Stung for the first time...

pivotalgubbins

Hi guys,

Right, I thought I'd let you all know that I was conned for the very first time today, on a eBay sale I made last week. My fault entirely, I think I have got complacent after well over 150 previously faultless transactions as both a seller and a buyer. Anyway, on with the story!

I listed a £20 Virgin Top-Up voucher on eBay last week. It sold for £15.60 inclusive and, a day or so later, I got the Paypal payment and a request to send the Top-Up code direct to their email address. This address was different than the Paypal address quoted, but as they are not the first to have seperate addresses, I thought nothing of it. This morning, I received the dreaded 'chargeback' email - on looking at the buyer's feedback, I'm not the only one either. The bidder was very new (registered early September) and seems to be going for a quite slap-and-dash in the conning game. One seller was seemingly on the ball and stopped delivery.

Anway, have fired off the email to Paypal, not that it'll do much good. I've also emailed eBay to get the seller removed (why, oh why, is this not automatic - afterall, they own both companies, as soon as chargebacks occur, surely eBay's system should pick up on this).

At the end of the day, it is £15 down the drain - not an absolute diaster, but it still kind of hurts. I hope that anyone reading this will have a good chuckle and also remember to always stay alert, scammers are everywhere.

**sorry post edited by BG**
Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: For legal reasons I have to discourage swapping, buying and selling on the forum (please see this rule). While it can be a very useful way of saving money it relies on a certain amount of trust between members and as such can cause problems (and has in the past). If you have any questions about this policy please email abuse@moneysavingexpert.com.
--
PG

masonic

Hang on a minute, if you listed a top-up VOUCHER, and only sent them a top-up CODE, then they are quite within their rights to do a paypal chargeback for goods not received (send them the voucher by recorded delivery quick and hope they sign for it!). If you explicity listed the item as a voucher code, then they will not be covered by the paypal buyer complaints policy, so the complaint should not be upheld.

pivotalgubbins

masonic wrote:

Hang on a minute, if you listed a top-up VOUCHER, and only sent them a top-up CODE, then they are quite within their rights to do a paypal chargeback for goods not received (send them the voucher by recorded delivery quick and hope they sign for it!). If you explicity listed the item as a voucher code, then they will not be covered by the paypal buyer complaints policy, so the complaint should not be upheld.

Thanks for the reply, but I think you have the wrong end of the stick. I sold the item, they requested the code via email rather than post, I duly emailed and they have left me positive feedback. However, it seems they were using someone's else's Paypal account or credit card details. Paypal have initiated the chargeback, not the buyer (at least, not the buyer I was delaing with).

masonic

Ah, so it was a credit card chargeback then. Hopefully it won't take you too long to cover the loss with your future sales. In future, if you list a physical item, always send it by post to the address shown with the paypal payment, but I'm sure you don't need to be told that now.

Edit: Oh, by the way, you did file an NPB against the buyer, didn't you?

pivotalgubbins

masonic wrote:

Ah, so it was a credit card chargeback then. Hopefully it won't take you too long to cover the loss with your future sales. In future, if you list a physical item, always send it by post to the address shown with the paypal payment, but I'm sure you don't need to be told that now.

Yes, that's right. As I said in my OP, completely my fault. To be honest, I'm not sure I even want to accept Paypal in future auctions, at least not to new buyers with feedback of under 10 or so. That's a decision I need to make at a later date I feel.

Does anyone know how long I can get away with running a negative balance in Paypal? The transaction is only temporary at the moment, but it is sure to remain. I have no real plans to sell anything at the moment, so it could remain this way for quite a while.

**Sorry, post edited by BG**
Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: For legal reasons I have to discourage swapping, buying and selling on the forum (please see this rule). While it can be a very useful way of saving money it relies on a certain amount of trust between members and as such can cause problems (and has in the past). If you have any questions about this policy please email abuse@moneysavingexpert.com.

masonic

pivotalgubbins wrote:

Does anyone know how long I can get away with running a negative balance in Paypal? The transaction is only temporary at the moment, but it is sure to remain. I have no real plans to sell anything at the moment, so it could remain this way for quite a while.

Paypal will try to persue the money through debt collectors, but if you ignore them they may eventually give up. People seem to have different experiences here, and it's possible you could eventually end up with a CCJ if you go down this route. (BTW, did you see my post edit above?)

pivotalgubbins

masonic wrote:

Paypal will try to persue the money through debt collectors, but if you ignore them they may eventually give up. People seem to have different experiences here, and it's possible you could eventually end up with a CCJ if you go down this route. (BTW, did you see my post edit above?)

Well, I'm not willing to risk a CCJ for the sake of £15 - I'll sit tight and wait for Paypal to contact me regarding the investigation. Meanwhile, I'll see what items I have for sale to try and lessen the impact of the money owed.

Thanks for pointing me towards the edit - completely forgot about this, will start a NPB process now.

EDIT - Apparently I have to wait until Monday.

Road_Hog

pivotalgubbins wrote:

Hi guys,

Right, I thought I'd let you all know that I was conned for the very first time today, on a eBay sale I made last week. My fault entirely, I think I have got complacent after well over 150 previously faultless transactions as both a seller and a buyer. Anyway, on with the story!

I listed a £20 Virgin Top-Up voucher on eBay last week. --
PG

Had the same this week, put it down to experience. What was the buyers ID so I can block it. By the way this guy has done the same.

http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidItems&userid=hayy_bolts&completed=1&all=1&rows=25&sort=3

pivotalgubbins

Road_Hog wrote:

Had the same this week, put it down to experience. What was the buyers ID so I can block it. By the way this guy has done the same.

http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidItems&userid=hayy_bolts&completed=1&all=1&rows=25&sort=3

His user ID was amirkhan20001.

I'm sad that other people have been caught by this as well, seems like they looked to target a specific area of goods (in this case top-up vouchers).

For everyone's information - I managed to find someone to test the vouchers, but it had unfortunately been used. I also reported the user to eBay, who replied with the typical cut-and-paste job saying that they could not say what action would be taken against the buyer, but it'll be looked into.

Road_Hog

pivotalgubbins wrote:

His user ID was amirkhan20001.

Yep, he is one and the same,

http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidItems&userid=amirkhan20001&completed=1&all=1&rows=25&sort=3

Here is an edited, email from another seller I contacted.

yeah mate same thing happened to me the pr*ck added me to his msn messanger and was gloating how he conned me and other sellers the f***ing c**t he also goes under the name of amirkhann2001 dont sale to that user.

chodges84

its a good con thats for sure. As no package is ever sent no one can provide a tracking number, and I doubt you've got his address.

You can 'Pull' peoples details, such as address and telephone number etc, so it may be worth doing that and giving him a call. Although I suspect the details are fake.