Fraud, Scams, and Payment Risk

01

Why sellers are exposed at all

The asymmetry is built into distance selling. You dispatch a physical item, and the payment that pays for it stays reversible for some time afterwards — through the platform's own dispute process, through the payment provider, and through the card scheme behind it. The goods are gone and the money is provisional.

Three separate mechanisms can take money back after you have shipped, and they are easy to confuse:

You can lose a chargeback on a transaction the platform already resolved in your favour, because the two processes are separate and answer to different rules. That is unwelcome and it is worth knowing in advance.

02

What the attacks actually look like

A small number of patterns account for most seller losses. Recognising the shape early is most of the defence.

• The address change. An order arrives, then a message asks you to ship somewhere else. Frequently a compromised account. Shipping to any address other than the one on the order usually voids seller protection outright.
• The return swap. A return arrives containing a broken, older, or entirely different unit. Defeated only by evidence created before dispatch: serial numbers recorded, contents photographed, weight on the receipt.
• The empty box. A claim that the parcel arrived empty or containing something worthless. The counter is the photograph of the packed parcel and the dispatch weight.
• Off-platform payment. A request to complete the deal outside the marketplace, usually with a plausible reason. This removes every protection you have and is against the rules of essentially every platform, so it also risks your account under the policy rules.
• The overpayment. A payment for more than the price with a request to refund the difference. The original payment reverses later; the refund does not.
• Friendly fraud. A genuine buyer who received the item and files a chargeback anyway. Indistinguishable from a real dispute at the outset, and the reason proof of delivery to the order address is the foundation of everything.
• Phishing aimed at your account. Convincing messages that appear to come from the marketplace, asking you to sign in. Losing account access is worse than losing an item.

03

Seller protection is real, and conditional

Platforms and payment providers do offer seller protection, and it does pay out. It is also narrower than the marketing suggests, and the conditions are procedural rather than moral — you can be entirely in the right and still fall outside them.

The conditions that recur across providers, stated generally because the specifics differ and change:

• Ship to the address on the order, unchanged.
• Use a service with tracking, and upload the tracking to the order rather than keeping it in an email.
• Meet the handling time. A dispatch scan after the deadline weakens both your protection and your metrics.
• For higher-value items, use a service that captures a signature. What counts as higher value is defined by the provider and worth knowing before you need it.
• Describe the item accurately. Protection against not-as-described claims generally does not survive a description that was optimistic.
• Respond inside the window. Many claims are lost by default rather than on the facts.

Read your own platform's current terms rather than relying on any summary, including this one. They change, they differ by country, and they differ by category — high-value electronics and collectables often carry specific extra conditions.

04

Evidence has to exist before the dispute

This is the operative principle of the whole chapter, and it is why fraud defence is a packing-bench habit rather than a customer-service skill. Once a claim is open, the set of facts you can prove is already fixed.

1. Photograph serials before packing Photograph any serial, IMEI, or unique marking before packing, with the number legible. Record it on the item record too.
2. Photograph the contents Photograph the packed contents before sealing — the same habit the packing guide asks for, doing double duty here.
3. Photograph the sealed parcel Photograph the sealed, labelled parcel.
4. Keep the weighed receipt Keep the postage receipt showing the weight. A returned parcel weighing noticeably less than the one you sent is unusually persuasive.
5. Keep conversation on the platform Keep all conversation on the platform, where it forms part of the record automatically.
6. File it against the SKU File the lot against the SKU, so retrieving it months later takes seconds rather than an afternoon.

For most inventory this is thirty seconds per order. Apply it in full to the items where a loss would actually hurt, and lightly to the rest — the objective is proportionate protection, not a forensic archive of every paperback.

05

Payment holds, reserves, and why funds are delayed

A payment hold is not an accusation, and treating it as one wastes energy. It is the platform managing exactly the exposure this chapter describes: they are liable if you take the money and fail to ship.

Holds are more likely when:

• The account is new, or has been dormant and has just resumed selling.
• Selling volume or item value has changed sharply.
• You have moved into a category with a higher dispute rate.
• Recent metrics have worsened — open cases, late dispatch, cancellations.
• The buyer has opened a dispute, in which case the funds for that order are usually held pending resolution.

What shortens them is boring and effective: dispatch promptly, upload tracking to the order, keep dispute rates low, and let the account age. What does not work is arguing, opening additional accounts, or waiting to ship until the money clears — that last one causes late dispatch, which extends the hold.

06

Keeping the defence proportionate

Fraud losses feel far worse than an equivalent postage overspend, because they are somebody's deliberate act. That emotional weight leads sellers into defences that cost more than the thing they prevent.

• Measure the actual rate. Record every loss with its cause. Most sellers discover the annual total is smaller than they assume and concentrated in one category.
• Scale effort to value. Full evidence and signed-for delivery on the expensive items; tracking and a photograph on everything else; nothing elaborate on low-value stock.
• Do not become hostile to real buyers. Restrictive rules, suspicious messages, and refusing ordinary requests cost you sales and reviews continuously, while fraud costs occasionally. Almost everyone is honest.
• Accept some losses as a cost of trade. Contesting a small claim can cost more in time, postage, and account risk than paying it, and that arithmetic is the same one the disputes guide applies.
• Protect the account above the item. A restriction costs more than any single parcel. Anything that risks standing to save one sale is a bad trade.

One exception worth stating clearly: account security is not proportionate to item value, because losing account access loses everything at once. Unique passwords, two-factor authentication, and never signing in from a link in a message are not optional at any scale.