Can/Are people using cashback to scam?

Oct 9, 2008
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While trying to explain live.coms program, my co worker brought up a very intersting point. What (besides fraud) is stopping a person from creating two ebay accounts and purchase large ticket items from themselves and getting basically paid via cashback to do so.

example for anyone confused:

I list a purse for 1000.
I buy that purse from myself for 1000.
I receive 150 cashback from live.com
 
I'm not an eBay seller, but judging by the amount of fees eBay seems to charge, the cashback benefit would almost be, if not completely negated by the fees you would have to pay.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. :smile:
 
Do you have to pay via paypal for it? If you bought it from yourself you could just mark it as paid via bank transfer or something but if you have to use paypal for it then you can't do that. Might not be mch of a profit but $50 is $50!
 
me neither, but i just looked it up total fees including ebay and paypal would be about 93 dollars...so you're right...not much of a profit.
This probably does not include paypal fees. In order to get the cashback the payment has to be made. Your looking at colse to $40 for those fees in addition to the ebay fees total around $130 means virtually no profit. I cannot imagine anyone doing that.
 
This probably does not include paypal fees. In order to get the cashback the payment has to be made. Your looking at colse to $40 for those fees in addition to the ebay fees total around $130 means virtually no profit. I cannot imagine anyone doing that.

If you assume 10% ebay fee and 3% paypal, yet it is about $130 in fees. Probably not worth it even for scammers.