Question? international sales online.

Don't forget. This is about international sales......

How many people are selling things online, that they will ship internationally, that are not really in stock or are in high demand, but they intentionally list more stock than they really have, meaning a good portion of the sales they offer are bogus across many items and online stores?

Fake, totally made up.

Why? You ask, would someone do this? How? You ask would, someone do this?

Say as a consumer, you buy an item online from overseas and pay for it digitally. The seller receives your funds and then once cleared (usually within a few hours of purchase), notifies you that they have shipped it.

But wait.....

Some places might take several days to even mail or to post shipping notification and tracking of said item from time of purchase.

Now.. for the sake of this discussion, lets assume that the seller is just mailing an empty cardboard box with the wrong information on it, intentionally, once shipping is declared, which again could take up to a week or more to happen.

Suppose they have a store full of items that are in either limited supply or short supply, so that they can intentionally get paid by buyers, only to refund many of them later, often much later and quote it due to shipping label issues or out of stock discontinued items.

Think.

Some sellers don't even update shipping info until 3 or 4 days past your purchase maybe even longer, especially overseas in some locations. Tack on the fact that international sellers often state they require more time to ship items, often up to a month or more.

All of this time is a boon to unscrupulous sellers, or am I wrong?

If a seller has a varied stock that is intentionally limited, but in high demand, they can claim items lost in the mail and offer refund for the simple cost of ridiculously low shipping, based on the weight of the empty box with the intentionally wrong address on it. They also can offer proof of tracking.

Because we are speaking of international transactions, the offer to refund your money might not come for several weeks or even a couple months past the purchase date.

So why does this matter?

Because, if true, then these people who could be doing this are raking in dividends on bogus or semi bogus bulk advertising, leading to bogus sales and bogus shipping and then depositing hundreds of thousands into their account for protracted periods from that fraud; long enough to reap huge dividends off interest of the total amount placed in an account from all sources.

True, some sales are legitimate. This helps the illusion that they are a good seller.

If they can hold all of that money long enough in a high number, they can gain a lot from the interest with very little pay out and then claim errors and issue refunds to people whose money they must return.

Shipping for non existent mail is cheap. Mailing a few items is cheap. Holding money in large amounts is lucrative on the interest it can gain. Eventually refunding all the money, is cheap because when it was all sharing interest it produced well in excess of what was spent all around.

Now.......does this really happen in real life, or am I just imagining things.

Is my assessment wrong?

It just seems like an opportunity for abuse, without a lot of oversight.

I admit I don't know how a lot of things work, but what I shared, is how I envision some people might take advantage of ignorance by using deceptive tactics to gain wealth.