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How is he still alive?
 

How is this account still alive?

https://www.ebay.com/usr/id4shoes?_t...p2047675.l2559

This seller is clearly selling phakes, but his account never gets taken down. Some of the pictures he uses, are not stock pictures and you can clearly tell they are phake. Additionally, look at all the negatives and neutrals stating that they are phake.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

He's making eBay a lot of money and is doing a good enough job with customer service to avoid having his account shut down, for now.

They never last forever though. Sooner or later he'll be hit with a barrage of VeRO takedowns which will kill the account.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

The dude's account is 15+ years old and he had a whopping 4000+ feedbacks in the last 12 months. I have seen bigger accounts being taken down because of Vero though.

It could be that he got his eBay-username whitelisted by the brands he is selling (by selling legit items at the beginning) and now he is moving phakes.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Simple. This guy has very old (and strong) account.

He can keep it going for awhile. I've seen accounts with half the age and FB doing even business than this guy is.

Not surprising, really. This is to be expected.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Keep in mind that this guy is based in Taiwan. I am dead sure that a ton of corruption goes on in these eBay's offices that are based in Asia. So he could very well be receiving Vero hits on his account, but it could also be that some eBay-rep in Taiwan is taking care of that.

I know this theory may sound crazy, but if corruption takes place at Amazon where bad reviews get deleted for a price, you are free to imagine what takes place at eBay!!

Re: How is he still alive?
 

He's probably in Concierge, but I wouldn't think corruption is necessary when you have such a high volume account because it can survive dozens of VeRO hits annually without any problems.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

I agree with this. As you pointed out before, he could also be getting whitelisted by the brands simply by being "creative" in his documention requests. it works for being a "VeRO Agent", and it can also work for this type of thing. There is also one other method that I won't mention here that works very well for selling VeRO.

Anyone who says this isn't possible should see this as proof. In short, EB's VeRO program is a big joke.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Perhaps it's a company that has a deal.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

A seller in a category I used to sell in had 20000+ feedbacks with a monthly feedbadk score of 2000+. The guy was making good money, I used to watch his listings regularly and had them bookmarked. He once got 3 Vero hits in ~March/2018 and the 2nd round of 2 hits in ~Sep/2018. The account was flushed down the toilet afterwards.


The account listed here by OP is not really a hard-enough account to survive multiple Vero hits at all in my opinion.


It could be simply luck. From my experience Vero agents usually take down listings that are on the first page of a certain category and don't look further. The shoes category is saturated, so his listings could very well be in the 2nd or 3rd page bringing him few sales a day.


I heard a lot of stories about corruption at Amazon with regard to such issues. Sellers in China were paying 80$ per bad review to get it removed. So I could imagine that there was a price for IP hits as well.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

How do you know they are ⊗⊗⊗⊗? Just cause it's from Taiwan doesn't really mean much. Photos also maybe copied but it may be real? Lot of shoes are made in China and sometimes shops there have surplus in the quota they reached and sell the remaining in bulk from factories. But then again you never know

Re: How is he still alive?
 

He’s got 70K listings up lol, he might not be selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ could be UA shoes. None the less, he is very active.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

He also has a very small number of neg FB saying he's selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗. He has lots of great feedback in fact, his DSR's are decent.

Nothing highly unusual here.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Trust me, sneakers are my niche. He is selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗.

The Chinese people that he is dropshipping these pairs from are on Chinese new year break, hence why I believe he is has removed all of his listings for the moment.

Unauthorised shoes is the excuse most sellers who sell ⊗⊗⊗⊗ use, but it's not true. The sneaker replica game has improved so much, that it's pretty hard to tell ⊗⊗⊗⊗ from genuine, hence why he has so many positives. But, if you know what to look for it's easy to spot.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

so you sell phake shoes that look real?

Re: How is he still alive?
 

why do people put other sellers account info on the open forum? this account could be from a seller here...

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Nope, in the past, I would buy lots of ⊗⊗⊗⊗, but only to wear. There is two huge sub reddits dedicated to ⊗⊗⊗⊗ clothes and sneakers.

I actually spend lots of money on bots, proxies, servers, etc. every month so that I can purchase multiple pairs of these 'hype' shoes, to resale at a larger profit. But it gets annoying when these people selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ take all the sales because they have the best prices

Re: How is he still alive?
 

I can believe this about the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ sneakers being of excellent quality.

There are phake Rolex watches that are extremely high quality, right down to the "official" packaging, ID card, certificate of authenticity, and "receipts" from the "dealer". One local jeweler told me that the phakes are so good now that even some pawn shops, and jewelers have a hard time telling unless they take the time pieces apart and study them closely.

I can only believe that the phake game for sneakers has evolved to a similar level.

Regardless, this guy selling these sneakers seems to have some really good DSR's and FB, but that doesn't tell the whole story. What's his return rate? Cases? VeRO strikes? I can only surmise based on viewable metrics, he's doing a lot of business and probably won't be shut down anytime soon.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Hey he's doing well. whats with all the hate? Don't focus on your competitor, focus on innovation...
now I'm going to go and buy me a pair.

Edit:
He has a lot of positives, barely anyone indicating they are ⊗⊗⊗⊗...

Re: How is he still alive?
 

People are Jealous, plain & simple.

The time spent looking at other sellers is time wasted and not spent making money.

