Ebay purchase never arrived due to duplicate tracking number - How to claim?

nikmondo

Hi guys,

I didn't quite know how to explain my issue in my title but anyways, here goes!

So bascially I've never had an issue with ebay...until now. The story goes that I purchased an item on ebay for £750 to which the seller uploaded the tracking number and the date of arrival was confirm....so all well and good so far.

Anyway, i was actually home when the item was meant to arrive and i even saw the postie outside so i waited patiently indoors for the knock on the door....but the knock never came. I presumed that although that maybe is was put in my external letter box if though the item of that value would need a signature as proof of delivery but it wasn't in there also. My phone then got a notification from ebay telling me that my item has been delivered which confused me even more.....so I went on to Royal Mail tracking to see what was going on. The photo which was uploaded was not only not my house....but oddly the address on the package wasn't even mine. 

So i went to the my local post office customer service point to try and find out what was going on and they were also absoloutely baffled and couldn't give me an answer there and then but was that a customer service manager was going to look into the issue look into it and get in touch.

So the following day, i checked the tracking number online was again....and even more oddly the item had been delivered again.....to another address which wasn't mine! This meant a new picture had replaced the old one and the picture showed a pile of parcels in what looked like a warehouse.

Anyway, the customer services guy rang me up and told me that the tracking number which i was provided by the ebay seller had been duplicated....twice. He confirmed that the GPS on those parcels had been delivered to 2 seperate addresses and confirmed thart nothing had been delivered to my address. He said that the issue was down to them and that i'm liable for compensation etc. I asked them what was insurance the package had and he said it was covered for £75 is obviously 10 percent of what I originally paid. He seemed baffled as to how the tracking number can be duplicated which does smell like this could be a scam.

I have screenshots of both proof of delivery photo's too.

Now this is where my problems really start....

I then reported this issue as a non delivery on ebay to which it was almost immediatly rejected as they said that the tracking number states 'item was delivered'. I then called ebay to raise an appeal explaining the issue, i told them what happened...even told them i had a royal mail case number and an email from Royal Mail owning up to the issue but ebay wasn't interested. Again they kept stating that the tracking number shows the item was delivered so there's not a lot they can do. They said that they are not allowed to contact Royal Mail on my behalf as they weren't allowed to contact third parties.

The seller (who i believe could be a scammer as this all sounds very fishy) isn't responding to messages anymore. The last message i got from them was them confirming my address when i originally raised the issue. 

So i was wondering if anyone has had dealth with anything like this before? I paid through Paypal Credit but I'm sure if I raise the issue to them they'll go down the ebay route and just tell me that my item was delivered as per the tracking number info. Would contacting my bank do anything?

I'm pulling my hair out i as would be absoloutely gutted to lose £750 on what was meant to be an Xmas present for my daughter. I just can't believe the lack of help from Ebay....all they'd need to do is call the Royal Mail customer services to back up my story but they will not do that.

Any help would be so grateful!

nikmondo

Too add....I have buyer protection from Ebay....which doesn't seem to be protecting me very much!

savergrant

Two things confuse me.
Firstly I understood to see proof of delivery you needed to enter the delivery postcode, so if the parcel royal mail delivered wasn't addressed to you I'm surprised you can see the photo.
Secondly you seem to be saying the same tracking number is now linking to another parcel? Are you sure the seller/scammer hasn't uploaded a different tracking number? I can't see how two royal mail parcels could have the same tracking number, unless it is the same parcel being returned to sender? That happened to me with evri when a collect in store order was dumped at the parcel shop because it couldn't be scanned, it showed as delivered to delivery address until it suddenly appeared in my garden and the photo/delivery date changed.
It could be a genuine mistake in that the seller has printed a number of labels and uploaded the wrong number to your order. Or it could be a scam where the seller has sold multiple items and purchased one royal mail label and quickly uploaded that number to each order so it looks like they've all been delivered.

