Fake sellers, long distance buyers: Why you should be wary of buying/selling online

Talk of marketplaces to quickly sell or buy all kinds of items in India, and players like OLX, Quikr and eBay will instantly come to your mind. Taking a leaf from Craigslist, these companies are a great way to make quick bucks by selling old or new items you don’t need, or buy a second-hand product when you are on a shoestring budget. But, it is not without loopholes.

These convenient marketplaces simply give you a platform to buy and sell products, without interfering in customer negotiations. Like matrimony sites that serve just as a platform, and if you come across a fraud person, all they do is block his or her account. Nevertheless, you are can file a Police complaint.  So, you are on these platforms at your own risk, and it isn't that all buyers and sellers are fraudsters, but if you are unlucky enough, you could be duped.

Similarly, if a person is scammed, the company isn't liable and it is 'you' who has to be more alert when skimming through ads. While these companies should be taking measures for keeping such fraudsters at bay, it all boils down to awareness as there would always be a new form to dupe people.

The Interest is filled with such stories. Some have lost money/ products, while some have learnt from the mistakes of others or have been simply lucky enough to escape.

The latest to come to light was a Pune woman and how she escaped the OLX fraud. A fraudster willing to buy her product and wanted it shipped within Pune while he lived in Mumbai. He tricked her by sending a fraud bank message stating Rs 13500 had been accidentally credited in her account instead of Rs 3500. Then, there is the usual pressure technique to transfer the money as soon as possible citing a personal issue, so that she didn't have a chance to lookup the account. But, luckily she didn't just believe that message (which was obviously fake) and decided to check the account.

These scams resurface in several forms. If you check consumer complaints, you will find a variety of them. One of the popular scams has been the one asking the product to be delivered to a different city and even country (mostly Africa). They will always pay a higher price and are willing to pay for the shipping charges too. And, you also get emails from banks saying the person has transferred the money but it is on hold and requires the courier and shipping number. And, a fake courier guy appears at your doorsteps to collect the product and gives you numbers asked in the email.

No bank can hold an amount once it is transferred. Also, avoid these long distance scams even if the amount is too good to let go. After all, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.

Now, it isn't just customers who are at risk. These starts that are striving to stay afloat and create a convenient marketplace have also been on the receiving end of such fraudsters. For instance, last year, Quikr ran a promotion of free deliveries for those who exchange products. And, a user 'proudly' explained how easy it was to dupe Quikr, and how many have been doing it for free deliveries.

These companies have been learning and we also saw them launch an in-built chat option so that all talking is down via chat, without the need to show your mobile number to avoid pesky calls.

There is no algorithm that can guarantee if someone is fraud or not, and we do not discourage you from accessing such convenient marketplaces, but some common sense and little awareness can help.  I know many friends who have been buying and selling products conveniently via online marketplaces. So, it doesn’t reflect the larger audiences that come, but one may never know when they are at the receiving end.

Quikr educates buyers and sellers on their platform with 'Be smart' message via email campaigns. Vineet Sehgal, chief marketing officer at Quikr said “At Quikr, we have always innovated for our consumers either to make them online users, to address privacy issues or to provide secure platform for C2C transactions. With the latest ad campaign we want to address trust issues associated with the used products and mobile phones in particular.”