Victim of eBay fraud: what to do?

gtipler

Hello all,

recently I saw an item listed on ebay and decided to contact the seller to see whether there was a price they would consider letting me buy it now for. They agreed to a price (sadly) of £320 and stupidly I was overly trusting and paid them by direct bank transfer. Sadly I'm not experienced with eBay at all. In fact this was my first purchase from the site so it's fair to say that I was very naive.

The item I paid for was the new Samsung Galaxy s3 and what the seller sent to me was just a mocking joke. I opened the box to find a nokia phone from the 1990's, complete with charger.

Since then their phone is always turned off and they won't respond to email. Annoyingly as the transaction was done outside of eBay they refuse to do anything. Is there anything that I can do in order to get this git (excuse my French) back and be refunded the money?

Many thanks in advance for any replies,

Gregg

luvvlyjubbly

Sorry I can't help but wish you luck in getting it back.....

Mindless_Clone

Although it won't necessarily help you get your money back, you can still open a SNAD case against them. You can also request contact details of the seller (although they will likely be fake). You can report the seller for fraud too. You might need to phone ebay rather than try and escalate through the resolution centre.

You should also report the incident to the police as fraud and get a crime reference number.
It might be worth speaking to your bank and seeing if there's anything they can do to help you too?

vicx

gtipler wrote: »

Hello all,

recently I saw an item listed on ebay and decided to contact the seller to see whether there was a price they would consider letting me buy it now for. They agreed to a price (sadly) of £320 and stupidly I was overly trusting and paid them by direct bank transfer. Sadly I'm not experienced with eBay at all. In fact this was my first purchase from the site so it's fair to say that I was very naive.

The item I paid for was the new Samsung Galaxy s3 and what the seller sent to me was just a mocking joke. I opened the box to find a nokia phone from the 1990's, complete with charger.

Since then their phone is always turned off and they won't respond to email. Annoyingly as the transaction was done outside of eBay they refuse to do anything. Is there anything that I can do in order to get this git (excuse my French) back and be refunded the money?

Many thanks in advance for any replies,

Gregg

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

Although it won't necessarily help you get your money back, you can still open a SNAD case against them. You can also request contact details of the seller (although they will likely be fake). You can report the seller for fraud too. You might need to phone ebay rather than try and escalate through the resolution centre.

You should also report the incident to the police as fraud and get a crime reference number.
It might be worth speaking to your bank and seeing if there's anything they can do to help you too?

How will the OP be able to open a SNAD case if the transaction was done outside of eBay? Would he even be able to request details since there is no transcation history between them?

From what I understand, the seller has ended the item on eBay and the OP has paid through bank transfer.

Sazzarella

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

Although it won't necessarily help you get your money back, you can still open a SNAD case against them.

They paid by bank transfer so no, they cant.

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

You can also request contact details of the seller (although they will likely be fake). You can report the seller for fraud too. You might need to phone ebay rather than try and escalate through the resolution centre.

Transaction didnt take place on ebay so cant do this either.

jumpedtheshark

Do you have an address for the seller? If so, you could send them a letter in the post - Letter Before Action - demanding a refund. You could then pursue them via Small Claims (money claim online is cheapest). However, that's lots of work and, even if you win, you need to enforce it.

At the least, you should try and report the crime to your local police and get a crime number. Might this be covered on your home insurance?

Finally, because the seller was the one who asked you to go outside of eBay, I think you can report them to eBay for that. It doesn't help you get your money back, but does get them on eBay's radar so to speak. I would use the item number from the original listing to report the seller. Perhaps phoning customer services would work best for this?

hiccup123

I would contact the police for definate. Also not sure if they will be of any help but you could get some advice from the bank from which you paid. EBay can't help but still contact them and let them know that a seller has cheated you. Maybe someone else has complained too.

Mindless_Clone

Sazzarella wrote: »

They paid by bank transfer so no, they cant.



Transaction didnt take place on ebay so cant do this either.

Ah yes, sorry, didn't read it right. I read it as they agreed a BIN price but it was an "off ebay" deal.

I guess it's a bloody expensive lesson in why sometimes doing a deal off site is not always a great deal.
The police should still be informed though, and if the seller is still on ebay, would be interesting to know if they have anything similar listed right now. Or really, anything listed at all. If they have something small listed on ebay at the moment, perhaps you can get a friend to bid and buy and then get their contact details this way?

Did they send it recorded delivery? Was there a return address (I am guessing not?)