Diamonds on eBay

[Medic]

Originally Posted by reconboy

Just throwing 2 cents around but if the phones are coming from the insurance company they are keeping track of the IMEI and Serial number in their computer data bases when they ship the items out. Once you activate on your account it probably sends a trigger to Asurion that the phone has been activated.

I have purchased the same phone and I am in the same boat, personally I think that Asurion should allow us to keep the phones and go after those who commited the fraud/scam themselves.

User on ebay whom I purchased through was johnjohn0317 , and he had a very good rep himself with 100%. He has since been removed from ebay and I received an alert from ebay about the purchase made " DO NOT COMPLETE TRANSACTION" (about 2 weeks too late for that since I have the phone active on my account now)

I am going to wait it out to see what happens and if I get the charge I have all my records in place showing the phone sale from Ebay and the cash transaction from paypal through hard copy and soft copy. If Asurion wants to charge me for the phone then I think this may be a means to contact my local attorney general to see what legal actions I can take.

I did speak with Paypal Security , they are stating to do a dispute because the item received was not as described meaning they did not include this was an insurance transaction. So I may go ahead and do that just to be on the safe side.

Hopefully this will just pass and I have to do nothing but the more I read and see about this scam the more I am thinking this is heading the wrong direction.

I bought a diamond for my wife from this same seller and received the same alert from ebay as well and late as well (they sure are on top of things). Anyways I contacted paypal and I described the situation on how item was not described and it all seemed fishy, but all I could get from paypal was the guys email address. They want me to contact him to get things resolved first. I didn't bother to email him cuz I'm sure he knows what he's doing and I expect either some b.s. answer or no reply.

I sure hope that sprint doesn't charge us cuz we are getting scammed just like sprint and asurion is. I'll fight the charges and fight to get my money back from paypal or something.

[reconboy]

I have his email address along with his REAL NAME , which you should have the same thing in your transaction from PAYPAL.

Also look at the shipping slip on the box the phone came in , it should also list his name there to0.

I

[jpeepers]

Originally Posted by shortbus182

I purchased my Diamond from celldepOt on ebay for $245. At the time seller had over 600 feedback with 99.3% positive. Now he has over 1000 feedback. Safe deal? All powersellers legit? IDK...phone came from assurion. It activated without problems, but am waitng for some suprise charges on my next bill.

Same here. I bought one and received it just before Thanksgiving from celldepOt. So far no issues for me. It did come with a assuran (or what ever it's called) flyer in the bottom as well as a return kit. I do not have insurance on my plan so I don't see how they could possibly charge me for anything but then again you never know?


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[lexusgs]

If you noticed infitelusa is getting negatives and neutrals now for the phones he never had. I don't have sprint or nextel insurance, So I don't think I will be billed for anything, am I right? Activating the phone is free?? no?? But I brought phones on ebay before from the same sellers and had no problems at all, so I think the sellers might not know where these phones are coming from if they are dropped ship from someone else.

[reconboy]

Actually I just went over the shipping papers I received with mine , and sure enough it is listing someone else account. Definitely fraud/scam and some how these people are getting account information in order to process these orders. Someone has a connection with someone at sprint or Asurion in order to access this information.

[theToucan]

Hey I never post on these boards but I use them all the time. I had a Touch now I have a Diamond. Anyways, I just wanted to mention that celldep0t is a scam I bought a phone from this guy off eBay a few weeks ago. Someone called me yesterday to tell me that he had an insurance claim on his account. The new phone went to me. He got it sorted out on his end, and so far it hasn't affected me, but we both purchased from celldep0t. The problem is Asurion's system is horribly easy to exploit.
Thanks for all the good info! Keep it up!

[jpeepers]

I just looked at my shipping paper work and it does appear that it has a Utah number as the MDN if that means anything? It also says Sales Organization: CUSTINSUR1 which I would guess is insurance?

What I don't understand is if this is a scam how does he get away with 1131 transactions so far and a 98.9% positive feedback rating? And of the bad feedback I have yet to see one that said he was scamed?


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[reconboy]

The shipping papers and the label on my box is addressed to myself and to another person which is not the person who sold the phone to me on ebay according to the PayPal transaction.

I will be contacting Asurion tomorrow to discuss the matter further , and probably contacting Sprint(Legal department If I can get that far) to discuss the issue with them also.

Dont get me wrong I love getting great deals but I dont like being cheated and I am sure that those who have charges applied to their account dont like to be cheated themselves.

Medic, I would probably advise to file a dispute with PayPal just to be safe than sorry , I know you state you do not have insurance but if by some chance Asurion or Sprint wants to fight it they have alot more money than I do if they wanted to pursue this issue further.

I would say that there is enough evidence pointing out that Asurion definitely has a security flaw they need to fix , plus I also say some how these people are getting other account information either inside of Sprint or inside of Asurion to be able to process this insurance claims.

