Sneaky seller relisting a 'sold' item

Sybarite

I wonder if someone can offer some advise please.

Whilst a novice at the whole ebay thing, I bought an item from a seller in the States. After the auction the guy selling emailed me to say that he only accepted Western Union not paypal from buyers outside the US. I was aware of the warnings re Western Union, but still paid using my credit card which covers internet purchases.

The item didn't turn up - surprise, surprise - and the seller was a bit aggressive in subsequent emails and a bit too quick in stating that the item had been lost - I strongly suspected that he had pocketed the cash and simply hadn't sent anything.

Anyway I added him to my favourite sellers list and periodically checked his listings - and as I thought after 6 months the same item has just appeared for sale.

I didn't leave negative feedback as he made it quite clear that he would return the favour, and it didn't seems worth blotting my 100% for a $20 item.

My concern is that he probably does this occasionally and I'd like to make him think twice before repeating the process with some other too-trusting ebay user. I can complain to ebay - but I'm not convinced that this will produce any result as they never seem to care about anything other than being paid and promoting paypal.

Any suggestions?

On a separate issue, I sent an item to the States before being paid - partly my mistake and partly because I was trying to enable everything to be delivered before Christmas. The buyer and successful recipient - he's told me it's arrived - still hasn't paid, he's made some excuse regarding paypal not working and after initially asking if he could pay via cheque in $, which I declined, I've actually now stated that I can accept this form of payment to make things easier but it hasn't been forthcoming.

Any 'motivational' tools anyone can think of other than negative feedback? The buyer is polite, but it's been six weeks since the auction closed.

foxsake

with the first guy.
sign up a new user account buy everything he has and leave him feedback telling everyone what he's like.

with the 2nd guy.
apart from emails what else can you do. unless you are planning a trip to Amnerica soon :-)

robnye

with the first guy.... find out if you can report him to the tax authorities in the US....... :eek:

soolin

Re the first guy. Maybe the item did go astray in the post and eventually found its way back to him via his return address on the label. I realise most honest sellers would immediately send this to the original buyer but perhaps he sees the opportunity of making another sale on it.

As a more experienced user now i'm sure you see the benefit of only using paypal, that puts the onus of delivery on the seller and you could have done a chargeback.

Setting up fake accounts to hit him back could result in your main account being suspended as well. YOu would have to register a real address to get your account accepted which would link it to your existing account if the seller did some digging. Then he could file against you for unwelcome bidder and have you NARUd on any associated accounts.

On the second guy, immediately file a claim for non paying bidder. Most buyers realise the significance of having an NPB strike on their account and will do anything to avoid it.

I think you only have 45 days to do this so act quickly.

Soo

foxsake

soolin wrote:

Re the first guy. Maybe the item did go astray in the post and eventually found its way back to him via his return address on the label. I realise most honest sellers would immediately send this to the original buyer but perhaps he sees the opportunity of making another sale on it.

As a more experienced user now i'm sure you see the benefit of only using paypal, that puts the onus of delivery on the seller and you could have done a chargeback.

Setting up fake accounts to hit him back could result in your main account being suspended as well. YOu would have to register a real address to get your account accepted which would link it to your existing account if the seller did some digging. Then he could file against you for unwelcome bidder and have you NARUd on any associated accounts.

On the second guy, immediately file a claim for non paying bidder. Most buyers realise the significance of having an NPB strike on their account and will do anything to avoid it.

I think you only have 45 days to do this so act quickly.

Soo

You don't have to register with a real name address telephone number or anything. i have several ebay accounts. and have never been suspended or questioned on them.

VH

First guy:

Like Soolin says, if you set up another account specifically to neg the seller, there is a chance that EBay will suspend your main account as well if he complains.

Even if the other account has different contact details (I have one myself with a real address which is not linked to mine - I use it for posting on the EBay forums), EBay seem to be quite good at working out which accounts are associated with each other (e.g. by tracking the computers which use the accounts).

Although I do have great sympathy for you, by using Western Union you have basically set yourself up to be scammed and removed any protection you had by using Paypal. Also, by not leaving a negative for the seller, it's very likely that another buyer will be scammed in the same way. I appreciate that you want to protect your own rating, but if a person who was scammed before you had left appropriate feedback, chances are you would have steered clear of this seller. Now, by not leaving feedback, the next man could be scammed as well. This is one of the problems with the feedback system, people are too concerned about protecting their 100% ratings and this is exactly why the scamsters continue to operate unimpeded.

Personally I wouldn't bother chasing the seller now as it's been 6 months, just put it down to experience and move on! If it only cost you $20 then think about the time you've spent chasing and checking up on them!

Sooner or later they will get caught.

Second guy:

Never send anything out (especially abroad) without getting paid. Again, good advice from Soolin, file an NPB immediately if you still have time, chances are this will prompt the buyer into paying you.

Best of luck and let us know how you get on!

2005CLAIRE

IMO you shouldn't stop from giving a negative feedback just because you will get 1 back. To help others falling for the same thing you should give a negative if you find he/she did it on purpose. The neg that you recieve you can comment on, you can say neg given in retaliation.
I would prefer to give someone negative feedback if they deserve it rather than keep my 100% record (has happened to me twice).
Don't let it stop you from buying and selling though, there are some nice honest people out there.

Sybarite

Thanks for the various pieces of advice.

You'll be pleased to hear that the second listing of the item previously 'sold' didn't sell, so yahboo sucks to the seller.

I clawed my money back via my credit card company - Barclaycard were very good about it btw.

But then received a chargeback and a threat of debt collectors from Western Union - which I don't think they that would actually have carried out - but better to be safe than face an increase charged when debt collectors turn up - I contacted Western Union via email & explained my problem, they explained that the credit card company had reversed the transaction and that they were therefore out of pocket and wanted payment from me. Incidentially this does make the 'internet guarantees' made by the CC companies worthless.

After a couple of emails, WU agreed to stop chasing me for payment and to suspend future payments to the seller and attempt to claim their payment back from the seller. So I hope he has a nice surprise and a lot of admin to do.

RE the item sent before payment received - success. After a few excuses of I can't pay you via paypal, the system isn't letting me etc. I contacted my back re accepting foreign cheques. There isn't a fee up to £50 they just take a while to process. So I was able to re-contact the seller and offer the method of payment he'd initially wanted to use -despite my paypal specific instructions for foreign buyers - and I received a cheque a couple of days later.

I've had one other foreign buyer with an excuse of 'I can't use paypal' - quite how she paid for her other European purchases remained unanswered though. Had I know that there were no bank charges for low value foreign payments via cheque, I'd have used this method as a last resort in this prior instance. A usful tip to know - but I wouldn't advise accepting payment this way on a regular basis.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I haven't been put off the Ebay thing, I just have 'tightened' my system of selling and buying. A bargain is just a false economy if it doesn't turn up.