Have I lost both items & money?

soolin

In that case follow the steps as above. Make contact with the person at the address the goods were sent, *and* go to the police and be very very persistent.

Dave_Brooker

BennyB wrote: »

Hi,

I have had a good search around and can't find an answer. So sorry if this has been covered recently.

My wife sold an item on Ebay this week to value of £320. The buyer even included an extra fiver to cover the cost of a special delivery! We asked the buyer for confirmation of their address and posted the item the next day (Friday) and even paid extra so it would be delivered on Saturday.

This afternoon my wife received an Email from Paypal saying that the Buyers account had been hacked and they have claimed their money back.

My wife is quite distraught, so I have filled in the details on the Paypal site, with tracking number, address and as much info etc. The next thing we find that the case is closed and her paypal account has the full £320 taken from it.

What happens next? Will we get a refund? Or have we lost everything, including the £12 posting fee from Ebay?

Any help would be much appreciated.

It's all gone, next time take a cheque or a postal order for expensive items.

From a purely moneysaving point of view paypal is an expensive way to recieve funds, and as you have found out it is also wide open to abuse...

Dave_Brooker

BennyB wrote: »

Hi,

I have had a good search around and can't find an answer. So sorry if this has been covered recently.

My wife sold an item on Ebay this week to value of £320. The buyer even included an extra fiver to cover the cost of a special delivery! We asked the buyer for confirmation of their address and posted the item the next day (Friday) and even paid extra so it would be delivered on Saturday.

This afternoon my wife received an Email from Paypal saying that the Buyers account had been hacked and they have claimed their money back.

My wife is quite distraught, so I have filled in the details on the Paypal site, with tracking number, address and as much info etc. The next thing we find that the case is closed and her paypal account has the full £320 taken from it.

What happens next? Will we get a refund? Or have we lost everything, including the £12 posting fee from Ebay?

Any help would be much appreciated.

So how come you can't sue ebay/paypal in an event like this?

When all is said and done you have paid paypal (4%?) to transfer the funds, and they have not done it properly...

Avoriaz

Have I lost both items & money?

I know it feels like that but you haven’t lost both. You have only lost one or the other.

You have either lost an item worth £320, or you have lost £320. Try to think of it in terms of which hurts the least. Don’t double the pain by thinking you have lost both the item and £320.

Good luck with getting it resolved.

BennyB_2

Avoriaz wrote: »

I know it feels like that but you haven’t lost both. You have only lost one or the other.

You have either lost an item worth £320, or you have lost £320. Try to think of it in terms of which hurts the least. Don’t double the pain by thinking you have lost both the item and £320.

Good luck with getting it resolved.

I know what your saying makes sense. But currently the paypal account is showing minus £300 odd pound (I assume this is because we had requested the money) and it is not showing in our bank account either. Hopefully this bit will resolve itself in the next couple of days.

Colin2511

when you report to the police, make sure that the other people who contacted you do this as well, their is a powerseller who did this about 18 months ago, and several of the scammers victims all reported it to their local police, and then to the local police where the scammer lived, it has taken nearly 18 months and lots of badgering, but the person was prosecuted and sent to prison (I cannot remember the details but they posted it about a month ago), only those that reported it and stuck at it have a claim. Dont let the police fob you off, if they have done this to several sellers and you all have the same delivery address it is easier for them to start there than a one off crime

digerati

BennyB, no need to wave goodbye to your hard-earned money or get involved in lengthy civil proceeding. Many small-scale fraud cases are settled long before they get to court with the fraudster making full restitution. Often, all it takes is a phone call to resolve any 'misunderstanding'.

If you have a friend, associate, relative or old school mate in the Police or Security forces, you can often call in a favour. Or if you can convince a police officer you have a valid complaint, they'll often help you too. Ask them to make a phone call to the buyer - something along the lines of "they have received a complaint against them and when would it be convenient to interview them..." - many scamming buyers or petty fraudsters will agree to a full refund there and then before it becomes more 'official'...

