Ebay: Ordered a laptop, recieved an Argos catalogue!!

yorksrabbit

victor-meldrew wrote: »

the police will do nothing and will only be any good for a c/ref number.

Glad you've understood that much, then.

Ste_C

Ouch, a very expensive lesson learned I hope: trust nobody.

It's sad that people can get away with this.

I don't think he'll be seeing that money again, but I'd still report it to the Police and to ebay as he may have done the same to others.

JustLittleOldMe_2

please let us know his user id!!

soolin

JustLittleOldMe wrote: »

please let us know his user id!!

Why? The OP admits his brother has been a little foolhardy on this. Are there users here who honestly need to be warned not to deal off ebay and use a non safe method of payment?

Poppy9

Assume you have already reported to Ebay.

As other's said report to police and sue in small claims court. A court will look at the evidence like item listing and who won, email to your brother offering him a second chance and to avoid paypal etc. He can also get a copy of the cheque from the bank and the bank may provide evidence to the court of whose account it was paid into.

The court will then have to decide whether it is likely that your brother would raise a court case for a laptop if he had actually received it etc.

It would be a civil court case so burden of proof is less.

Ste_C

soolin wrote: »

Why? The OP admits his brother has been a little foolhardy on this. Are there users here who honestly need to be warned not to deal off ebay and use a non safe method of payment?

That's not the point. If you knew your local shop was ripping people off and acting without any morals or decency would you still shop there?

Whether or not the buyer should have known better is irrelevent, I wouldn't want to give this seller any of my money, through ebay or otherwise.

soolin

Ste_C wrote: »

That's not the point. If you knew your local shop was ripping people off and acting without any morals or decency would you still shop there?

Whether or not the buyer should have known better is irrelevent, I wouldn't want to give this seller any of my money, through ebay or otherwise.

If a shop was obviously scamming, absolutely blatantly would there be anyone still who shopped there?

We can't name and shame on here and in this instance I don't think there is any point as the possibility of anyone else falling for this obvious scam is pretty remote.

StaffsSW

Ste_C wrote: »

That's not the point. If you knew your local shop was ripping people off and acting without any morals or decency would you still shop there?

No I wouldn't. So far, my problems with ebay/paypal have been relatively low key, and I have a provsion for losses in my business plan - just as any high street shop should have a provision for shrinkage.

The biggest problem that I see it from the many, many posts on MSE is that people fall into traps because they did not read or did not understand the Paypal T&C's.

And it's not just Paypal - virtually all electronic money transfer agents have similar T&C's, but since Paypal is by far the most commonly used service, it's reasonable to expect to hear proportionately more problems with them.

So if people have so many problems with ebay and paypal, why do they still use them?

Poppy9

soolin wrote: »

We can't name and shame on here and in this instance I don't think there is any point as the possibility of anyone else falling for this obvious scam is pretty remote.

But obviously it's not. I doubt the OP brother was stupid but sometimes you wanting to believe the best in people means you drop your guard.

soolin

Poppy9 wrote: »

But obviously it's not. I doubt the OP brother was stupid but sometimes you wanting to believe the best in people means you drop your guard.

Turn that about then.

If someone doesn't read the warnings, doesn't understand what sending a cheque to an unknown person actual risks, and doesn't bother protecting themselves in any way you imagine they will actually search the internet and find a thread on MSE with that scammers ebay ID?

Therefore no point in posting a user ID.