Nest 3rd gen < $50 on Amazon

Before you get too excited this is probably a fake listing on amazon but in case it isn’t I figured I would share. Its listed as $247 from nest but if you look from other sellers its as low as $46!

So many bogus sales. Wish Amazon would clean that stuff up.

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There was at least 3 " just opened" Amazon stores last week that had Arlo pro 3-4 cam systems for $75-$100 . It seems reporting these sellers to Amazon does almost as much as reporting Spam/Phishing posts to Facebook .

Yesterday there were at least 2 new stores on Amazon that listed Raspberry PI 3 kits for $2.90 with free shipping. Every other vendor has it for $42. Something is amiss at Amazon.

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So, if these sellers are ‘fake’, what does that mean?
What happens if we buy one?
Is their whole deal just about getting our contact info?

If it sounds too good to be true…

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There are so many of them selling it for so cheap.
How is it that so many people decide to do the same scam at the same time, using the same product as bait?

Presumably they work for one group (or a few).

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I am curious as well, if you ‘buy’ and turns out to be fake will Amazon refund?

I too have noticed a significant number of fake listings like this. It has forced me to remove all of my https://camelcamelcamel.com/ price alerts as I get to many fake notifications. Agreed with above, wish Amazon would remove this garbage.

Yes. But if you follow instructions of some scammers that tell you to buy an amazon gift card then pay them by giving them the gift card info, you might still get screwed in the end.

Amazon makes you wait until after the promised delivery date. They will refund back to original payment, so if you paid with a gift card, Amazon will just give you an account credit GC for the amount of purchase.

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Checkout via the amazon cart and no matter what your payment method, you’ll get your money back eventually.

I meant if you follow the instructions to just give the scammer a gift card via email or something. Some people are that dumb unfortunately.

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I’ve never seen nor heard of an Amazon marketplace seller getting payments outside of Amazon checkout. That is more of a FleaBay scam.

Not sure how many times it’s happened really. But there may be a lot of dumdums out there.

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Thanks. If payment is not via amazon checkout I would not proceed, red flag.

I only ask as I see many new sellers coming on that offer prices on products that are usually ‘fixed’ and very rarely see a discount. For example Sonos Play1 is $199, been watching to try and pickup on sale as I need two (I know I will be waiting a while lol). I see a few sellers offering at $150 New, every now and then, so they don’t price to low to be a red flag, but I have resisted ‘buying’ as sellers have no feedback.

I just checked again, and they have ALL bumped their prices way up now.
Hmmmmmm…

[quote=“marktheknife, post:14, topic:82206, full:true”]

Not sure how many times it’s happened really. But there may be a lot of dumdums out there.[/quote]

I hate scammers as much as anyone. But honestly, the incidents described in that piece were so obviously not on the up-and-up from the very beginning that they serve as textbook illustrations of greed overriding basic common sense. “Yeah, there are more than enough red flags to warn me off this…but it’s just such a good deal!!”

I once advertised a vehicle for sale on eBay and was immediately contacted by a prospective “buyer” from Mexico who offered to buy it at my full asking price (which was higher than I was willing to eventually take, of course), sight-unseen. All he needed was my checking account information so that he could transfer the money to me, and then he’d drive to Dallas and pick up the car. If I’d been dumb enough to fall for that I’d be far more angry with myself than either the scammer or eBay.

Apply the same reasoning to, “Brand new vendor I’ve never heard of selling a popular $250 item for $40 w/free shipping. Sure, why not? Seems legit!”

“Might”? I’d bet good money on it. And they won’t even take you out for dinner and a movie first.

I saw the ST Arrival Sensor for around $5-6 a few days ago via a “just launched” third party so I messaged them asking for the model number of the device to confirm. Their reply the next day was “sorry”. Looking at https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00GM7V8I8/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all again, it seems like he dropped off so perhaps there’s a process where these fake sellers are being removed.

Amazon pays their sellers on a two week cycle, so these scam sellers plan on requesting payment from Amazon before the last expected arrival date. That way, they’ve received the money and Amazon is left holding the bag when the buyer comes around asking where their item is. Amazon has slowly been clamping down on this. It’s still rather rampant, but it’s exponentially better than it used to be. Around Christmastime, there were literally thousands of these sellers.

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