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  Geebo 9:00 am on November 18, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: luxury items ( 3 ), marketplace app, payment app ( 17 ), Scams ( 1,219 ), Zelle ( 62 )   

  Even upscale sites can have scams 

  

  There are a handful of marketplace websites that only deal in high-end goods. We’re talking about brands like Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, Coach, and Chanel among others. Many singles items from these brands can cost you a few thousand dollars even if the item is pre-owned. You might think that such a posh marketplace may be free of scams but you’d be mistaken.

  Recently in Ohio, a woman found a purse for sale on one of these marketplaces that she wished to purchase. The listing said to text the seller. The seller texted the woman back telling her to send $375 through the Zelle payment app. As you can probably surmise, the woman never received the purse and the seller made off with the money.

  In the platform’s defense, this is not how payments are supposed to work. These high-end marketplaces work almost like eBay. You make the payment through the platform itself rather than to the seller directly. This way, there are certain protections afforded to the buyer if the item is not delivered. If a seller directs you to make payment off of the platform, it’s almost guaranteed to be a scam.

  Also, for the marketplace and the items they sell, $375 sounds like an amazing deal for the items that are sold there. If an item online is being sold for well below market value it’s possible that it’s either counterfeit or it doesn’t exist at all.

  Speaking of counterfeits, that’s another danger you have to worry about when dealing with high-end goods like these. There are probably more fakes than the real deal online. These counterfeits have been known to fund organized crime or sweatshops that use child labor.

  If the seller is used to dealing with luxury items, they should have the receipt from the original purchase. Ask to see it. While it’s not a perfect way to prevent being ripped off, it does go a long way.

   

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  Geebo 8:00 am on July 19, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: iPhone ( 14 ), kentucky ( 6 ), marketplace app, Scams ( 1,219 ), wire fraud ( 21 )   

  Check out this bizarre double scam! 

  

  We’ve been telling you about numerous scams for some time now in order to help better protect consumers. Every so often we’ll post a story about a scam we’ve previously discussed to remind consumers that these scams are still out there. Occasionally we’ll post about a brand new scam that’s either brand new or one we’ve never heard of before. Then there are times like now where we bring you a scam so unusual it almost defies belief. One such scam just recently took place in the state of Kentucky where a woman was almost scammed twice by the same scammers using two different scams.

  The victim thought she was buying an iPhone online through a marketplace app. She paid $200 for the phone over the internet but never received the phone. Months later, she was contacted by someone posing as some kind of investigator. They showed her a copy of a receipt that was supposed to be for her phone and that the scammer had been caught and was being forced to pay restitution as part of a settlement. She was told that as part of the settlement she could receive $30,000 in compensation. Of course, there was a catch. All she had to do was wire some money to cover the costs of processing. Luckily, the woman’s mother warned the victim that this was nothing more than a scam.

  When dealing with marketplace apps that have no verified sellers, always deal locally and never send any money over the internet. Never wire any money either for any part of the transaction as marketplace apps are rife with wire fraud like this. Only deal locally and in cash. When you meet to make the transaction always do so at a local police station. With as great as a convenience online shopping can be, with marketplace apps there are too many variables that can’t be controlled.

   
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  Geebo 10:18 am on March 8, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: college ( 14 ), marketplace app, MIjem   

  College marketplace app: Good in theory, bad in practice 

  

  Earlier, I came across this article from The News Record, the University of Cincinnati’s student run newspaper, about a marketplace app called Mijem that’s geared toward college students. On the surface, it sounds like a great concept by making a local marketplace between students who could potentially help each other out by selling or trading things like furniture, clothes and the always expensive textbooks. However, the reality of the app appears to be more concept than practice.

  First, I tried signing up for the app through the Google Play Store and the app kept crashing on me. I was able to sign up through their website but was then unable to sign in through the app itself. In looking at the app’s reviews on the Play Store there were a number of suspicious 5 star reviews that either did not elaborate or had one sentence reviews. Mijem also claims that their app is safer than other platforms, but I was unable to determine how that could possibly be. While they do have users create profiles, that alone does not make it safer than any other platform. Other marketplace apps have user profiles and are still plagued by safety issues.

  Lastly, the MIjem developers talk about a safety feature that should have been implemented before launch. In The News Record article, the developers claim they’re working on verifying .edu email addresses so users can have a verified check mark on their profile. This should have been a feature at launch and to make the app more secure only .edu email addresses should be accepted. While this doesn’t guarantee safety, it would go a long way in discouraging bad actors.

  However, since the app is extremely buggy and somewhat sketchy with its Play Store reviews, I would recommend college students to take a hard pass on MIjem.