helpfully telling you to open a dispute and hanging up on you.

EDIT 2:

The above steps worked for me and I have received my full refund from PayPal. If it happens to you, I’d strongly advise following the above steps if you have payed using PayPal Credit. I’ve learned that section 75 under UK law does not apply to PayPal credit. You may be better advised to use a credit card such as American Express, or one from your bank, as you will obtain additional protection.

47 Likes
#2

Saw that myself, thought it looked a bit fishy.

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#3

They changing countries/cities with each listing?

#4

I can only imagine someone spending years deliberating whether to get one or not. Then being sucker punched just as you thought you had one for a bargain. Your musical soul would be destroyed.

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#5

I saw that it sold very quickly then appeared the next day. I may arrange local pickup and extract the industry standard seven shades of shite out of the seller.

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#6

I wouldn’t try to beat them at their livelihood, (scamming), they know how Paypal and Reverb “work” for them in ways that we should hopefully never have to.

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#7

I’ve tracked their delivery, identified the fake seller, confirmed the delivery is sent from a medical firm, confirmed it was not for me.

PayPal should have my back on this. If they don’t, I’m going to repeatedly open the case till I get enough information to send this fucker to jail.

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#8

Bruh, you have no idea.

Even worse; it happened twice to me with a black one, then a grey one. I’m devastated.

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#9

They’re changing cities per listing, however almost all of them are UK based.

1 Like
#10

So the seller referenced a valid tracking number, but it wasn’t the Octatrack – it was actually the tracking number for a delivery of medical supplies? Did I get that right? That’s clever (and evil, of course). So you’re watching this tracking and it’s saying it’s going to your city, so you don’t think anything is wrong until it’s at the destination.

I wonder if they have access to tracking numbers or if they’re just guessing them. I guess you could punch in random tracking numbers until you find the buyer’s home town, but that sounds tedious and like it could take all day. Maybe there’s some connection between the scammer to the medical supplier?

This is why I use a credit card for online purchases. I would simply dispute the charge and let my credit card company, PayPal, and reverb figure it out.

4 Likes
#11

Hey lowph, yeah that’s exactly what’s happened, apologies if I wasn’t clear whilst typing out the OP.

I strongly believe that someone at UPS is doing this, they would have access to audit logs/tracking number lookup to enhance their scam and make it look more believable. If UPS support hadn’t let slip that it was shipped from P3Medical I would never have found this out.

I phoned P3Medical, spoke to the person who creates the shipping labels, confirmed that this was a medical delivery. They suspect someone on the supply line has stolen the tracking number for their scam.

I’ve provided all this evidence to UPS for an internal investigation (bit hopeful, but if they have someone committing fraud at the company they’ll investigate I’d think), and to reverb/PayPal. I’m awaiting the dispute.

3 Likes
#12

I also always do this. When you use credit it’s the CC company money that got lost, not yours, so they will fight for it. When it links to your bank account, a la debit or PP, it’s essentially your money and good luck getting a bank to fight for it on your behalf.

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#13

Good advice. Do you know if this is also included with PayPal credit? (this is how I payed for the 4kg box of… Non existant medical goodies?)

#14

I saw this listing pop up yesterday on Reverb. Then quickly disappear. Looked too good to be true.

Sorry you got scammed, OP. Would have happened to me, too.

#15

I suppose I would assume so if it is a true credit system with no links to your bank account. I have no experience with PP credit though, and even with that advice it’s more a general statement from my own experience.

#16

https://www.paypal.com/uk/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-dispute-a-paypal-credit-charge-faq2911

OP, what country are you in? Apparently the first hit on my search for “PayPal credit dispute charge” was for the UK. I’m guessing you’re in the UK from your use the if word “whilst”

#17

Tracking numbers aren’t private, they likely have access through some vector or other. You can likely “buy” access for a cent or two through darknet markets.

#18

Yeah, they’re not private, but finding one that fits the scam could take too long if punching random numbers in manually.

Of course, they could use the UPS tracking API and just script it out. Depending on the limits they have on API request rates, it could be trivial to find a number that fits the scam… Just hit the API a bunch, loop over the results and search a couple fields. Could be minutes.

1 Like
#19

Report it to the police as well - it’s fraud.

#21

Police really aren’t interested in “internet crime” beyond their jurisdiction, even if you can identify the persons involved, so set expectations low :stuck_out_tongue:

As a warning, it’s easy to fight with chargebacks if you’re paying directly, but if you’re using Paypal and you charge back after they find out of favor for you, Paypal has been known to send collections agencies after you.

Losing your Paypal account is one thing, but having dings on your credit score you need to address is another potential downside for this.

1 Like