scammed through ebay for £3750

Legacy_user

:mad:will try to keep this as simple as possible.

i advertised 100gram gold bar on ebay as seen people were paying over the spot price it had been on for about 40 days and finally lowered the buy it now price to £3750.someone clicked buy it now and paid late at night the next morning i seen it had sold so withdrawn from paypal straight into my bank account as paypal payments now clear instantly.packaged the item ready to post and informed the buyer i was going to post at lunch time.i noticed they had requested my personal details instantly after paying i had also recieved several messaged into my ebay inbox saying sent payment Can i have your address and contact number please i will send my friend to collect the bar from you today so i gave them my address wich i didnt mind as it saved me money on postage and i knew that the money was in my bank account as i had moved it into my cash isa.i had gave them my contact number heard nothing so went out that afternoon got a text saying friend would collect about 3 o clock i said that was fine when i returned home checked ebay again had another message at 11.30am asking if i was in then.so at 3.45 a strange knock at the door to wich there was a young asian man stood i invited him in and unwrapped the package that i had ready to post earlyer he hadnt spoke a word up until this point not until i asked if it was his ebay account he said it was his mates i asked where he had travelled from he said birmingham wich seemed to me like he was disguising his accent as he sounded like he was putting it on and also is about 4 hours away wich seemed strange as at 11.30 they asked if i was in so i had assumed they were close by.

after he left i was very concerned as he was acting very suspicious and also messaged again through ebay about an hour after he left asking if i had any more gold bars. the money was still in my account i phoned ebay to put my mind at rest and they said everything will be fine as the money was in my account.a few days later my paypal account was limited phoned paypal to check they just said it was normal as gold is a high risk item and they needed to contact the buyer to check they had recieved the goods.i had contacted ebay aswell who told me the account that was used to buy from me had been frauduentlly used and the account had been restored back to the original owner.i rang paypal every day who said everything was fine with the money as there had been no dispute but asked me to supply proof that i had actually owned the gold wich i showed this was while the account was still limited.6 days later after the sale date my paypal balance went to -£3750ish and funds had been returned phoned to check was told money been sent back to the paypal account that had been used as was an unauthorised payment and i couldnt prove that i had posted (this is a joke as ebay dont warn u clearly enough when u list an item as an option of collection in person you would think it would clearly highlight that you are no longer covered for there seller protection) so they fobbed me off saying its unlikely to go in my favour and to pay the negative balance or if not debt collection agencys will be involved luckily enough i had already withdrawn the cash from my bank account as it was all very suspicious with paypal.i contacted the police and the fraud team the police assumed that i should still be covered with paypal as the payment was through them but didnt really care to much as i still had the cash and not very concerned that i just had a negative paypal balance.i even gave them the mobile phone number that they contacted me off arranging to collect but believe it or not the number is still active.they are not concerned about finding out who actually done this because to them at the end of the day i still have my money so in his words i havent actually lost out on anything so would not get permission from his superior to investigate further.

its not my fault that paypal allowed a transaction for a high risk item and a payment from a hacked ebay account and even allow me time to go to the bank and withdraw the money.im still in deep shock that someone would have the cheek to come inperson to my door and do this also knowing that they have all my details address ect.paypal have told me that they are not allowed to take money from my bank without my permission.i will not be out of pocket with the item by restoring my negative balance wich i will refuse to pay you may think this is wrong but i cant see how paypal refuse to take any responsibility

is there anything else i can do?what will paypal do to try and recover the funds?can this damage my credit score?

thanks for reading

theonlywayisup

You didn't protect yourself and for this sum of money you were nothing short of foolish to not find out BEFOREHAND what you needed to do.

its not my fault....

I am afraid it is your fault and your problem.

Harsh, but true.

soolin

This is the most common scam on ebay, sorry I rather suspect you will never see your money again,

Every single paypal payment you receive states clearly the requirement for proper tracking , there are a couple of different formats od paypal payment received emails, but this is a cut and paste from one I received a short while ago, the highlighting is theirs, not mine.

This item is eligible for Seller Protection.


Don't forget to:

• Send the item to the postal address below within 7 days.
  Please note: items delivered in person or to a different address are not covered by Seller Protection.
• Use a trackable proof of delivery.

soolin

Paypal will try and get th emoney from you, they use rather unpleasant debt collecting agencies so before it gets that far you need to seriously consider what you are going to do here.

If you are going to try and walk away from your debt then you need to be prepared for years of hassle, and it would pay you to go over to the debt board and get proper advice about what debt collectors can and can't do. You need to be completely sure of your rights before they start harrassing you.

RFW

l966dpy wrote: »

is there anything else i can do?what will paypal do to try and recover the funds?can this damage my credit score?

thanks for reading

Unfortunately cases like this pop up on here all the time, they're usually for a lot less and the advice can be different.

For £3750 the likelihood is this will end up in court and that is the only way Paypal can involuntarily get money from you and the only way they can affect your credit rating (which if a court found against you would result in a CCJ).

Your problem is with the buyer and not Paypal, you need to pursue that, at the very least report to the police.

If you don't pay Paypal and they take you to court you would need all the documentation relating to the buyer and any criminal enquiry to prove that you weren't defrauding Paypal yourself. If you put yourself in Paypal's shoes, they have no way of knowing you haven't deliberately swindled them out of £3750.

yoyoegg

Just FYI, he's also stolen the Caps key off your keyboard.

System

the police have been informed. as for paypal thinking i could possibly be the one trying to swindle paypal out of £3750 then why couldnt it be assumed that the buyer who's paypal account was used could be claiming they have been hacked they could have arranged the whole thing themselves.so its simple i could buy something on ebay send a "friend" to collect tell paypal someone has "hacked" my account and they would automatically side with me no question.paypal have not even asked for any details eg the mobile number that contacted me,persons description ect surely they would need this information if they are so called looking into it.they say they will check IP addresses but i cant see that happening as they have asked me for no information at all.they have admitted it was a frauduentlly paid recorded with the police so why should the blame all lie on me

lindseykim13

oh dear what a very hard lesson for you-this sort of scam is plastered all over the internet. sorry but your stuffed.

soolin

l966dpy wrote: »

the police have been informed. as for paypal thinking i could possibly be the one trying to swindle paypal out of £3750 then why couldnt it be assumed that the buyer who's paypal account was used could be claiming they have been hacked they could have arranged the whole thing themselves.so its simple i could buy something on ebay send a "friend" to collect tell paypal someone has "hacked" my account and they would automatically side with me no question.paypal have not even asked for any details eg the mobile number that contacted me,persons description ect surely they would need this information if they are so called looking into it.they say they will check IP addresses but i cant see that happening as they have asked me for no information at all.they have admitted it was a frauduentlly paid recorded with the police so why should the blame all lie on me

Could you posisbly use some punctuation as your posts are difficult to read and this is such an important thing to get across to new sellers I wouldn't want anything being missed.

Paypal are not blaming you, but you are the one that has failed to protect yoruself. If you had followed paypal instructions to send this tracked (and I assume you have a suitable and trusted courier for gold as so many won't cover it) then you would have just invoked seller protection.

So if you had followed paypal instructions and this was tarcked to delivery to the address they told you to use then you would have been fine, and paypal would be chasing the buyer instead .

System

Surely the buyer has failed to protect themselve's or how would there details have been used.If i had used paypal's instructions i could have of still been scammed buyer could of claimed empty package or 100grams of anthing had been sent,the buyer would then win the case.

System

I am not trying to be funny i needed that money thats why sold it, I should of been more carefull but have never thought to look how people get scammed in that way i just wanted to know what will happen as i needed to pay something off and wont have the funds.