To be suspicious of people on Facebook local selling pages who sell "brand new with tags" items

[throwingpebbles]

Maybe I am too cynical, but surely if an item of clothing is "brand new with tags" and "still for sale in the shops" then you would just take it back to the shop for a refund?

Aibu to suspect that, in particular, the prolific sellers of "brand new with tags" items might have acquired them by shoplifting?

[BeyondJinglebells]

Unimaginative, i didnt try on jeans that i bought last week as i am in a wheelchair. Is that an acceptable enough reason?

i was planning to send dh back to return them if they didnt fit

[leaningtoweroflego]

I agree eBay is probably rife with shoplifters!

However I've noticed a lot of brand new with tags stuff from the cheaper brands is being sold at a profit. Eg I noticed loads of new Primark.Christmas blankets for £10 - they were £5 in store.

I guess they sell them to people who can't get to the shops for one reason or another?

[leaningtoweroflego]

"if you have had them stored at the bottom of your wardrobe for ages then surely it is not accurate to describe them as "brand new" "

Brand new on eBay means "not worn" not "not currently in the shops".

[FairyFluffbum]

^^ not always easy.

I bought two t-shirts for my 2.9 year old dd from h and m. She was being babysat by her auntie and therefore wasn't with me. I bought her 2-4years old and it drowns her. I will keep them and let her grow into them but not everyone is like that. They may not have the space

[unimaginativename13]

If people can't make the trip to return stuff because it's too far - why aren't you trying it on!!

If I went out and bought something without trying it on I would think I'm my head 'I could bring that back next week' not 'I'll shove it on a selling site and loose money'

That's why I use online shopping - you now have returns that are picked up from your house or I can do click and collect at the petrol station 2 seconds away!

[ComposHatComesBack]

I don't understand why lots of stuff means it's shoplifted? Surely you can't keep going back to the shop to nick lots of the same item?

I always assumed that it was knock off stuff, but it had been knocked off earlier along the retail chain, stolen from the warehouse, rather than the shop. As you'll see say 'Fred Perry polo shirts, BNWT£25 sizes xs to xxl and available in white, black , navy and grey.' It seems unlikely that you could shoplift an entire range, item by item.

throwing I used to work with kids who were going off the rails and I knew a lad like that who could shoplift to order. In his own way he was brilliant. Most of the kids lifted stuff, but mostly did it on impulse and would knick some pointless tat from brside the tills at Primark, but he could seemingly knick anything to order.

[TracyBarlow]

Where I live is the country's logistics capital. We have lots of warehouses fulfilling orders from places like Argos. The workers there are paid rock bottom wages on zer hours contracts. They quite clearly nick boxes of stuff and flog it on FB. If you click on their profiles you can often see where they work. Let's just hope their bosses are not on FB.

[Alisvolatpropiis]

A woman on my local sell/buy page was asking for mobile phones "any condition, locked, any net work, doesn't matter if damaged".

She was essentially after stolen phones. I reported her and she was immediately removed from the group scummy bitch.

[99percentchocolate]

One group I'm on has just cracked down by banning people and reporting them to the police. They did nothing before so there were dozens of posts with people offering bnwt items in a variety of sizes - all current season. Somebody took screen shots of one and reported it to the company and police so presumably admin must have been given a telling off.

[throwingpebbles]

You get a lot of " career" shoplifters theycall

Historically they often used to shoplift to order- I used to help out at a holiday camp for disadvantaged kids and will never forget one child showing me a suitcase full of clothes and explaining "the shoplifters nicked it for us".

If you had legitimately bought a lot of brand new stuff then decided you didn't want it surely you would take it back for a refund rather than sell at a knock down price

[theycallmemellojello]

I don't understand why lots of stuff means it's shoplifted? Surely you can't keep going back to the shop to nick lots of the same item? I guess maybe it's more likely to be nicked from a warehouse or, that old chestnut, "of the back of a lorry." But can't see how you could have a stream of items from just shoplifting.

[cricketballs]

Shoot - or they could have purchased them in bulk from a warehouse....

[ShootTheMoon]

I have been thinking just the same, and even wondered about posting a comment on the Facebook page. A few random items with and without tags makes sense as a clear out (I have done the same recently).

But there are people on my local FB selling page who are selling masses and masses of boxed, unopened children's toys like Lego, Playmobil, dolls etc, often in duplicate.

They are so very obviously shoplifted, I wouldn't go near them!

[throwingpebbles]

Quite Hefzi.
You could get all your money returned if you took it back to shop!

[hefzi]

My city, they don't bother with FB - just flog that sort of thing in various pubs in the city centre: in the school holidays, there's even an "enterprising" young man who does a door-to-door service

The odd bit isn't suspicious - we all screw up with things: but constantly new things being sold, when they are still available in shops? Bit of a red flag, especially if they are varying sizes etc

[throwingpebbles]

But treacle there is a massive difference between "fresh off the shop shelves" and "been gathering dust in wardrobe for 18 months". The former is "brand new", the latter is just "unworn"

And yeah it is the people with a constant flow of BNWT stuff that make me suspicious

[dannydyerismydad]

There's a woman local to me who sells heaps and heaps of boxed Lego sets. A couple could be put down to unwanted gifts or duplicates, but 5-8 sets a week is decidedly suspect.

Another woman selling formula and nappies. Originally I assumed her kid had switched to cows milk and grown out of that size of nappy, but on a bored afternoon I totted up that she's shifting 70 tins a month. Heaven knows where she's getting the stuff.

[MotherOfMinions]

Yes if there's lots of stuff. There's one on my local pages that's sells lots of stuff that looks as if it's been shoplifted from Boots/Superdrug.

[YouMakeMyDreams]

Wouldn't necessarily be suspicious of phones without chargers. Lots of phones don't come with them now as apparently most people already have them at home.

[treaclesoda]

I've always taken 'brand new' to mean unworn rather than 'bought within the past week'.

The good thing about facebook buy and sell pages is that it is much easier to guess who the dodgy sellers are than on Gumtree or eBay.

[Toraleistripe]

Ebay has a mix of professional sellers, amateurs with a few bits and quite a few dishonest folk. You can't really tell who fits what category easily.

[theycallmemellojello]

Hm, there might be a bit of this but I've also noticed that stuff shows up on ebay after shops have a sale - the seller advertises the full price of the item but is clearly offering less of a discount on this than the shop was. Also, I've often wondered if some ebay stuff is sold by employees taking advantage of a discount. When it's a seller with a lot of items, I presume that shoplifting is not a sustainable business model! But for someone selling an item as a one off on Facebook, for sure that looks suspicious.

[FairyFluffbum]

I sold a brand new blind that I had bought for my daughters room. Despite measuring it, it was too small. Packaging had been opened and therefore the shop wouldn't take it back. So I popped it on fb. Not everyone is a thief but there probably is quite a few

[MammaTJ]

We see it quite a lot here. We live at the end of the earth and it is 26 miles to the nearest decent shopping town. Those who can be bothered to haul their arses there to shop in the first place, can rarely be bothered a second time to do returns!

[LadyB49]

At Clearance section of an outlet shop..... last week I bought a dress for £5 with a £69 tag. Sold it for£12 .