Scammed on EBay advice

smithers1981

Hi wife sold phone on EBay was paid immediately withdrew funds to her bank.

buyer contacted asked to send to different address which she did send recorded.

few weeks later financial dispute raised from buyer wife didn’t respond in 5 day eBay limit.

Ebay found in favour of buyer and refunded them, buyer had zero feedback and clearly a scammer.

wife’s eBay balance now -£250 and account suspended, bank account linked to eBay is old account so they haven’t managed to get funds.

wife quite stressed any advise appreciated should she just take it on chin and pay eBay the £250? Or just ignore and hope goes away eBay account now suspended but she can live without it.

thanks for reading 

WhiskersTheWonderCat

One of the prime rules on eBay, is you always dispatch to the exact address listed in the order details. eBay won't offer you any protection if you send it anywhere else. I assume you have contacted eBay about this situation? What have they said? 

soolin

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

One of the prime rules on eBay, is you always dispatch to the exact address listed in the order details. eBay won't offer you any protection if you send it anywhere else. I assume you have contacted eBay about this situation? What have they said? 

They will stick to their rules, items must be sent to the address given by eBay to get seller protection.

OP unfortunately this used to be a very common scam, I haven’t actually seen it now for a while as it was so well covered in various publications and TV consumer programmes. 

You have no options with eBay, they will appoint a debt collection agent and harass you for a while, but there are no reports of anyone being taken to court (yet). Obviously her eBay account is lost as is any other that eBay consider are associated and that can include anyone who has shared the address like a Child or other relative.

The only option left is via a legal route against the buyer. However for that you would need their real name and address and most scammers who used to do this years ago would use either a boarding house address or parcel drop office. You could start by checking the address and doing some leg work and a bit of sluething. If you can actually definitely track down the buyer , if they were daft enough to use their proper address for instance, then start legal action against them.

incidentally, you mention sending ‘recorded’ postage, a phone of that value should have been sent special next day delivery as recorded as was, which is now signed for, only covers up to £50. Should you decide to pay up and re use eBay it might be worth reading up on seller protection and also postage options. 

Incidentally I’ll ask for this to be moved to the eBay board

. 

smithers1981

Thanks for replies she rang EBay lady very sympathetic but said nothing she or EBay could do.

lesson learned I have eBay account we can use if needed so will hold off paying u less they take her to court.

buyer sent texts to her phone but that number no longer in use.

smithers1981

Ah just read my account at risk too hey ho no real loss 

soolin

smithers1981 said:

Thanks for replies she rang EBay lady very sympathetic but said nothing she or EBay could do.

lesson learned I have eBay account we can use if needed so will hold off paying u less they take her to court.

buyer sent texts to her phone but that number no longer in use.

smithers1981 said:

Ah just read my account at risk too hey ho no real loss 

I probably would caution against using your account. In the past ebay have been  known to charge the associated account for the outstanding balance and I wouldn't risk them still doing this further down the line. 

TOP_CAT

In this case would ebays  automatic system have refunded a zero feedback buyer .....without human intervention with a £250 sales figure for a mobile phone?

In my opinion (not that it helps) ebay is complicit in refunding a zero feedback buyer in a high risk catagory mobile phone purchase and in doing so is complicit in creating the debt .

None of this helps the seller as its opinion I know ......
Lucky they have a old account but Im not convinced or understand that will help..... if ebay can debit the bank account in the sellers name somehow .

Rantband

TOP_CAT said:

In this case would the ebays  automatic system have refunded a zero feedback buyer without human intervention with a £250 sales figure for a mobile phone?

In my opinion (not that it helps) ebay is complicit in refunding a zero feedback buyer on a high risk catagory mobile phone purchase and in doing so is complicit in creating the debt .

None of this helps the seller as its opinion I know ......
Lucky they have a old account but Im not convinced or understand that will help..... if ebay can debit the bank account in the sellers name somehow .

TOP CAT

In this case if the seller had followed Ebay conditions of sale the situation would not have happened.

pinkshoes

TOP_CAT said:

In this case would the ebays  automatic system have refunded a zero feedback buyer without human intervention with a £250 sales figure for a mobile phone?

In my opinion (not that it helps) ebay is complicit in refunding a zero feedback buyer on a high risk catagory mobile phone purchase and in doing so is complicit in creating the debt .

None of this helps the seller as its opinion I know ......
Lucky they have a old account but Im not convinced or understand that will help..... if ebay can debit the bank account in the sellers name somehow .

As mentioned, the seller did not follow eBay rules and sent it to a DIFFERENT address, which is a very well known scam. If they had sent to the listed address there would have been no problem getting a refund.

Pollycat

smithers1981 said:

lesson learned I have eBay account we can use if needed so will hold off paying u less they take her to court.

I've never (thankfully) been in debt but if you hold off paying until she receives a summons, are you risking the debt increasing from what it is now?

Apologies if I'm wrong about how debt collection works.

soolin

TOP_CAT said:

In this case would the ebays  automatic system have refunded a zero feedback buyer without human intervention with a £250 sales figure for a mobile phone?

In my opinion (not that it helps) ebay is complicit in refunding a zero feedback buyer on a high risk catagory mobile phone purchase and in doing so is complicit in creating the debt .

None of this helps the seller as its opinion I know ......
Lucky they have a old account but Im not convinced or understand that will help..... if ebay can debit the bank account in the sellers name somehow .

Of course, feedback doesn’t matter as everyone has to start somewhere. This was an obvious scammer, but imagine a genuine buyer who excitedly signs up to eBay to buy that widget they have been saving for, who meets a scam seller and is told ‘sorry the buyer guarantee that eBay advertise doesn’t apply to first time buyers. Also many experienced scammers build up a handful of feedback first, or just hijack an existing account. I suggest this was a chancer who tried his luck on a well known and mostly not fallen for scam and just hit the jackpot. 

As others have said, the seller would have been completely safe if they had followed the seller protection rules.