Ebay - am I about to be scammed?

JetpackVelociraptor

"I’m not aware of any signature requirement - also, how do you know who bought it and who’s collecting and where do you get a copy of their legal signature (is that even a thing?) to compare it to?"

Hi Soolin, I was informed of this by eBay customer service in Ireland , about 6 months after we switched over to managed payments. If not everyone is aware of this then it definitely needs to be made common knowledge!

See this page here, it's about "Handling Payment Disputes": https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/getting-paid/handling-payment-disputes?id=4799

From that page under the section for physical items that have been collected eBay says you need the following to challenge a dispute:

"Valid buyer identification for collection from the retailer and proof of pickup which includes:
 

• Date of pickup
• Store of delivery (applicable for collection from retailer), matching the postal address on the order
• Order ID, item number, item title, and price paid
• The customer's signature on the pickup form or packing slip"

As to how you're supposed to check the signature, honestly I've no clue! We tell buyers to bring a copy of their photo ID. We print out the order invoice with the item details on it, the customer signs that sheet and prints their name, we photocopy the photo ID and staple it to the sheet. If someone doesn't want to bring photo ID or claims not to have any we tell them to pay in person on collection - it is still an option for buyers to select "payment on collection" when they go through checkout. If they've already paid, we refund so they can pay on collection. We still pay the FVF fees and always mark the item as paid afterwards to avoid upsetting eBay. It doesn't save us any money, but it does get around the ID requirements.

People rarely if ever have a problem with it.

It's more like fighting a credit card chargeback then a normal eBay dispute, we already work under similar terms with the company that handles our card payments. Our prices for most products range from £300 to £4000 so there's no chance eBay will ever cover us if a buyer wins a claim. I suspect on lower value items they might be willing to refund the buyer out of their own pocket, but I wouldn't want to rely on that.

EDIT: the_lunatic_is_in_my_head Just saw your post. The potential scam part is that the buyer is using a stolen credit card or someone else's PayPal account to pay for their order. They report to their card company that they don't recognise the transaction, and the card company rightfully initiates a claim against eBay for the money that was stolen. EBay refund the card company, and then reclaim the money from you the seller, leaving you out of pocket and your item in the hands of a thief. It's nothing to do with eBay's money back guarantee, this dispute is between the card provider and eBay. But eBay being eBay, they will make it the seller's problem right away!

GDB2222

I would just like to thank everyone for their help on this. 

I didn’t know about the QR code for collections, so that was a great help, thanks. 

I think that the arrangement, although unusual, was in fact genuine, and there has been no attempt at clawback etc.