Have I lost both items & money?

frivolous_fay

Personally I think some of these findings should be raised with paypal.kim@ebay.com - she's the tame paypal rep who hangs out on the so-called paypal board on the ebay forums.

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/forum.jspa?forumID=14

greeneye

frivolous_fay wrote: »

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.

Just sent £500 across and then refunded.
Set the gift address as:
Angus McConman
22 Fradulent Street
etc
etc

It shows as confirmed seller protection elligible. It's odd because I did notice this flaw years ago, and then I think they tightened it up because one xmas a year or two ago when I was using gift adresses to send pressies I remember there was one seller who wasn't happy about an unconfirmed address.
But seems it's slipped back.

It's a fraudsters wet dream though ..... and if these gift adresses are showing as confirmed (seller protection elligible) in theory the only people who will loose out is paypal... which makes a change
But lets wait and see what the OP and the other sellers have to say.

OP on that note forgot to say have a look on the original paypal email (rather than the info from the paypal statement page) for this transaction and check to see if it wasn't eligible for seller protection.

BennyB_2

Due to my wife being in hospital etc, we haven't yet had a chance to contact the Police. We are going to do this, later today.

There are now at least 4 other people who have contacted us and we are sharing information, Crime numbers etc. Although no personal info is being passed across (by us). It appears we have all sold the scammer Wii's and PS3's and their Ebay account is no longer active.

It doesn't appear that we are eligible for seller insurance and we are unable to get any response from Paypal to answer any of our questions. Our Paypal account is still minus £308 and my wifes bank have said that there is no money pending into her bank account. So there is £308 pounds in a black hole somewhere.

I did find out last night that a family friend works with the guy that deals with Ebay frauds for the Police. So at least we have an almost direct communication with someone in the know.

digerati

greeneye wrote: »

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?

Nope. They often have resources available to them that the Police don't and can apply leverage in myriad ways like quoting your "undeclared income" or the name of your "bit on the side" over the phone... Likewise if you have friends in Inland Revenue or Customs they have similar tools (which I'll leave to your imagination).

BennyB_2

After a long time of hearing nothing, I had a bit of news from the police yesterday.

[FONT=Tahoma, Arial]I have made progress with this case in so far as three people have been
arrested and are currently on bail.
I have numerous enquiries to make as result of so many people being affected. I
am having their computers and mobile phones analyzed, bank accounts interogated
and awaiting ebay and paypals investigation.
I hope to be taking the case to the Crown Prosecution Service very soon. :j[/FONT]

Although it doesn't get my money back, it's good to hear that someone is being held to account for their actions.

I have also been told that Ebay & Paypal knew that this account had been used illegaly several weeks before this happened to us. I don't have many more details, apart from their actions were bordering on illegal.

I hope to hear more soon, so I have a good case against them to claim my money back.

Time2Go_25

BennyB wrote: »

I have also been told that Ebay & Paypal knew that this account had been used illegaly several weeks before this happened to us. I don't have many more details, apart from their actions were bordering on illegal.

Depending on who told you that and how reliable it is you may want to make a claim in the smallclaims court against Paypal for the return of your money.

michellefromessex

I very nearly got caught out yesterday, I sold my mobile phone on ebay within 10 mins of listing it on a buy it now, I received an email saying that could I send it to his friend in Nigeria and that he had already added £25 to cover postage to there, Something didnt ring right because he was based in USA and wanted it sent to Nigeria it mad alarm bells go off in my head I contacted ebay who replied telling me that this was a scammer, I emailed him back to say that I had been advised not to send the goods, within an hour I had an email from ebay telling me I had been suspended again I contacted ebay turned out it was a spoof email infact the paypal email I had received showing the funds going into my account once a tracking number was forwarded was spoof too, ebay have credited my account with the listing and selling fees, it was a big nightmare, hope you get everything sorted out xxx

michellefromessex

oh and they told me that he had hacked into someone elses ebay account and thats why his feedback score was high.

gromituk

digerati wrote: »

Nope. They often have resources available to them that the Police don't and can apply leverage in myriad ways like quoting your "undeclared income" or the name of your "bit on the side" over the phone... Likewise if you have friends in Inland Revenue or Customs they have similar tools (which I'll leave to your imagination).

Sounds incredibly illegal and sinister to me. What if someone had a grudge against you and used similar tactics?