Is this money laundering?

[fetamore]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331770205250?hash=item4d3f0b9442:g:qAkAAOSwgv5ZeKGn&var=540874041939

It's so they don't have to delete and repost the listing. It's out of stock. There's no way to 'save' a listing and it's a faff to re-enter it all within eBay's system so rather than delete and resist every few days, they mark it up like that and bring it back down when it's in stock. Amending the price is very quick compared to re-entering all the info and photos.

Sellers often do this on E bay when they are out of stock. Apparently putting it up to a ridiculous price so no one buys it, is for various reasons much easier than deleting the listing and having to recreate it again when the item is back in stock.

You see this on Amazon too.

Someone's been watching Ozark

It’s similar to holidays, if you search too far in advance you might find a usually moderately priced holiday is on offer for £100,000 or more, however they’ll offer something similar at a much earlier date for a sensible price. The holiday you want will then be drastically reduced when it’s actually available.

Same way as any money laundering business. Buy stock in cash and then sell it, often at a loss but usually customers pay by credit card or BACS. Hey presto "clean" money appears in the money launderer's business bank account. Banks don't check what a business has sold or whether a profit was made - lots of relatively small transactions from multiple sources appears "clean" so no grounds for suspicion/reporting by the bank.

Yes, there used to be a few selling cheap tat for hundreds of pounds. I reported one to Crimestoppers.
Clearly money laundering.

It is NOT clearly money laundering, there are valid reasons why items are listed so high in price.

What did you gain by reporting to crimestoppers ffs other than cause unnecessary stress to the seller. Jesus thats awful.

It’s a valid query as it is a typology of money laundering for goods to be sold at over inflated prices on platforms to shift value between parties (related but pretending they are not and it’s just regular sellers). As pp have pointed out on further investigation there seems to be a valid reason for this but it could well have been money laundering.

@Redebs

Clearly money laundering.

It's not clear to me, can you explain?

This is normal practice on eBay to keep your sales history on an out of stock item. If you end it and realist it you down the search rankings. List it at a high price no one will ever then edit when more stock comes in.

I don't think so, no.

Looking at their feedback all the sales are at "normal" prices.

I think they've either run out of stock or they aren't in a position to sell them at the moment, so rather than remove the listing, they've changed the price to something no-one would be willing to pay.

Look at it again in a few weeks time and the price will probably change.

It for sure isn't money laundering.
They are out of stock, and waiting for new stock to arrive.

If they had the page marked as sold out, it would lose it's ranking in eBay search, and lose its place on Google Shopping and in other search results, thus reducing its visibility and traffic to almost zero.
So instead they keep it marked as in stock with a high price so nobody buys it temporarily, but then the page is still kept active and doesn't lose its place, ready for when they get more stock back in.

The (new) seller only had a few very cheap, unrelated items, poorly photographed, selling for hundreds of pounds. Nothing else on sale.

Rather than just sending large sums of money abroad (to US in this case), you set up as an Amazon third party seller and put up random bits of household tat for sale at crazy price. You then let accomplices know, so they 'buy' this rubbish, while actually just laundering the money.

Alternatively, by prior arrangement, seller sends drugs instead of £300 'tent peg'. Easy international transaction.

@Redebs

My mistake i thought you were talking g about the eBay listing in the OP,

👍

Exactly.

I am an ebay seller and have done this in the past.
If an item you are selling runs down to zero units available then the listing is closed. It can't be reactivated, a new listing will have to be created.
With that closed listing sellers will also lose number of items sold, feedback for that item etc.- important data to preserve for a good selling item.
By temporarily increasing the price to a silly number a seller can halt sales giving time to get new stock without disappointing customers.
When new stock is available sellers will then reduce the price and sales can resume.
It s a clumsy way of doing things, but there are not many options for sellers in that situation.

I sell on Amazon too, and if my stock levels reach zero there the listing remains open, but buyers will see a " currently unavailable" until I restock.