Help Have I Been Scammed!!! Please!!!!

timbo86

Hi guys please help me, this is sooooo dodgy you would not belive.

Ok here goes please bear with me.

Im selling a phone on ebay nokia n95 which sold for £320 now 12 hours before the auction ended i got 2 emails from ebay saying please ignore bids from the winning bidder "f1 geek" this is the email below.

[FONT=Arial, Verdana]Notice: Administrative Bid Cancellation[/FONT]

<IMG height=8 width=8 align=top><IMG height=5><IMG height=10><IMG width=1><IMG height=10>[FONT=Arial, Verdana]Hello kayl-86 (k86kayl@yahoo.co.uk),

This email is to inform you that any recent bids placed by f1geek may have been by an unauthorized third party. We are now in the process of restoring the account to its true owner.

If this person was the winning bidder for the transaction then the transaction in question should be considered null and void. You may relist the item and request a credit for the Final Value Fee. When a seller submits a final value fee credit request, unpaid Items are automatically identified by our system. Our system will then keep records of the credit requests that are received from sellers regarding transactions that were not completed.

You may file a "friendly" unpaid item dispute (UPI) remark in order to request the fees for your auction and this will not negatively affect this member's account. You can request a Final Value Fee credit through Unpaid Item Disputes by following the steps below:

1. Go to the eBay home page
2. Log in to your My eBay page
3. Under the "Related Links" box on the left side of the page, click the "Unpaid Item Disputes" link

For more information on how to request a credit, I encourage you to view our Frequently Asked Questions page below:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/unpaid-item.html

Thank you for being an asset to the eBay trading community. We wish you continued success with your transactions on eBay.

Regards,

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay International AG

[/FONT]<IMG height=10><IMG height=20><IMG height=1><IMG height=10>[FONT=Arial, Verdana]Learn how you can protect yourself from spoof (fake) emails at:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/education/spooftutorial

This administrative email was sent to [EMAIL="k86kayl&#64;yahoo.co.uk"]k86kayl@yahoo.co.uk[/EMAIL] from eBay Europe S.à r.l.. Your account is registered on www.ebay.co.uk. As outlined in our User Agreement, eBay will periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements. If you would like to receive this email in text format, change your notification preferences.

See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have questions about eBay's communication policies.
Privacy Policy: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/privacy-policy.html
User Agreement: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Copyright © 2006-2007 eBay, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
eBay and the eBay logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of eBay, Inc.
[/FONT]
So when the auction ended i offered a 2nd chance offer to the next highest bidder which they accepted. Then within a matte rof hours i recieve another email from ebay saying it was a technical error and that "f1 geek" bids should stand so i now have 2 people which have won 1 phone effectively. This is the 2nd email.

Notice: Administrative Technical Error



Dear eBay member,

This email is to inform you that our recent notification sent to you from eBay was a technical error.We are sorry for any mix up we might have caused both you and the buyer. We realized that the bid initiated from Buyer was from the true owner.
If this person was the winning bidder for the transaction then the transaction in question should be reconsidered and completed. You must end the auction if the item have been re-listed.We therefore urge you to go and ship the item or take the necessary step if the buyer has paid for the item.
Thank you for being an asset to the eBay trading community. We wish you continued success with your transactions on eBay.
Regards,

Note:That you can reply the buyer through this e-mail sarahbarker52@hotmail.com

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc

Learn how you can protect yourself from spoof (fake) emails at:
http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial
This administrative email was sent from eBay. Your account is registered on www.ebay.com . As outlined in our User Agreement, eBay will periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements. If you would like to receive this email in text format, change your notification preferences.
See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have questions about eBay's communication policies.
Privacy Policy: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/privacy-policy.html
User Agreement: ! http://pages.ebay.com/help /policies/user-agreement.html
Copyright © 2007 eBay, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
eBay and the eBay logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of eBay, Inc.
eBay is located at 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125.

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay International AG



So i informed the 2nd chance offer chap that ebay had reversed their decision and i would have to sell to the origianal biddder. Then i had an email from "f1 geek"

Hi Seller,

I have made the payment and paypal sent me mail that your
money have been deducted from my account and it will be credited into your
account as soon as you send them the shipping information(tracking
number) As you can see that my money is under pending in paypal cos they are waiting for you to send the prove of shipment.Here is paypal .Kindly ship the item via royal mail first class delivering sigh for....get back to me asap
e.mail( [EMAIL="paypal-paycash&#64;officeemail.net"]paypal-paycash@officeemail.net [/EMAIL]) Please reply me as
soon as possible.

HERE IS MY SHIPPING ADDRESS BELOW

Name:Sandra Jane
Address:13 Middleton Road Crumpsall,
City Manchester
Zip CodeM8 5DT.
Country:United Kingdom


Well i don't have paypal so i cant accept paypal it states in the auction i do not have paypal and that i accept personal cheque, postal order, bankers draft.

Then i get an email from paypal

Attn* :PayPal User,

You ought to have shipped the item by now to SANDRA JANE,You can now forward us the shipping verification(Tracking Number),So that we can credit your account,We hope to hear from you soon.
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Thank you for using PayPal® We look forward to serving your online auction payment better in the future. [/FONT][/FONT]

<IMG height=33 width=88 border=0>
The PayPal Team



But i don't have paypal so how can this be!!!!

