trust ..no ..one (Photo credit: Alexbip)

Today’s guest post is from a first-time Amazon seller who wished to remain anonymous. It’s a good little cautionary tale and a reminder to be ever vigilant and always double check everything.

I became a first time seller on Amazon because being a hard-up pensioner struggling through the recession I needed some cash.

I had a Sony A350 DSLR Camera kit that had only been used twice due to a family bereavement. It was duly placed on sale with Amazon for £375. I had a few e-mailed requests for more details and a photo. I then received an e-mail laid-out exactly as one would be from Amazon telling me to send the kit to Nigeria within the next two days or I would lose the chance to do any further business with Amazon and my account would be cancelled.

I buy a lot from Amazon and everything looked normal otherwise so at a cost of £108.77 I Parcel Forced the package yesterday. I also complained to Amazon that sellers should have some choice in choosing who to sell to and said I thought it was wrong for someone living in the UK should be asking for the consignee to be in places such as Nigeria.

It was at this stage that I was told by amazon that there was no record of any sale and I must have been scammed and I could not believe it because the e-mails were indistinguishable from the ones I had been getting for years.

At this stage I phoned Parcelforce to ask them to stop the parcel as the tracking showed it was still in the UK. They said they had no legal right to do this and that was that. This morning (Friday) I finally received a call from Amazon and they admitted that they were well aware of how the scam was done and they in my situation would also have fallen for it but there was nothing they could do for me. I was so annoyed that I asked for the Managing Directors e-mail address and told him what I thought about them and why was I told it was no fault of there’s. If amazon had not existed I would be nearly £500 better off.

Personally, I never trust emails. I’ve actually unsubscribed to most sale notifications and just check the sites themselves to see if there’s anything to ship. Another good tip is to always remember to forward any suspicious emails to spoof@ either eBay, PayPal or Amazon.com and they’ll let you know if what you’re looking at is legit or not.

What are your best tips for staying safe and keeping clear of spoofs or scams? What would you advise this seller do?