Item not received + user now unregistered = Out of pocket

HOUSEQUAKE

If this is a hijacked user ID I will be most annoyed because, on the day the funds cleared my account (which is the same day the seller became an unregistered user and stopped responding to me) I called eBay to voice my concerns.

They said:

'not to worry prematurely, his account could have been closed for many reasons...none of which we are at liberty to divulge to you but just wait and see if your item shows up!'

codger

HOUSEQUAKE wrote: »

If this is a hijacked user ID I will be most annoyed because, on the day the funds cleared my account (which is the same day the seller became an unregistered user and stopped responding to me) I called eBay to voice my concerns.

They said:

'not to worry prematurely, his account could have been closed for many reasons...none of which we are at liberty to divulge to you but just wait and see if your item shows up!'

Sadly, to misquote:

"It's what they say to all the girls."

The last thing eBay wants as a profitable commercial venture (though how long that will continue with Meg Whitman in charge, no-one knows) is for anything to occur to affect its profitability.

UBE (Use Bad Experience) is a definite no-no.

That's because eBay's success is founded on a mythology of happy communities, everyone being nice to each other, the sun always shining etc ad nauseum.

People with a case of UBE are no more wanted on eBay than rats in a bedroom.

Their presence is unsettling. The fact of their very existence exposes eBay's mythology for the American marketing drivel it truly is.

Best thing, then, is for eBay to pretend that a rat is not a rat but a Fairy Princess until such time as evidence to the contrary is beyond rebuttal.

By which time, of course, lots of others who were told the bubonic rat could quite easily be harmless, to stop worrying prematurely and to stick around to see what happens, will all be dead.

As in your case.

You'll never, ever get eBay to confirm the existence of rats on eBay until the death toll in the happy community of carefree buyers and sellers is such as to leave eBay with no alternative but to admit to the outbreak of The Plague.

Which, of course, it does.

Though only in a very, very few isolated instances, because eBay is safe, eBay is fun, eBay Can Teach All The World To Sing.

darich

HQ
Really sorry to hear of your misfortune.
I've made a few large purchases on Ebay (the largest being a Canon 5D from an official Canon outlet for around £1500) and so far have never had any major issues.
Someone has already said that PayPal defaults to the bank account for payment rather than the credit card if both are registered. I found this to be the case aswell and after a few transactions of manually selecting my card, deleted my account details.
It's like closing the door after the horse has bolted but using cc is definitely safer. I do that for all my online payments, except from places like Amazon or Play.com for a dvd or CD where the purchase is just a few pounds.

I've also asked a seller if i could uplift the item in question (a Canon 1Ds MKII) because it was a high value item of around £3500. I also asked that if that was ok, would he give access to his pc so i could log into PayPal and pay him using my credit card to save me carrying lots of cash.
In that particular instance the seller was perfectly happy to comply with all my requests which gave me huge comfort. In the end up I didn't win the item but the fact that he was willing to meet and allow me to pay using paypal at his house satisfied me that i'd be very unlikely to be ripped off.

I can sympathise with your situation because my brother was scammed for an £800 watch a few years ago. The police were little help as were the banks (he paid using a postal order). He eventually had little option but to write the money off and accept that he had lost it.

Best of luck in getting a refund.

HOUSEQUAKE

Just in case anyone interested...I have got my money back... wa-hey!

eBay and Paypal have been utterley useless :mad:

Police have not been back in touch with me :mad: :mad:

I went to my bank (Natwest) and filled out a form for fraudulent use, as I have an Advantage Gold account I thought I had nothing left to lose and...they got my money back

As an aside, I also contacted my local consumer rights dept at the council.

They looked into my case and discovered that Paypal froze the transaction on the day I reported something fishy, so are still holding the balance... the seller/fraudster never recvd the funds!?

!!!!!! is going on???

Paypal told me I had to chase the seller for the balance...how can they do this? Who are the criminals here?

meester

HOUSEQUAKE wrote: »

Just in case anyone interested...I have got my money back... wa-hey!

eBay and Paypal have been utterley useless :mad:

Police have not been back in touch with me :mad: :mad:

I went to my bank (Natwest) and filled out a form for fraudulent use, as I have an Advantage Gold account I thought I had nothing left to lose and...they got my money back

As an aside, I also contacted my local consumer rights dept at the council.

They looked into my case and discovered that Paypal froze the transaction on the day I reported something fishy, so are still holding the balance... the seller/fraudster never recvd the funds!?

!!!!!! is going on???

Paypal told me I had to chase the seller for the balance...how can they do this? Who are the criminals here?

sue paypal.

sue the ba stards.

They won't turn up in court.

knightsimon

Well done for getting your money back!

peter_the_piper

Hopefully, if the bank repaid you then they will get the balance back from PP. so they will not benefit from it.

HOUSEQUAKE

Had a call from the local plod informing me that they have now recvd info from both ebay and paypal.

The ebay details of seller in west sussex do not check out (not surprised) but the paypal account used has shown up a valid name and address in the midlands, so the west mids police are going to knock on the door.

Still figure it could be stolen ID but at least they're trying.

I'm glad I've go my money back but would rather it had come from paypal...not the insurance company natwest used, it feels like someone is still getting away with something.

frivolous_fay

HOUSEQUAKE wrote: »

Had a call from the local plod informing me that they have now recvd info from both ebay and paypal.

The ebay details of seller in west sussex do not check out (not surprised) but the paypal account used has shown up a valid name and address in the midlands, so the west mids police are going to knock on the door.

Still figure it could be stolen ID but at least they're trying.

I'm glad I've go my money back but would rather it had come from paypal...not the insurance company natwest used, it feels like someone is still getting away with something.

Getting the money back was an excellent result - here's hoping the rozzers can turn something up. It's good that at least they're taking it seriously. I wonder if they're looking at the details of the bank account linked to the PP account - they ruddy well should be.