I have purchased oil a number of times on eBay over the past 18 months. (Though most of my oil purchases are directly from Walmart.com or Amazon.com and continue to be)
1) The eBay sellers are always slow to ship...one to three weeks before shipment, so be patient or plan ahead.
2) About 1/3 of the time, they will randomly cancel your order and say it was by your request.
3) 2/3 of the time they come through, and 80% of the time it drop ships from Walmart, the other 20% is from Rock Auto or some other online retailer. Only once did I receive oil directly from the seller. I have never received counterfeit, or used oil, as some suggest is a risk.
I was not aware of triangulation schemes until it was brought up by users on this forum to me about a year ago (user
@tired ?). As a long time, buyer and seller on eBay (25 years), I now suspect at least (from observation and my own buying patterns) 5% of all sales on eBay are from some form of this triangulation fraud. I have no other explanation for such below market prices on products that are drop shipped by national retailers. So, triangulation fraud seems a plausible explanation, buy I cannot prove or confirm it.
This is not unique to motor oil, you can scan around on eBay and see unusually low prices on tools, household goods, health & beauty aids, pretty much anything that can be purchased online and delivered by a third party retailer. I remember hearing on the news 15 years ago, eBay was where physical retail theft items were fenced...seems criminals found a way to not even have to leave their house or handle the goods.
