Some advice please - no contact from seller one month on from sale

declanmcc

Hi there,
I've generally never had any problems on eBay and most of my transactions have been through Paypal.
However a month back I purchased a mobile phone for which the seller requested Cheque/Postal Order as payment. I sent Postal Orders by recorded delivery which I know were delivered (I checked Ref No. on Royal Mail site). However after numerous emails to the seller I've had no contact and no phone.
What should I do next? How would I get my money back?
Any advice would be very helpful - thank you!

Ms-Money-Penny

You could file an "item not received" dispute but you have to do this within 30 days.

You could also pull their contact details and phone them.

soolin

Postal orders do have a recipt bit, although I don't know how it works or whether you can get your money back.

Did you send them crossed and made payable to the seller as I think that would give you some protection if you produce the receipts, phone royal mail and ask them as I've never had to do that.

If however you sent them uncrossed or without a payee then they can be cashed and I think you are stuck.

I know everyone on here as very different ideas about payment methods but I would not have bought a high end item of a seller who did not take paypal, it just screams 'problem' at me. Incidentally, has the seller got a high feedback score for selling high cost items in the past or is this his first phone? If you want to pm me with the auction number I'll take a look and see if I can suggest anything else.

On a practical level, firstly get the sellers contact details from ebay and give him a call. Then depending on the outcome of that call, or if you can't speak to the seller this morning, put in a non performing seller complaint to ebay. If there are any problems at all with his contact details report him for that as well.

Goodluck

Soo

declanmcc

Thanks for the words of advice ladies - and apologies for not replying quicker.
I've contacted eBay and received a phone number for this particular seller. The phone number that is supplied is valid for the area he's from - but the number doesn't exist. This particular seller has now been removed from eBay after a series of negative feedbacks and non-postal of items. He was very new to eBay and I think he was just there to shaft as many people as he could. I think I've been shafted big style - and I'm treating it as theft. I'm going to mail him once more expressing this - and if there's no reply I'm considering ringing the police in this guy's area (Bournemouth). It all probably sounds very extreme - and the cops will probably laugh at me - but he supplied a Ntlworld email address and I think he can be contacted and caught. The police have permission to contact BT and NTL and other phone providers to acquire details.

Am I insane to go down such a route!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!

RACHIE77

ok - so i'm not sure on the legal angle here but i know i'd be fuming if i was you and would do anything i could to try and sort this out - perhaps you could email NTL yourself? I know when I was an AOL customer i sent a whole batch of emails out and they contacted me as they were concerned I was spamming, i proved it was a legitimate purpose and sources for these emails and they re-instated my account... not the same thing I know but maybe the ISP will help, especially if you mention that you intend to go to the police....?? worth a shot??

Oh and by the way - I live 30 mins away from Bournemouth in Southampton.... did you say you had an address?? lol!

soolin

The police are rarely interested in scams like this and ebay won't be interested as the last advice they put out in the press was to be careful when buying items like mobiles and electrical goods where the seller only takes cheques or postal orders. You say the seller was new to ebay? If that was the case then it would seem that he was a serious scammer, new user only accepting cheques, and he will probably have covered his bases well enough to have 'borrowed' a postal address as well.

Soo