scammed on ebay

digerati

ross_fenion wrote: »

I won an auction for a mobile phone on the 9th of june the total came to £177 the seller only 8 feedbacks the but they where all good, he said he didnt have a paypal account so could I do a cheque or BACs... I told the seller I would report him to ebay he mailed back saing it must be lost in the post offering a full refund as he had the package insured I asked him to send me a cheque for the refund, since then I have heard nothing... any suggestions would be greatly apprciated given I have his bank details there must be something I can do!

Payment by cheque, postal money order or bank transfer should only be used with eBay sellers that have a good track record - namely several years as a seller on eBay, excellent eBay feedback (99%+) and an established history of selling similar items for a period of time. With new eBay sellers or eBay accounts that were previously usually buying items you would be wise to stick to PayPal so you can dispute the transaction in the event of a problem such as you described.

I'd contact the seller and ask for a full refund by BACS within three business days otherwise the matter will be referred to the Police. You should also report the seller to eBay as Non-performing so they can't continue to defraud buyers.

Should the seller fail to refund, you should make a Police report and they can use the BACS payment details to "follow the money" and obtain copies of the bank account holder's details.

Hope this helps! :-)

windswept

I would definitely get the buyers details from ebay, if their contact address is false, at least you can report them for that and hopefully get them removed before they do this again.
If the adress turns out to be correct, (unlikely imho) you can send them an official looking letter and it might be enough to scare them into refunding.

greenstreetprince

small claims court is no good here, you are not going to get the sellers address as most likely they have a fake one on ebay and you dont have it anywhere else, only the police can trace where the money went, get hold of the address of the account holder, but you'll need all the ebay stuff printed off as well as all messages and bank statement before they do anything.

mclaren_2

I can only assume the police will take control of this. They can get his name and address from the bank through his bank details, and pay him a visit.

That said - i do not know what exactly that would achieve as he could say that the payment put in to his bank, was from you as you're a friend and it was a "loan" or you paid him for a job or something....

Ianna

Hey hun, happens to the best of us. Hope losing the cash hasn't hit you too hard

soolin

mclaren wrote: »

I can only assume the police will take control of this. They can get his name and address from the bank through his bank details, and pay him a visit.

That said - i do not know what exactly that would achieve as he could say that the payment put in to his bank, was from you as you're a friend and it was a "loan" or you paid him for a job or something....

Unfortunately banks are not open to inspection by the police, for the police to get any access they would need a court ruling, and that comes back to the original problem of having no firm details to provide.