I then recieve this morning the following from ebay

Dear Ebayer ,

This is the first and the last time we are contacting you about the item sold on eBay.


The buyer,Sandra Jane has made payment[FONT=Arial, Verdana][/FONT]for your item and the item .And is yet to be posted to the given address.We will like to know if you have posted the item so that your account can be credited immediately you send the tracking number.Note that you have committed yourself that you are going to send the phone out.


Respond to this notice or your account will be block.


Please note: You and the buyer will still be able to leave feedback for each other regarding this transaction.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in this matter. Please don't hesitate to contact us directly through this email if you have further queries or require assistance.

Regards,

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay International AG.

This email appears in the language of the eBay site where you are registered.

Learn how you can protect yourself from spoof (fake) emails at:
http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial

This eBay notice was sent to msgps from eBay. Your account is registered on www.ebay.com . As outlined in our User Agreement, eBay will send you required notifications about the site and your transactions. If you would like to receive this email in text format, change your notification preferences .

See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have questions about eBay's communication policies.
Privacy Policy: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/privacy-policy.html
User Agreement: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Copyright © 2007 eBay, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
eBay and the eBay logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of eBay, Inc.
eBay is located at 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125.



It loooks soooo dodgy you would not believe e.g the grammer and punctuation sp???

Im sooooo confused my head hurts and i really don't know what to do. Could someone please help me.

Thankyou.

Sorry for the rambling im at work and had to post as its doing my head in what is going on.

JenniO

Do you still have the phone? I don't have any advice as i'm not an ebay expert but all I would say is you can request phone numbers from people who win your auctions. You can call them up and see if this is real or not? I would say this sounds pretty dodgy too.

mistresslisa

Correct me if i am wrong (unless you have changed them to post on here) but dont emails usually have your username or your own name on them?

timbo86

Hi guys,

Yes i have the phone still im not going to post until i recieve payment im just stumped as to what to do now.

No i havn't altered anything i have posted the emails direct that i recieved them they are no usernames or any names used at all.

mpython

The grammer & language in the last email looks very poor - can't comment on the earlier emails as I've never seen them before but make sure you get the IMEI of the phone before (if) you send it. You can then block it if you get any probs like recalled cheque.

EDIT - actually the grammer in the 'correction' email from ebay is also very poor "You must end the auction if the item have been re-listed." - should be "has". So the correction email looks part of the scam. I would just forward the dodgy ones to ebay help/ fraud & explain this to the 2nd bidder. Hopefully they'll understand.

Phil51

Hi
It looks dodgy to me. Email the buyer back and tell them you do not accept paypal as stated in the auction and say how you wish to be paid. I would suggest only accepting Postal Orders.

pollyskettle

If this were me, I would assume the first email to be correct and the following emails to be from the scammer trying to get past eBays attempts to stop the transaction. The first email footer says that your account is registered at ebay.co.uk and the second and fourth say your account is registered with ebay.com. The grammar in the later emails is appalling and ebay would have referred to you by your user name. I would follow the instructions in the first for reclaiming your FVFs and relist the mobile. DO NOT POST THE PHONE! PayPal itself is not an escrow service and does not hold funds until the item has been shipped. If you send the phone you will very probably end up with no phone and no money.

Can you check the properties of the last emails as you will probably find they do not correspond with those of the first.

demonicangel

Im not an expert but that shouts scam to me. Dont send the phone out at all.

How can they have paid you by paypal if you dont have a paypal account? From what I know, for a buyer to pay by paypal, they have to follow the link from the invoice/ebay and pay that way which they cant if you dont have paypal.

toshkininny

timbo86 wrote: »

HERE IS MY SHIPPING ADDRESS BELOW

Name:Sandra Jane
Address:13 Middleton Road Crumpsall,
City Manchester
Zip CodeM8 5DT.
Country:United Kingdom

when do we deal in zip codes in this country anyway?!

pollyskettle

Just checked 'f1geek's completed listings, in 1 hour and 40 minutes they bought 23 mobiles and 2 LCD tvs!

In fact between 2.30pm and 11.10pm on the 7/11, they bought over 100 phones and 4 LCDs.

smartie1976

DO NOT POST THIS PHONE.

1. All official ebay and paypal mails use your real, registered name, not "ebay user" or your ebay username.

2. This Sandra womans e-mail is [EMAIL="paypal-paycash&#64;officeemail.net"]paypal-paycash@officeemail.net [/EMAIL]??? I don't think so. How dodgy does that look! Also, it mentions Sarahbarker52@hotmail,com in the earlier mail (unless that's you). Why two different e-mails, and different NAMES.

3. Shipping address and ZIP Code are Americanisms one wouldn't associate with a UK buyer and payer.

4. Crumpsall is quite dodgy (near to me) and has a lot of hostels and rental places with a lot of migrant tenants who come and go very quickly (both british and international). Can you validate their address on 192.com or even with directory enquiries?

5. As previously mentioned, the 2d & 4th mails come from ebay.com, which they wouldn't for UK transactions.

6. The bit about payment says to send them verification of shipping so they can send payment. Well paypal is INSTANT and does nto require verification of any sort.

7. You didn't offer paypal yet they insist they've made the payment. Ebay won't allow this type of payment to proceed if it's not listed.

8. Spelling, grammar and punctuation are awful.

If you're still not convinced there's no hope! :P



It's a scam.