eBay and where do I stand?

russeleoin

Hello All. I was scammed 2 weeks ago on ebay and I wanted to know what I can do about it.

History: I saw an ad for a car, 10 years old, UK lsiting with a number of good photo's. It met all my requirements and was within my pricerange. I did the usual checks, Feedback, googled name and address spelling etc all came up okay. The seller advised to email him before bidding and had a buy it now price. I sent an email to him saying I would take the buy it now option. I duly got a reply that I though was from eBay advising that I had won the auction and to follow their VPP(Vehicle Protection Program, I searched this as well and it was valid) I got the usual payment invoice thing advising that in this instance Moneygram would be a good option(I should have known better) Anyway, I paid £1200 and lost it. There is no car, probably never was.

I have been to the Police and opened a case, I have been to eBay but all I get is a cut and paste form their policy document.
I feel that I was not protected, I have been doing my own investigation and found the following. The seller was a valid account holder and his name and address had been hijacked. The advert was on for more than 24 hours. The VPP does exist. It appears that the hacker hijacked his account, and had a corresponding email address(which I checked). Somehow when I sent him an email he was able to respond with what looked like eBay pages.
eBay appear to have taken down the advert, and protected the seller, but I have lost £1200 and I think they offered no protection to me. I did not know that the sale was taking place outside eBay. There were no warnings that a scam had taken place( not even on the persons name) and now they dont even respond to my emails.

The police are equally interested!. Do I just write off the money. Does that not make me complicit in the next person scammed by the individual.

I have a name, and I can confirm that valid photo id was used to collect the money. It was done in the UK but moneygram will not release details to me.

Any idea's?

thanks
Russ

frivolous_fay

The big warning should have been Moneygram - it's banned on ebay for a good reason.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

I note that moneygram don't warn you not to use their service to send money to strangers - at least WU do this.

Your best bet is the police. Try to find others on ebay who may have been scammed by the same person, and pool your resources.