[boxermansr]

Tried to post this awhile ago, but the page kept timing out, so I'll just copy/paste what I posted over on another forum.. This is what I *think* is going on with these claims, and what not.

We'll use three people, John, Paul, and Joe (makes it easier, hah), who are the buyers, and we'll say the seller is Dave.

Dave lists Touch PRO's (or diamonds) for sale. John, Paul and Joe all pay for them. Dave doesn't disclose to his buyers that someone else will actually be shipping the phones to the buyers (in this case, Dave himself, doesn't even know that the phones that.. we'll say Steve (the one whos filing the claims with Asurion/Sprint), is shipping, are in fact being obtained via fraud).

Now, to make the most sense of this, we'll say that all three buyers HAVE insurance, here's how *I* think it's working out, as far as claims go.

Steve gets the orders from Dave (name to ship to, address, etc). Steve himself (or someone who Steve has on the inside of Sprint) is obtaining account information (since Sprint AND Asurion both "claim" that the account holders PIN is needed to file a claim) - I don't see how else Steve could be getting that, unless he works for, or knows someone who works for Sprint.

Anyhow, Steve files a claim using John's account information (his wireless number and his account PIN, which he, as not yet determined, obtained). Instead of having that phone shipped to JOHN, that phones going to PAUL. Then, Steve files a claim on Paul's account with Paul's information, and has THAT phone shipped to JOE.

Now, we can't go past Joe, since we only defined three buyers here, but either Joe will get the phone that will be sent based off a claim of the next buyer, or Joe won't get anything at all (he'll end up getting a refund from the seller however).

Joe may not get his phone for a few reasons; mainly because Sprint/Asurion don't have Touch Pro's right now (or are getting them slowly back in stock).. however the scammer (Steve) may, or may not still go ahead and file a claim using Joe's information to fulfil the phone order for the next buyer. Joe will still end up not getting anything from the seller (who in this case is still Dave, since he's the one who listed the items).

Dave keeps trying at this point to contact Steve, who pretty much has up and vanished, so, Dave has to start refunding people. NOW.. IF Steve did file a claim with JOE's info, then Joe *is* going to see a 50.00 deductable charge on his next bill.

It has nothing to do with whether or not joe ever got a phone, it has to do with the fact that a CLAIM was filed on HIS account.

This is exactly what happened to ME. I purchased the phone, and ended up getting a refund. The scammer (Steve) still had my information that Dave (the seller) had forwarded to him when I paid, therefore, Steve went ahead and filed a claim with MY account, to fulfil someone else's purchase.

I try to think of this as a chain, it goes from one link to the next, and so on.. If my explaination sucks, I'm sorry, it's been a long day, and this is the best way I could think to explain it.

For those who have purchased from certain buyers, there's nothing that I can tell you will ENSURE that you will, or that you WON'T see a charge on your bill. If you DON'T have insurance on your account, most likely you WON'T be charged a deductable (you can't be, cuz you don't HAVE insurance) **BUT**, don't be surprised if Sprint does contact you, telling you that you have a device that was obtained via an insurance claim on someone elses account.

Asurion does have the ESN's of these devices, and I'm pretty sure at some point they will research where they went, and who's accounts they are on. It completely sucks that the innocent people get screwed here.

I managed to get the 50.00 deductable credited back, my next concern was them blacklisting the ESN on my current phone (since they were expecting a phone back from ME, based on the claim that was filed). They also took care of that, so I won't have to worry about the ESN being blacklisted either.

Anyhow, no need to drag this post on forever. In a nutshell, I think this is how the scam is working. Sucks for the original seller (but then again, it's probably not wise to let someone else handle your orders for you, and mess your feedback up), and it sucks for the buyers. The ones who get hit with the charges, and the ones who potentially will get calls from Sprint (I'm not saying anyone will, I don't work for Sprint, but as others have pointed out, Sprint and Asurion KNOW the ESN's of the replacements they send out). I can only hope, that to be fair to those folks, that Sprint works some type of deal out with them, since they were the unwitting victims of someone elses BS.

Also - that to those who are getting insurance flyers, and/or return kits in your box, that's there mainly because Sprint's expecting the "broken" phone that was claimed, in order to send you the new one, back in.

Just because they are there, doesn't mean that YOU will be hit with a charge (someone else probably already was, that being the person who's account the claim was filed UNDER).

As I said though, there COULD be a chance that in those cases Sprint does contact those people. Don't quote me on that, because as I said, I'm speculating. I just feel that anyone who THINKS it could happen, hold onto everything if you can (the box, any papers that came in it, etc).

[yougivemerash!!!]

After much thought, I'm leaning towards keeping the phone because 1) If I send it back to the seller, who's to say I won't see any possible charges on my bill later even if I don't have insurance? That would leave me with NO phone and charges on my bill. 2) He already has my name and shipping address, so who knows what else he can pull AFTER I return the phone since someone has access to a sprint customer database and they are already involved in such dirty practices?