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Ebay scam warning
Keen_Young_Learner
Posts: 60 Forumite
This is a complicated one but I guess that all you ebay and paypal users will know what I mean!
Was offered a free upgrade this month by my mobile phone provider. Great I thought, I wanted to keep my current handset, so I took the highest value phone, (an iPhone 4 16G in limited edition white) and whacked it on ebay for £450.
The phone didn't sell for as quickly as I'd hoped, so when I got an e-mail from someone offering me £460 to pay through paypal, I jumped at the chance, frankly. I was happy not to have to pay ebay processing fees.
The customer said that he wanted to come and pick up the phone in person - great, I didn't need to post it, and that he would be sending the money via paypal immediately. Paypal stopped the transaction, though, saying it looked dodgy. When I rang them, however, they stated that this was probably due to the fact that we were dealing with sums of money over £300. The customer resolved the issue by sending the money through his girlfriend's paypal, which went through without a problem. The customer arrived at my house a few hours later, I gave him the phone, and he went on his merry way.
The next morning, paypal called me saying that I had been sent the money fraudulently, and that I now owed them £460, as I had withdrawn the money.
I'm down £460 and one iPhone, I have no proof that I gave the phone away and completed the transaction in good faith.
My advice to anyone selling high-value items on ebay...buy a carbon reciept book and give all customers reciepts, signed by both of you. You may look a little silly at the time, but you'll never get stung like me.
(BTW - I'm refusing to give paypal anything, as far as I'm concerned it's their problem. They have tried to take the money from my bank without my permission though, so I've cancelled all direct debits and closed my account. Disaster.)
Was offered a free upgrade this month by my mobile phone provider. Great I thought, I wanted to keep my current handset, so I took the highest value phone, (an iPhone 4 16G in limited edition white) and whacked it on ebay for £450.
The phone didn't sell for as quickly as I'd hoped, so when I got an e-mail from someone offering me £460 to pay through paypal, I jumped at the chance, frankly. I was happy not to have to pay ebay processing fees.
The customer said that he wanted to come and pick up the phone in person - great, I didn't need to post it, and that he would be sending the money via paypal immediately. Paypal stopped the transaction, though, saying it looked dodgy. When I rang them, however, they stated that this was probably due to the fact that we were dealing with sums of money over £300. The customer resolved the issue by sending the money through his girlfriend's paypal, which went through without a problem. The customer arrived at my house a few hours later, I gave him the phone, and he went on his merry way.
The next morning, paypal called me saying that I had been sent the money fraudulently, and that I now owed them £460, as I had withdrawn the money.
I'm down £460 and one iPhone, I have no proof that I gave the phone away and completed the transaction in good faith.
My advice to anyone selling high-value items on ebay...buy a carbon reciept book and give all customers reciepts, signed by both of you. You may look a little silly at the time, but you'll never get stung like me.
(BTW - I'm refusing to give paypal anything, as far as I'm concerned it's their problem. They have tried to take the money from my bank without my permission though, so I've cancelled all direct debits and closed my account. Disaster.)
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Comments
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Never, never, never, never do collect in person with a paypal payment - even if you get them to sign in blood, paypal won't accept it - they only accept tracked methods of delivery. Sorry can't be any help re what to do to resolve this but you probably owe paypal that money
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try getting in bed with a mosquito!0 -
Get onto your phone people and get it blocked.I'd rather be an Optimist and be proved wrong than a Pessimist and be proved right.0
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If you do paypal on collection, get them to sign for the object so if they decide to scam you and claim non-delivery, at least you can take them to the smalls claims court0
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Just don't do it - no matter what ebay say. Its cash on collection or risk a good scamming.0
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If you do paypal on collection, get them to sign for the object so if they decide to scam you and claim non-delivery, at least you can take them to the smalls claims court
Sounds great unless they send their dodgey pal, and all you have is a signature from someone you can never identify.0 -
It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, sorry you were caught out0
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Beware, paypal will chase you for the money owed and may use debt collectors.
Lesson learnt, never ever use paypal with a collected item unless its low value and you can afford to lose out. I have done it before, but never on something that is high value and I'm likely to be annoyed on should something really back fire.0 -
i would never have accepted paypal for a collected item as the i would be paying fees on something which they could easliy bring the cash for!
sorry you have lost out. i would speak to the citizens advice and see if they can offer you any help as Paypal will chase you for this and it will affect your credit rating.would love to win an ipad!
A-Z Challenge - ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0 -
Keen_Young_Learner wrote: »My advice to anyone selling high-value items on ebay...buy a carbon reciept book and give all customers reciepts, signed by both of you. You may look a little silly at the time, but you'll never get stung like me.
But you didn't sell it through Ebay though, you said yourself you sold it straight to them, via Paypal to avoid the Ebay costs...Keen_Young_Learner wrote: »(BTW - I'm refusing to give paypal anything, as far as I'm concerned it's their problem. They have tried to take the money from my bank without my permission though, so I've cancelled all direct debits and closed my account. Disaster.)
I think you are doing posssibly the most stupid thing you can do. Paypal WILL chase the debt and they will chase it until they get repaid. There is only ever going to be one loser here and it wont be Paypal...If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands
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Why oh why do people not think things through, with mobile phones you stick it on ebay and get buyers to pay by paypal and just accept the fees but you do not do pick up and do the transaction via paypal as yo get stung,
you shot yourself in the foot here, just pay up, you made the errors and paypal are wanting the money0
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