Practical Fraud Prevention

Chapter 18. Marketplace Attacks: Seller Fraud

Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you…

Eurythmics¹

As distinct from the collusion fraud discussed in the previous chapter, here we’re considering cases in which only the seller has fraudulent intentions, defrauding legitimate buyers. Unfortunately, there are all too many options for a fraudster looking to misuse an online marketplace by making it a base for criminal operations.

Types of Seller Fraud

We’re going to look at three different categories of seller fraud, each of which includes many different types of fraud. The examples we give in each category are by no means exhaustive. If we wanted to try for completeness, we’d need a whole book just on seller fraud, and even then a new form of fraud would undoubtedly pop up a month after the book was published; fraudsters get just as creative about seller fraud as they do about every other kind of fraud. The idea of the categories is to provide a useful framework for thinking about different sorts of seller schemes, because the sorts of solutions you’ll want to look at differ depending on the category.

Seller Slipup Segues into Fraud

We’re putting seller slipups first because it’s often overlooked in fraud discussions, but can represent a more significant portion of a marketplace’s seller fraud than many fraud teams expect. Seller slipups are more common than you’d think. They happen when a seller starts out with good intentions, but runs into difficulties ...