Also be aware that when there is more than one victim, the Police are more inclined to investigate as it's seen as a more productive use of their (often) limited resources. (Isolated cases are usually put on the back burner or dismissed - unless you light a fire under the investigating Officer.)

Steps to take

Ring your local Police station and make an appointment to see a CID officer. Don’t frustrate yourself by arguing your case with a desk clerk in reception - they are instructed to dismiss ALL cases of 'fraud' as civil matters. (Fewer 'open' cases look better to the bureaucrats.)

Almost every UK (including Scottish) Police Station now has at least one specialist CID Officer knowledgeable about online fraud and e-crime (including eBay and PayPal). Just in case whomever you speak to isn't up to speed with eBay, bring these contact details with you - they will need them to contact eBay UK.

Email: law-enforcement@ebay.com
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/law_enforcement.html
Fax: 0207-681-2389

Come prepared with printed copies of: eBay auction(s), payment details, all email between you and the fraudster or their other victims, and finally notes of any telephone conversations you have had with fraudster, PayPal or eBay.

Lastly, contact other sellers that are victims of this scammer - check buyer's recent purchases (replace 'scam' with buyer's ID) so you can pass along their names and details to the Police CID Officer in the buyers's locale investigating your case. Ask them to also file complaints with their local Police so the investigator can quickly see that it isn't an isolated case, but rather a large-scale premeditated fraud.

Hope this helps and Good Luck!

greeneye

Good post as always in these situations digerati - should make this a sticky.

digerati wrote: »

If you have a friend, associate, relative or old school mate in the Police or Security forces, you can often call in a favour.

But I never understand this bit when you post this message - whats a member of the security forces going to do? Arrange a firing squad?

greeneye

OP did the forename/surname of the paypal adressee match the ebay name?
You can get the paypal account holders name from the payment email (it may differ from the actual name of the person you were instructed by paypal to send the goods to).

If an ebay account is genuinely hijacked ebay adresses can be changed but I'm pretty sure the actual name the ebay account was first registered with can't be.

Paypal wise the name of the account holder is also going to be locked. So the paypal payment will show the name of the sender. But whoever had access to the paypal account will have been able to set up gift adresses and the adressee's name can be changed there.

What I don't understand is that you have been sent £320 you mention other sellers have been similarily defrauded. Now if all these payments came from the same paypal account (even if it was a virgin account that had never been used before) the total amount of monies sent will have gone above paypals £500 sending limit so this paypal account will have to have been verified at some stage during this fraud.

Now if the paypal account had to be verified at some point depending on the chronological order that these payments were made you or some of these other sellers should have been eligible for seller protection.

I've just sent myself a pound between 2 paypal accounts and set the delivery/gift address as a random name and address . The payment info is showing that my completely made up name and address is confirmed and I am elligible for seller protection.
So delivery name and address makes no difference if a paypal account is verified you have seller protection full stop no matter where your paypal payment instructs you to send goods.

So unless your fraudster is using multiple paypal accounts (which would seem strange if you are an ID thieve then there's far more profitable ventures than setting up paypal accounts) and one hijacked ebay account he will have spent over £500 - so again this paypal account will have to have been verified at some point during this fraud on the various sellers.

OP I would contact these other sellers and find out the name and email address of where their paypal payments came from and also where they were instructed to post to.

Also you should get hold of the signature from the royal mail of the special delivery and get the other sellers to do the same.


Sorry if this is a bit convoluted but I've got a sore head - but I think a few people on here will see what I'm getting at.

frivolous_fay

greeneye wrote: »

I've just sent myself a pound between 2 paypal accounts and set the delivery/gift address as a random name and address . The payment info is showing that my completely made up name and address is confirmed and I am elligible for seller protection.
So delivery name and address makes no difference if a paypal account is verified you have seller protection full stop no matter where your paypal payment instructs you to send goods.

Very interesting.

I think the amount of money does affect the address status. I was taking payment from a guy who swore his address was confirmed (paypal backed him up on this) but the £160-odd just would NOT come through with a confirmed address.

He sent me 2p and it was confirmed.