[Resolved]

The scammers have an account here on Sythe: PlayerAuctions

Hi fellow gamers. I just wanted to give everyone a quick warning about PlayerAuctions.com, which is a common site used to sell game accounts. I'm talking about the PlayerAuctions.com website itself, not a specific user of that site. Although I don't expect to get my money back from them, I do feel that it is my responsibility as a victim of a scam to do whatever I can to help protect my fellow gamers who work hard for their money like I do. With this post, I hope I can save at least 1 person from getting burned by PlayerAuctions.

Before I continue, please don't make the same mistake as I did and ignore this plethora of scam reports on Sitejabber:
PlayerAuctions

All I wanted to do was sell my account, receive the money for it, and move on. Unfortunately, PlayerAuctions did everything they could to prevent that from happening. The best way I can describe my experience with PlayerAuctions is as a series of frustrating "coincidences", cumulating into a scam. Now, I almost always give people the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong, even beyond the point of reasoning because I understand bad things sometimes happen. However, I can now safely confirm that PlayerAuctions is a scam. Let me give you a summary of what happened:

1) I posted an offer for my Hearthstone account on PlayerAuctions.com for the amount of $250 USD.

2) Within 2 hours I receive an email from PlayerAuctions stating that my account has been sold and is pending my delivery.

3) I check the buyer's profile on PlayerAuctions.com. The account had just been created and has no buyer or seller records.

4) The email from PlayerAuctions instructed me to change my Hearthstone account's email address to a very generic email address. Because of this, I sent an email to that address to confirm that it is indeed that individual who placed the order for my Hearthstone account. The individual immediately confirmed.

5) I carefully followed the instructions in the email, successfully transferring the account to the buyer.

6) The next day I receive a confirmation email from PlayerAuctions stating that my order has been successfully completed (and confirmed as delivered by the buyer) and that I will receive my disbursement via PayPal soon. I then sent an email to the buyer thanking him for his business. He responded politely.

7) After a few days I log in to my PlayerAuctions account to check the status of the disbursement. When doing so I noticed that the Disbursement Status of my order now says "Order closed unsuccessfully - buyer fully refunded". I was never informed of this by PlayerAuctions.

8) I send an email to PlayerAuction's customer support inquiring about this concerning status. I received a response telling me that this issue will be escalated. I was given no additional information.

9) I log in to PlayerAuctions to check if there are any updates. To my surprise, the entire record for that transaction had been completely erased from my account. I just assumed that they were working on it so they had to remove the record. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a screenshot of this.

10) I send another email 2 days later politely asking if there is any update. I receive no response.

11) A few days later I decide to create a Sythe.org account to contact PlayerAuctions on here directly. A few days later I receive a response from PlayerAuctions instructing me to change my phone number on my PA account because the number I had was not a contracted phone number (it actually is). I complied.

12) A few days later I received an email from PayPal stating that I have received a payment from PlayerAuctions for the amount of $214.75 USD.

13) 6 minutes after, I receive another email from PayPal stating that the payment of $214.75 USD has been canceled by playerauctions.com.

14) Shortly after, I receive an email from PlayerAuctions telling me that the disbursement has been sent.

15) I log in to my PayPal account to check if there is any money received. There is none.

16) I sent an email to PlayerAuctions asking about the disbursement. They insist that it has been sent. I confirm that it has not been sent, because it had been canceled by them immediately after sending it. They again insist that it has been sent. I respond again, asking them to send the disbursement again. I also sent a PM to PlayerAuctions on sythe.org informing them of the situation. I have not received a response.

17) Any email I send to the buyer receives no response, despite him being very responsive and polite in previous emails. These details lead me to believe that this buyer is PlayerAuctions. They will probably attempt to sell my account later, if they haven't already.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Screenshots as proof that everything I said is true (the number of each image corresponds to the points above):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) [04/19/2017 4:13 PM] Here is the email I received from PlayerAuctions stating that my account has been sold and includes instructions for delivery to the buyer. As you can see, the email address that I was instructed to change my Hearthstone account to is very generic ([email protected]).




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3) This is the buyer's profile on PlayerAuctions. I took this screenshot after the transaction, which is why it shows that there is 1 successful order. There are no previous transactions on this profile. Also notice the account was created on April 19, 2017 which was the day I posted my offer. This account was created just to purchase my Hearthstone account.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4) [04/19/2017 5:45 PM] This is the email I sent directly to the buyer, as well as his response. For some reason, he used a different email address to respond.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6) This is the confirmation email I received from PlayerAuctions stating that the buyer has confirmed delivery of the account and that the order is complete:



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7) This is the Order Detail page a few days after I received the confirmation email from PlayerAuctions that the transaction has been successfully completed. Under Disbursement Info you can see "Order closed unsuccessfully - buyer fully refunded". Again, I was never informed of this by PlayerAuctions.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8) [04/25/2017 10:24 AM] This is PlayerAuction's response to my concern about the "Order closed unsuccessfully" status.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11) [05/02/2017 9:00 AM] This is the email I received stating that I didn't get my disbursement because my phone number was allegedly not a contracted phone number, which it actually was.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12) [05/03/2017 2:41 AM] Here is the email from PayPal confirming that PlayerAuctions has sent me a payment of $214.75 USD.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13) [05/03/2017 2:47 AM] And here is the email I received from PayPal 6 minutes later stating that the payment has been canceled by playerauctions. To confirm, yes my PayPal email address is verified.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

14) [05/03/2017 4:27 AM] This is the automated email from PlayerAuctions notifying me of a change in my disbursement status.



