Marketplace sellers lose money and sometimes whole businesses to a handful of repeat scams. Below are the five schemes I see most often in practice, how each one works, and what you can do to protect your store.
1. Fake managers
You want to grow turnover, so you look for a specialist. Someone replies in the comments under a post: they will multiply your sales and the price is very attractive.
You agree on terms, pay, and give them access to your seller account. At first there may even be real activity: ads go live, something happens. Then one morning you find that 90% of your stock was bought at the lowest possible price, and the manager has disappeared.
You have been cheated and you are out of pocket.
How to protect yourself
You cannot run every part of your business alone forever. Sooner or later you will delegate to marketers, designers and managers. The question is how to delegate safely.
- Work with established companies, ideally ones the marketplace itself recommends or lists as official partners.
- Work with people who have a public reputation in this market and have been in it for a long time. A known name has something to lose.
- Learn the mechanics yourself first. Doing it alone works at the start, but once you need to delegate, the first two rules matter most.
2. Stolen seller accounts
This one has become especially popular. You get a message on WhatsApp, Telegram or plain SMS: "We have paused your sales due to suspicious activity." Then you are asked to send a code, or to take a call and read out the last six digits.
That is how scammers get into your seller account, remove you, and take over your store. From there they can do whatever they like with it.
It sounds absurd - who would dictate a code to a stranger? In practice, this happens a lot.
How to protect yourself
- Never share SMS codes with anyone. This applies far beyond marketplaces.
- Real marketplace support contacts you inside your seller account from an official account, not through messengers or WhatsApp.
- Scammers often get phone numbers from messengers. In your messenger settings, hide your number or limit its visibility to trusted contacts only.
3. Scams through analytics services
You sign up for a third-party analytics service, go through all the steps, and later find you cannot log in - or you notice changes in your store. For example, prices on your products dropped and the stock was bought out.
Analytics services are used by most sellers, and that does not mean you should stop using them. It means you need a disciplined approach.
How to protect yourself
- Use only established services, ideally ones recommended by the marketplace itself.
- Use services recommended by respected people in the niche. Their reputation is on the line when they recommend something.
- Stay alert anyway. Services change hands and features change, so review what third-party tools can access and what they are doing with it.
4. Fake brand-owner fines
A scammer poses as a brand owner or a lawyer acting for one and claims you owe a penalty for selling their product. They demand payment and provide account details.
Two things are worth remembering here.
- Only a court or a regulatory authority can actually order money to be recovered from you. A message demanding a transfer is not a ruling.
- Involve a lawyer immediately. Every company should have legal support, or at least a lawyer on speed dial. Many difficult situations are resolved precisely by these specialists.
5. Trademark hijacking
Scammers look for stores selling under a brand that is not registered as a trademark. They pick up a batch of such stores, file trademark applications for those names, register the marks, and then contact the store owners demanding money for the right to keep selling under their own brand.
The message is simple: pay, or we stop you from selling under our trademark.
How to protect yourself
Register your brand and register your trademark. If you plan to sell the product for a long time and see real value in it, registering the brand and the mark is worth the effort and cost.
The bottom line
There are many more ways to cheat sellers, but these five are the most common. The pattern behind all of them is the same: someone asks for access, a code, a payment or a right that should already be yours.
Treat access to your seller account as a key to your business, verify who you work with, and register what you build. That alone will save you from most of the losses described here.
