The Fraudulent Activities in a Marketplace

The marketplace is a global phenomenon, a phenomenon that shook the digital and traditional industry. Unfortunately, its expansion is followed by the advancement of scammers to the business model. Fraudsters took this opportunity to grow and starts to infiltrate the marketplace system, risking everyone. Either you are a buyer or a seller; you are in risk of becoming a victim of these fraudulent activities.

In this content, you will be introduced with how fraudulent activities affect buyer and seller in a marketplace system.

Risk for Buyers: Fake Online Seller

The most common fraudulent act in a marketplace is a phony online seller who sells his or her items based on its target seller. In most cases, these fraudsters provide the same image and descriptions as their neighbors but with a slightly lower price, which allows them to attract their victims.

The usual scenario plays out with the victims ordering online products from them, but they are not going to get the items. In these cases, either the marketplace will be at fault or it could even put the shipping service business at risk.

Currently, players in the marketplace business have tried to mitigate the risk by implementing online analytics for its seller. They analyze emails, address, and also the history of its sellers to try ban these sellers.

Risk for Sellers: Imitation Credit Card

Imitation credit card has been a worldwide issue for the past decade and marketplace will not be an exception.

By using other people’s credit card, fraudster can manipulate the card details and use it to buy online products, which is the safest and most convenient way for them to use the card. In most cases, after ordering the products online, the fraudster will call the marketplace to change its address, just to trick the seller to send it to his or her address, not the victim’s address.

The use of imitation credit card posses a huge risk for both sellers as well as the entities involve in the payment scheme. Although there are certain prevention for these activities, it is still hard to cope with the ever-new tricks from the scammer.

These are just some examples of the fraudulent activities that are currently happening inside the marketplace industry. Thus, it would be wise to always check whom you are selling to, in terms of name, email, address, and other important details.