Buyer scammed me on ebay Negative Balance of £500 17 March 2022 at 8:46AM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels 6 replies 457 views

andycorleone

A Buyer scammed (empty box scam) me on ebay now I have a Negative Balance of £500 on ebay. I think in the past this was show on paypal but for now is only on ebay. . I have been selling for ages on ebay but after seen how easy scammers can get away and ebay offering very little protection at this point I don’t really care not selling there anymore. i wondered what will happen now? And what happens if I don’t pay.  As I read most likely they will sell the debt to westcot. What consequence will this bring? Thanks

steviebabes

How does an empty box scam work as you are the seller?

soolin

steviebabes said:

How does an empty box scam work as you are the seller?

It’s this thread
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6343063/scam-advice-buyer-claim-that-received-an-empty-box#latest

The empty box scam, if this is a scam, is generally done to the seller , buyer claims they received an empty box , eBay repay the buyer and seller loses out. However seller should be in a very strong position to argue the case here and I imagine most sellers would be on the phone to eBay getting this resolved. 

steviebabes

As long as you have online tracking to the buyers address you would win a case whether the box is empty or not. 

andycorleone

steviebabes said:

As long as you have online tracking to the buyers address you would win a case whether the box is empty or not. 

Unfortunaly that's not how this work. thanks for your reply  but I would like not to divert my original question. whc it's about the consequences I may face

olgadapolga

steviebabes said:

As long as you have online tracking to the buyers address you would win a case whether the box is empty or not. 

That's not true for a "not as described" case.

soolin

andycorleone said:

steviebabes said:

As long as you have online tracking to the buyers address you would win a case whether the box is empty or not. 

Unfortunaly that's not how this work. thanks for your reply  but I would like not to divert my original question. whc it's about the consequences I may face

Many of us on here are very long term sellers, some of us are businesses and have been doing this for years, an INR should have been won by you initially once proof of delivery was shown.

However, to answer your specific question, assuming you have removed ebay access to your bank account (and managed payments does give them access) so this debt cannot be automatically cleared by ebay simply helping themselves then yes they will chase you for the debt. Eventually debt collectors will be engaged  and may harrass you for a while, so make sure you are fully aware of what limited powers they have so that you can rebut them and not let them overstep the line. However, as yet no one has ever shown a case where a person in debt to ebay has been taken to court- that might change with managed payments, but until someone shows otherwise you are probably fairly safe to say it will stop with the debt collectors.

Obviously you can never open another ebay account, and more importantly, neither can anyone that ebay associate with you, so family, or anyone sharing your wi fi for instance.

Your remark about paypal is of course out of date, now that sellers are on managed payments this is an entirely ebay situation, your payment went to ebay and then to you, it never went anywhere near paypal - in fact selelrs no longer need to have a paypal account if they choose not to.