Scammed! Please help :(

Rowwey

Hi there folks, not been on this forum for a while but I just don't know what to do right now and In a bit of shock If I'm honest, but here's the story.

I recently went ahead to sell my Iphone 4 on ebay as I desperately needed the cash to pay for some bills, the first time I listed it two weeks ago, a bidder with 0 feedback won it and the account was then closed 2 hours later for suspicious activity and I had to relist it, I was a little !!!!ed off but thought okay.

Anyway, I relisted it and the bidding war began in the last hour and It was then won, I had a message from the seller asking if her friend could pick it up after she paid by paypal, I agreed (like an idiot) and I received the money in paypal and her friend came to collect it at 8pm, he seemed a nice guy, dressed nice and smelt nice, very pleasant ect.

I got an email around an hour ago saying that:

"Dear Joseph Warman,

In an effort to make PayPal a safer environment, we make every effort to
alert you to, and protect you from, transactions that may be problematic.

A recent eBay listing of yours is currently under review and the payment
has been flagged. We would like to learn more about this transaction.
Please log in to your PayPal account and provide the relevant information.

We recommend that you not send the item until our review is complete. If
you have already posted the item to the buyer, don’t worry. Just log in to
your PayPal account, go to the Resolution Centre and let us know where you
posted it to."

The payment was on hold, I went to the resolution center, said that the person came to collect it and then the payment was reversed due to it not being under paypal's protected act or something and now I'm in the red and without an Iphone 4 and in such a !!!! situation right now, I don't know what to do, I needed the money and now I'm screwed.

Is there nothing I can do? It seem's this scamming method isn't that unpopular after some research, It's just that apparently the payment was unauthorised and it wasn't "Oh, I didn't receive my item" dispute.

Anyone?

Happy_bunny

Sorry about you loss - What a !!!!!!! :mad:

I've not been in your position but my first thought is to get in touch with ebay and request the buyers details - as far as i know they'll give you address, email and phone number. Also within Ebay you can note the item as unpaid possibly is the paypal amount has been removed.

I'm presuming they lived close enough to arrange collection so perhaps consider visiting them or asking the police to look into it? After all you've no item and no money which (to my mind at least) is theft or obtaining property by deception.

Thankfully there are loads of peeps on MSE able to better advise and hopefully will be along soon and able to help with more defined answers.

Hope you get somewhere

alien1234

Is it a spoof paypal/eBay email as they rarely name a person's name but the eBay ID.

peterod1

Did you keep a record of the IMEI number? If so you can report the phone as stolen and the network operators can block it so it will not be much use to anyone.

soolin

peterod1 wrote: »

Did you keep a record of the IMEI number? If so you can report the phone as stolen and the network operators can block it so it will not be much use to anyone.

This is worth doing immediately just in case the phone stays in the UK.

That is about the end of the good news though, the paypal on collection scam is about the most common scam there is and I suspect they could not believe their good fortune when they found someone letting an Iphone be collected. THis thread explains the paypal requirement for protection:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3146680

In this case now that the OP has been scammed there are a few things to try, but I suspect the scammer has covered their tracks.

First you can check the address of the 'buyer' both in ebay and paypal, it is probably false or just one they picked at random from a phone book, but it never hurts to see if you can call and ask if they are aware their address is being used.

That is about it though, it might not even be that the person collecting was the 'winner' and even if it was you can't prove it, so I can see no way at all of recoverign either your phone or the money, sorry.

pulliptears

If you have an iphone 4, iPad or iphone 3GS please download a free app called "find my iphone". Should your phone go walkies you can go online and track it to its exact location, you can also send a message to it that plays a loud beep (useful if you have left your phone somewhere on silent!) and even better, you can remotely lock and wipe your phone.

In this instance as you were selling, you would have wiped the phone but perhaps left the app installed. You may have got a location on it, especially if your scammer isn't too clued up.

techspec

arcadiasmith wrote: »

Oh men that's really bad news. I never experienced being scammed. In ebay you really need to read feedback of your potential buyers is just as important for sellers as it is for buyers. Look for any reports of nonpayments or slow payment issues. Also, sellers who have multiple claims of never receiving items are cause for concern. Some scammers make a living by purchasing items and then claiming they never received them, so they can solicit a refund. To avoid this, always sell your items with a delivery confirmation and use an easily tracked mail source.

Where do you get all this info - seeing as buyers cannot recieve neg feedbacks?

pulliptears

techspec wrote: »

Where do you get all this info - seeing as buyers cannot recieve neg feedbacks?

for starters, you look at the feedback your buyer has left, very often they are not smart enough to realise that it can be collated and seen. If they leave lots of negs for not received etc then thats a big red flag.

Secondly, just because they cannot receive poor feedback does not mean that a savvy seller wouldn't leave a positive saying something like "Sorry item was lost in the post". Thats not against the rules and would still serve to warn in the future.