How to know if it is Mercado Libre fraud scam

Mercado Libre is a good page to quote and buy products of all kinds at the best prices, including mobile devices and technology, but also a website where many “sellers” can register and defraud novice or novice buyers without much effort. naive, of which at least two of my close family circle have been victims.

Generally, most people scammed on Mercado Libre have the WRONG idea that they can get bargain prices or auctions on this site. You can get prices competitiveBut don’t expect anything to be “gifted” to you. They can also be fooled by the site’s reputation system, which in the past worked, but is now easily manipulated. Finally, they can let their excitement about a certain product and its price take over and try their luck, risking their money without being sure what they are doing.

I have been buying and selling on Mercado Libre for several years and, without pretending to brag, I generally know at first glance a scam from a real product on the site. The main things I look at before I even click “Buy” or pay a seller money are as follows.

Price

Just by seeing a price that is too good to be true, which you will surely already be well informed about, you should consider a product in Mercado Libre as discarded.

For example, in the image above you see the publication of a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, whose normal price is at least 1,300 dollars. A little over half price for this new device is totally ridiculous. Don’t let your emotions dominate you and trust your brain more. This is an outright scam.

Payment against delivery

Serious sellers in Mercado Libre have a physical location and have no problem selling you in person. Those who do not have a physical store, do not have a problem with you visiting them at home to make the transaction. In the worst case, they will give the option of seeing them on the street or in a public place. That is, a legitimate seller never hides and will allow you to locate him in some way for the payment and delivery of the product in person, which is the safest way to buy.

When it comes to fraud they will always tell you that, basically, they cannot appear in person, they only send shipments and they will never indicate an address. The deception is obvious. You can use the post’s Ask option to find out, or just view questions answered from other users.

To be “sent” to you, you will need to deposit or transfer money to a bank account. In some cases they will accept that you pay them only part of the value before shipping and the rest when the product arrives, something obviously unacceptable for a serious seller. Many naive or innocent people make the mistake of making payments to these types of people. Do not make that mistake, even if it is a low value credit, it will be an incentive for these sellers to continue scamming other people.

Review the questions

Check the question section of the post to find more evidence of what was said before. That is, find out if the seller is hiding behind a “virtual store” that only makes shipments (home deliveries) and does not accept cash on delivery.

You may also find irregularities in their answers, as in the illustration above, where the seller offers a Samsung Galaxy S20 or S20 plus, both of which are $ 50 more expensive than the Ultra version, despite the fact that they are lower in the hierarchy. In addition, the price of one and the other is different and is around 1000 dollars.

It also claims that the Samsung Galaxy S20 has 512 GB of storage, when for this model there is only the 128 GB version.

Sold, Reputation and Ratings

The Mercado Libre profile of this seller says that he has sold 15 Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra devices. He has an excellent (green) reputation and even a ‘Featured Seller’ badge thanks to his 223 completed sales and 86% recommendations from his buyers. So many people can’t be wrong, can they?

Unfortunately, the reputation of a seller in Mercado Libre is not trustworthy. Anyone on the site can generate that number of sales and good reputations in a matter of hours only.

In the case of our seller, the positive ratings on his profile are generated by him, taking advantage of the current flexibility of the platform. If you check the images above you will realize it.

It has not taken me more than five minutes to create a publication similar to the one mentioned at the beginning. To get 15 sold Galaxy S20 Ultra devices listed on my profile, getting positive ratings from all those sales and an excellent reputation would have taken me just over an hour.

If you check the seller’s profile a little more, you can find more evidence. In our example, he has only been selling on Mercado Libre for five months. True featured sellers are several years old.

A little further down you will find other indications, such as in this example 16% negative ratings, which are of the type “Scammer” or “It is scam”. I have found qualifications of the type “I was robbed today I present a complaint to the prosecution”, “Scammers do not buy, they are foreigners, two Venezuelans and one Colombian, make the complaints.”

Report the publication

If you come across this type of publication in Mercado Libre, use the “Report” option and explain the anomaly you see. This will not prevent the seller from doing the same thing again, assuming that Mercado Libre cancels their accounts, but you will frustrate their activity somewhat.

If you have already been a victim of a scam, you can file a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in your country, with the name associated with the bank account in which you deposited the money.

Conclution

Unfortunately, Mercado Libre is no longer what it was a few years ago, when it verified vendor accounts in a much more strict way, with verifiable home address and sending an identity document. Only after that and after review your account was approved to sell. With the virality of OLX, Mercado Libre was forced to provide the same sales facilities so as not to lose users, which has caused the platform to be filled with several scammers who have been doing this for years.

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