Upon checking the Order Details page on PlayerAuctions, it does indeed show that the disbursement has been sent. Notice that the listed amount sent here ($219.04) is different from the amount listed in the email from PayPal ($214.75). Obviously they sent the disbursement just so their system can say that it has been sent. Then they immediately canceled the payment. This detail is important because PlayerAuctions is using the status on this page to "prove" that the disbursement has been sent, rather than their own accounting records which will obviously show a payment out of $214.75 and a payment in of $214.75. Notice that this order has been terminated by an administrator? I believe they did this so that the cancellation will not show up in the Event Log after the order is terminated.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

15) [05/08/2017] This is my PayPal activity page from April 1, 2017 to today, May 8, 2017. There is nothing.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16) [05/06/2017 12:27 PM] This is the email I received from PlayerAuctions after I had notified them that the disbursement they sent was canceled. Notice that they are using the Order Detail status to claim that they sent the disbursement, even though I explicitly told them that the payment had been canceled. Normally, you'd expect someone to check their accounting to verify a payment in and a payment out. Instead, they just use the Order Detail disbursement status because they know it will not show a payment canceled since that's something that would only show up in accounting (remember, an administrator terminated the order so that the cancellation wouldn't show up).



After this, I replied stating again that PayPal had sent me an email informing me that the payment had been canceled by playerauctions.com. I even included a screenshot of the email from PayPal to prove this. This is their response:


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I truly appreciate anyone who's read this far. The following points highlight how I know this is a scam. Please note that it is the aggregate of all these details combined that makes me believe this is a scam. Like I said, I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case there are too many setbacks and coincidences for me to believe that this was all an accident. I believe that they purposely implemented all these various tactics in order to stall me enough in hopes that I would just forget about it. Unfortunately for them I work hard for what I have and I cannot stand to think that they will do this to other people who also work hard for what they have. My belief is that they do this after every set number of successful transactions in order for their scam to persist. There are a number of reviews from people who ended up in a similar situation as I did. I didn't think I would be one of the unlucky ones, but here I am. So I implore you, do not take the risk with these scammers.

1) My account was purchased almost instantly (within 2 hours). This is strange given that I looked through dozens of offers for Hearthstone accounts in order to determine a fair price for my account. The price I offered was by no means a steal. In fact, there were comparable offers (similar in both price and content) that had been up for over a month. Despite these stale offers (mostly from reputable sellers), the buyer took an immediate interest in mine (I was a brand new seller with no reputation). Why would someone instantly jump on an account being sold by a brand new seller even though there are others of the same price and content being sold by seasoned reputable sellers? I believe the buyer was PlayerAuctions who targeted me because I was new and they wouldn't want to scam a longtime seller. Believe me, there was nothing special about my offer. I basically made it the same as everyone else's.

2) The buyer created his account on PlayerAuctions just to purchase my Hearthstone account. This in itself is not suspicious, but I believe it is a relevant detail.

3) The buyer's email address is very generic ([email protected]). I'm only releasing this because I'm pretty sure it's PlayerAuctions and I don't think they will mind given how much money they scam from people.

4) The buyer no longer responds to emails, even though he was very responsive and polite during the transaction.

5) There were multiple instances of my disbursement being delayed such as the order status covertly being changed to "closed unsuccessfully", my transaction history being erased, the slow responses, my needing to change my phone number, and the payment cancellation.

6) After 2 weeks of delays, I finally receive my disbursement only to have it canceled 6 minutes after. Yet another "error", but I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm a programmer and I know errors can happen all the time.

7) The amount they claimed they paid me ($219.04) is different than the amount listed in the emails from PayPal ($214.75). This in itself is no big deal but it might be relevant.

8) When claiming that my disbursement has been sent to me, PlayerAuctions uses the order detail status instead of their accounting history. This is because an administrator manually terminated my order after they sent the payment, but before they canceled it. So of course the order details page will show that the last activity in the event log was a disbursement sent to me. I even advised them to check their accounting, which will show a payment out and a payment in. They completely ignored this point and reverted to using the order detail status as their "proof".

9) Even after giving them proof from PayPal that the payment was canceled, they still refuse to pay me. Now, they no longer respond to my emails. PlayerAuctions here on sythe.org will not respond to my messages. Their scam is complete, and there's nothing I can do except warn others of their scam.

Given these details, it is my sincere belief that PlayerAuctions set up a dummy account to purchase my Hearthstone account. After delivering the account, they covertly changed my order status to "order closed unsuccessfully - buyer fully refunded" without informing me. I believe they actually refunded the "buyer" which was them. Now I believe they are going to sell my account (probably on another site) for profit, if they haven't already.

To anyone who's read this far, thank you very much. Please don't take the risk with these scammers. I truly hope that you will all warn others of their unscrupulous actions. Before using their site, I actually read a couple posts on Sythe about their scams, but I didn't listen. Although I regret losing a couple hundred dollars, at least I can do my best to slow down their shady business by warning others of their scam. Please, fellow gamers, if you wish to buy or sell gaming content, do NOT risk it with these scammers. It's truly not worth the risk. I've seen people buy and sell accounts for tens of thousands of dollars. Are you willing to risk that much money going into the pockets of these scammers?

Thanks for your time. If anyone has any questions please feel free to send me a PM.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL;DR:
PlayerAuctions.com scams a set number of people at intervals. They will use any tactic they can think of to stall you until you forget about it. Don't take the risk with these scammers.

 

While playerauctions does have a sythe account, it is a PR account and not a trading account so there is nothing we can do to help you there. What you can do though is post a BRIEF summary of your issue and your order number in this thread and the rep will contact you

Playerauctions Issues Resolution Thread