It might be worth contacting action fraud (in the process of relaunching as report fraud) as this may be a criminal operation;
https://www.reportfraud.police.uk/

savergrant

"So the following day, i checked the tracking number online was again....and even more oddly the item had been delivered again.....to another address which wasn't mine! This meant a new picture had replaced the old one and the picture showed a pile of parcels in what looked like a warehouse."

Do you have the original tracking info you checked? Or just the original proof of delivery? Can you see whether it is the same parcel or something different? Can you see the address?

[Deleted User]

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savergrant

[Deleted User] said:

I had a similar issue recently. item was sent by DPD, DPD delivered to the wrong address, had pictures and everything, the problem was the person in the picture was not me, and it wasn't my front door either.

tracking said delivered as well, so I raised a dispute with eBay and it got rejected immediately, I was told later by eBay customer services that this happens because the system detects that item was marked as delivered and the system rejects your dispute automatically.

after calling DPD, DPD went back and collected the item, to be redelivered to me, and this showed in the tracking, after all they couldn't find my address somehow, and it was sent back to seller, but seller refused to refund and ignored me. 

then I appealed eBay's decision and got my refund, you can appeal the decision made by eBay through them, but I had to wait 30 days.

 

The difference is that in OP's case the tracking number seems to be for a parcel addressed to someone else, not an error by the courier.

Okell

Did you not ask the RM customer services guy to explain how 2 different parcels could be issued with the same tracking number?

I mean is it something that could never happen, or is it something that could happen accidentally, or would someone (eg the seller) have to take deliberate action to do this?

At the moment your story sounds a little unlikely, so you really need to get some explanation from RM as to what has happened to support your story.

I presume the seller is a private individual and not a business?

savergrant

Okell said:

Did you not ask the RM customer services guy to explain how 2 different parcels could be issued with the same tracking number?

I mean is it something that could never happen, or is it something that could happen accidentally, or would someone (eg the seller) have to take deliberate action to do this?

At the moment your story sounds a little unlikely, so you really need to get some explanation from RM as to what has happened to support your story.

I presume the seller is a private individual and not a business?

Most private seller items are now 'simple delivery' where ebay provide the label and tracking number. This makes address fraud much harder. The upper limit for simple delivery is £750 though, so if the item were listed at £750.01 it wouldn't be eligible for simple delivery and the seller can enter their own tracking info. Ebay should be able to check that the item actually tracks to the buyer's area though and isn't delivered to an address in another part of the country. Royal mail are better than evri in this as they tell you which delivery office is delivering the item, rather than just 'local depot'.
However in my case as a seller ebay insisted the item had been returned to me despite the evri tracking showing a photo of delivery to a parcel shop 200 miles away and the parcel sitting on top of a pile of local newspapers. Fortunately I had a patient buyer and the item was eventually returned to me so I could relabel it and send it back to the same parcel shop.

swingaloo

How did the seller get the postage? Was it Simple Delivery on Ebay?

Did the seller perhaps print the same label twice and manually change the address in order to scam you. That's an expensive item to be buying on Ebay. What type of postage did you pay for? The seller should have charged for postage with adequate insurance cover.

savergrant

swingaloo said:

How did the seller get the postage? Was it Simple Delivery on Ebay?

Did the seller perhaps print the same label twice and manually change the address in order to scam you. That's an expensive item to be buying on Ebay. What type of postage did you pay for? The seller should have charged for postage with adequate insurance cover.

I don't think it's possible to manually change the address, although I suppose you could 'photoshop' it and change the house number to throw the postie. I suspect if you tried to send it to a completely different address it would fail (I doubt royal mail machinery actually reads the address, it's all embedded in the barcode [and tampering with the barcode would be quite tricky])

savergrant

What was the actual item price? And how was the postage service described?
Finally how long has the seller been selling on ebay? Not a perfect guide as trustworthy accounts can be hacked sadly.

Edit: just seen that you paid a buyer protection fee so seller was a private seller not a business seller.