My 2nd grade teacher had a quote I remember to this day:

Mind Your Own Business.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Part of building a repertoire of knowledge to allow success in business is studying your competition. Looking at other sellers can reap a lot of benefits if using it as part of your educational process, especially in the beginning stages. Nothing wrong with doing this in my opinion as long as it is in the spirit of learning / gaining insight and not in the spirit of jealousy / just wanting to put others down.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Agreed.. I spend time studying what my competition is doing but I wouldn't waste my time trying to sabotage one or even being jealous of one. Instead I try to replicate the ones that are doing better than me. :)

Re: How is he still alive?
 

This seller does not sell ⊗⊗⊗⊗. They have been around for a very long time and I know of several people on sneaker forums that have vouched for them. Just because he has a few negatives saying "⊗⊗⊗⊗" doesn't mean anything. Think about the amount of shoes they have moved over the years...you're bound to deal with quite a few idiot buyers. If some don't get their way they will say anything or are simply not knowledgeable of the product they are buying...

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Welcome to the forum - all the best as you master stealth :thumb:

Please post some sort of "WARNING eBay link" message before posting these kind of links (forum policy)

Re: How is he still alive?
 

lots of good invoices I would assume

Re: How is he still alive?
 

ya im sure he bought 7000 nikes at full retail price and sells them at retail with 20% eBay fees and still profits

Re: How is he still alive?
 

The seller is based in Asia, that where all the brand-shoes factories are located. It could be that he has some connections that will take care of delivering shoes at factory-price to him. Who knows... The fact that he has been selling these shoes for years now without getting suspended is a sign that his dealings are legit. Otherwise he would have been booted long time ago due to competition reporting him...etc

Re: How is he still alive?
 

How do you know they are buying the items at full retail price?

I don't see any conclusive proof that the items are ⊗⊗⊗⊗.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Most likely corruption, this guy knows what he's doing.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

For the people, that are not convinced he is selling knock offs. Take a look at the black pair, notice how the 'AIR' inscribed on the right corner is black? This is supposed to be white.

Also, take a look at 'R', if you take a look at some authentic stock images from retailers, it's just so obvious these are ⊗⊗⊗⊗.

Your follow up response to this might be, "He doesn't use his own images, therefore he might have uploaded a bad stock picture"

No, the are moving like hot potatoes at the moment. These are what you'd call 'HYPE' sneakers, whilst all his other listing are just regular sneakers, these move quickly and people have uploaded a lot of Youtube videos on how to authenticate these sneakers. My guess is that he used this image explicitly to inform buyers on what they would be getting (i.e ⊗⊗⊗⊗) and in the event of chargebacks/SNAD cases, he could argue that picture in his listing was the true likeness of what he sold.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

I love the Anger, then tension in this thread. Rebecca0701, just say the word....well have this seller "taken care of" immediately!

Re: How is he still alive?
 

How many of these can a 6 months old account sell without any issues?
Would listing them for 3-7 days reduce the risk?

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Probably quite a few to be honest.

But a competitor would post on Reddit that you are selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ and you will get a bunch of reports and people will buy and file a SNAD counterfeit claim.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Would would you think they would do something like that?
Also if you look at that seller's 3th photo you'll see that the logo AIR is in white.So they might be original sneakers.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

There is a sub-reddit devoted to ⊗⊗⊗⊗ sneakers and clothing. The people that frequent this sub reddit hate people who sell ⊗⊗⊗⊗ as authentics. So, all it takes is for someone to link your eBay on that reddit and a ton of people who like ⊗⊗⊗⊗ clothing and sneakers will buy from you with the intention of filing couterfeit claims with eBay. Since it means they get to keep the sneakers and get their money back.

Also, regarding the white AIR logo, that's what I was trying to explain in my post above. Notice how all his other pictures for his trainers are stock images in a white background? Don't you think it's strange that the first picture for these trainers, are a picture of ⊗⊗⊗⊗ without a white background? I don't think that was coincidence and I think he was just trying to get a message across to his buyers or try to save his ass in the event of chargebacks.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

He may be trying to lower buyer expectations like you said by showing a phake in the first photo then showing the real shoes in other listing photos.

But, it's not going to make any difference at all in cases of chargebacks or disputes since it's still illegal to sell counterfeits. Maybe this method is saving him a few chargebacks because some buyers will understand they aren't getting the real thing. If the buyer does take that step and start a chargeback though, the seller wouldn't have a chance of winning.

Re: How is he still alive?
 

It's illegal in the US. Item location on his listings is Taiwan (where nobody gives a $hit :clap:)

OP, have you bought a pair of shoes from this seller? Maybe the guy is really legit. It can't be that 99.7% of his buyers couldn't spot a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ :pop2:

Re: How is he still alive?
 

I think you know that's not true just based on your niche in the past....

Re: How is he still alive?
 

That's exactly why I said what I said. People don't care much about a 5$ item if it turned out to be phake, but worked very well. However, customers would be enraged if they paid 100$ and didn't get what they bought.

Jeese, if I sell phake Nikes or Adidas in Germany, customers will file police reports left and right :shocked:


Again, I strongly believe the guy is selling legit items. I know that some lucky people in China do have connections to legit supply chains where stuff get passed over. It's impossible for Nike or any other company to fully control the supply chain.


If you're well connected in an Asian country, you will get the real stuff for a price that will shock you.

OP, corruption in Asia is through the roof, so please don't judge the seller unless you bought a pair of shoes from them yourself.


EDIT:

I can't help myself but wonder how idiotic these counterfeiters are!! If someone could phake an Adidas shoe so good that most people couldn't spot the difference, why the hell don't they start their own thing and compete globally!! I mean they have clearly figured out the manufacturing process, they just need new designs :pop2:

Re: How is he still alive?
 

Because the brand name sell more than everything ;)