Ebay scam, If you are looking to sell using ebay and paypal, my advice don't do it!

Crowqueen

Paying 5% to "receive" money from someone stood in front of you is ludicrous IMO.

You pay to find the buyer in the first place. Anywhere will make you pay for an ad; precious few companies offer you ads seen nationwide for free. Compared to my local shop, which is 30p per week, eBay is actually cheap and Gumtree - which would have been better for this item - is (I believe) free (within reason for private sellers). They are also beginning to promote themselves more aggressively. Thing is, without a place to advertise, you wouldn't have got the buyer in the first place. So look on it as a cost of doing business which is unavoidable. No such thing as a free lunch and all of that.

I hope actually some of the free ads services online will promote themselves more widely. eBay is great for items that you can post, but not so good at all for face to face items. It is just not suitable for collection items, and I think this is a wide enough scam to be really concerned about finding an alternative to eBay for this sort of thing.

There are also ways of approaching a buyer sensitively and not questioning their honesty which people who still want to sell collection items on eBay should use. Don't just tell your buyer to s** off or that you are refunding because you don't want to be scammed. Explain politely that the item is heavy and can't be posted, and it would be easier for them to pay in cash when they have inspected it.

macfly

Think he's talking about the paypal fee. The ebay one is to find the buyer, and is usually unavoidable. Not always though.

EmeraldEncrusted

I have every sympathy with the OP, whether he knew about or followed ebay / paypal rules or not, getting scammed because you allowed yourself to put trust in another person is not, IMO, a bad character trait. I agree with those who say it's probably fruitless to chase after ebay or paypal, the small print is there to protect them from exactly this sort of scenario.

OP, have you tried checking 192.com to search for details, confirmed electoral register address for your buyer? Perhaps it won't bring up any new info on the buyer but then again perhaps it might.

The cynical part of me thinks the "driver" and the scammer are the same person. It would just be another way for him to cover his tracks, if someone later recognised the scammer or if he'd been traced using his vehicle registration (because there was still a risk the seller would note this down), he could just say he was on a job for "a new client" who had now miraculously vanished. Plus, if he really used a driver, then potentially there's a witness out there. For a small scale crime like this, I doubt the scammer would have someone else on the "payroll". OP, can you think of any details about the driver, perhaps something he mentioned, that may help you trace the driver? Even if the scammer and driver are not the same person, it may help you find a new lead.

On another note, I see plenty of listings that make it clear that the seller will only sell a collection item for cash on collection. This may be against ebay's policy but then ebay aren't the ones taking the risk. Judging by the number of cash on collection listings that I've seen, the sellers have obviously not been reported for doing this or had their listing removed. From a buyer's prospective, if you're not happy with the T&Cs of the listing, then you just don't bid. Sounds fair to me.

soolin

EmeraldEncrusted wrote: »

I . From a buyer's prospective, if you're not happy with the T&Cs of the listing, then you just don't bid. Sounds fair to me.

From a users prospective if you don't like the rules of the site don't use the site, Just as fair surely?

Crowqueen

On another note, I see plenty of listings that make it clear that the seller will only sell a collection item for cash on collection. This may be against ebay's policy but then ebay aren't the ones taking the risk. Judging by the number of cash on collection listings that I've seen, the sellers have obviously not been reported for doing this or had their listing removed. From a buyer's prospective, if you're not happy with the T&Cs of the listing, then you just don't bid. Sounds fair to me.

If someone takes the risk, he or she should live with the consequences. I agree, it's daft and I wish eBay would sort this out or at least acknowledge it's a concern, but the seller must take some responsibility for what they sell and how they sell it too.

Flip it over, and you'd have people howling that old caveat emptor chestnut. Caveat venditor is now more of a buzzword. There are plenty of free-ad sites out there, you don't have to use eBay to sell your cash-on-collection item, therefore you are taking the risk if you list on eBay and although in an ideal world buyers should read the terms and conditions, there is nothing sellers can do if they don't take care of their own selves.

Plus I'm kind of torn too. I've wandered about on holiday with large quantities of cash on me, I've never really felt safe even when it was necessary (for example once in Serbia about four years ago when I realised that I was right to bring sterling notes with me to change at an old fashioned bank bureau de change as the cash machines were few and far between and often empty by the early evening) and if I was going to buy someone's TV for anything over £100 I'd rather the money was in a different form than a wad of notes. I'd prefer it if the option were there to pay electronically, or at least by some sort of banker's draft or cheque. So it's not quite as simple an issue as all that.