EBay tracked Royal Mail delivery scam

Poppy2012

I bought a phone on eBay and it was sent via Royal Mail 48 tracked delivery. I have not received it but tracking says it has been delivered showing blurry picture of a different door. Someone was at home all day and I have ring door bell and cctv - no footage of postman on that day, no card anywhere either. EBay quickly closed the case in seller’s favour as they provided tracking number.
I went to the local Royal Mail delivery office to investigate and found out my parcel was delivered by a different delivery office miles away. They were able to provide GPS coordinates and a map where delivery took place - it’s miles away from me in the area where that delivery office is. Yet tracking is showing as delivered to me. They could not explain how this was possible as the street name and postcode is not similar at all. I have researched it and it looks like it was a dual label scam.
I have provided GPS coordinates to EBay pinpointing building, full tracking map showing it was delivered by a different delivery office, pictures of my door which is completely different, mentioned I can also provide full cctv footage for the day or around delivery time stated in the tracking.
However, all this evidence is not enough apparently. Could anyone advise what else can done in this case?.. Thank you.

TimeLord1

The only way is to get a letter from Royal Mail stating the GPS is nowhere near your location and also push eBay human call as hard as possible, and they should eventually refund you as a one-off. And go through Action Fraud they'll give you a reference number to use. Or go through you bank to do a chargeback.

ProcessMatters

This is a known dual-label / mis-delivery pattern and you’re doing the right things. The key point eBay tends to miss is that “delivered” only helps the seller if it was delivered to your address. If Royal Mail can confirm in writing that the GPS location is not your property, that breaks seller protection.

Ask Royal Mail for a formal confirmation letter or email stating the delivery coordinates and that it was not your address, then reopen or appeal with eBay and explicitly say the item was misdelivered, not received. If eBay still refuse, a chargeback via your card provider usually succeeds because the evidence shows non-delivery to the buyer’s address. Action Fraud reference also helps, but the RM confirmation + chargeback is usually what actually resolves it.

savergrant

How much was the phone and what delivery options did you have?

Have you messaged the seller?

Was it delivered to somewhere with a similar postcode? Could it be human error?

Poppy2012

Thank you for the advice. I have called Royal Mail customer service and they could see in the system that it has not been delivered to my address. They cannot provide written confirmation though, I have to write an email to them and wait and see if they reply. Difficulty is that their contract is with the seller, not with me and they have fulfilled it. If anyone managed to get a written confirmation from them in such a scenario I would be interested to know.

Poppy2012

I thought it was a human error but it’s not according to Royal Mail. Customer service said they delivered the item exactly were it should have been delivered. They have completely different address and postcode in the system so from their point of view all is ok. They do not take responsibility of tracking showing as delivered to me no they can help me with investigation as they said they do not get involved in EBay disputes. Interestingly, they advised EBay can also see a different address in their system but because they have tracking showing delivered to me, they automatically closed the case and now it’s very difficult to prove to them it was not. I would not have thought such a scam is possible, but it is.

TimeLord1

Hope it helps.

​"I am writing to formally report a misdelivery for . I have visited my local delivery office, and staff confirmed via GPS that the item was delivered to a different postcode/area miles away from my address. I require a written confirmation via email that this tracking number was NOT delivered to my address at [Your Postcode] so that I can provide it to the police and eBay for a fraud investigation. Please confirm the GPS scan location does not match my delivery address."

https://help.royalmail.com/personal/s/category/0TOTw00000019z2OAA/complaints-claims?hl=en-GB

Not sure why the link isn't working 🤔 probably this great new version that's not allowing much.

https://help.royalmail.com/personal/s/category/0TOTw00000019z2OAA/complaints-claims

Poppy2012

Thank you for the advice, link worked for me.

TimeLord1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81862065#Comment_81862065

I found the new button eventually. 🙄 I hope you get the phone sorted quickly, the seller needs a boot in the backside for not helping you. Rather than just counting his money bad practice.

savergrant

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81862172#Comment_81862172

It seems likely that the seller is a scammer. If the item is simple delivery they have somehow tampered with the ebay-issued label to have the parcel delivered to a different address (likely it was a valueless item inside) so it looks like the buyer has received it. If it isn't simple delivery they have just used the tracking number for another parcel and ebay haven't validated it.

What does the royal mail tracking show? Does it name the mail centres and delivery offices which handled it or did you have to ask about them?

Was the parcel posted anywhere near the seller's advertised location? I always get suspicious of item location being 'london' (unspecific) or 'aberdeen' (first alphabetically)

Poppy2012

Yes, Royal Mail tracking is showing central mail centre and then it was received by the delivery office miles away and delivered by them to a designated safe place. It is showing a bad quality picture of the parcel on someone’s door mat. It is not showing GPS details or a delivery map. I’ve got those from the local depot who said all local deliveries are done only via them and in no case far away delivery office will be doing delivery in our area. They advised to speak with customer services to investigate what happened as they can speak to the postman. When I rang customer services, they said the address behind tracking was not mine. They confirmed GPS provided to me was correct and that was the actual delivery address given by the seller. They refused to provide me exact delivery address as they are working for the seller, not me and as they have not made any mistake, there is nothing to investigate. What they mentioned was that EBay should be aware of the wrong delivery address as they have access to the delivery map and GPS and that even by looking at the tracking and seeing wrong local delivery office is sufficient evidence of mis-delivery. Not sure how the scammer managed to do this, by researching online looks like the label could have been photoshopped over. They should be questioned why GPS tracking is of the different address before money is released but instead onus is on me as a buyer to prove this. I guess they are aware how easy is to trick the system and are going to scam more people.