Paypal investigating me

kit

cafenervosa wrote:

Yea this can happen to any business if it be ASDA or a small seller on ebay, the trick is to make enough profits so that you can account for these type of losses when they happen.

That is all well and good if you are a business. I am not.
My partner and I are selling items in order to raise money to buy our 4 month old daughter new clothes and toys. We have no spare cash and the only way to raise the money was to sell stuff - this item was the item that was worth the most money and now we have no item and no money. :doh::doh::doh::doh::doh:

cookiemonster25

this is heartbreaking when cash is tight and you are trying to do the best for your kids

odowdchr

kit wrote:

That is all well and good if you are a business. I am not.
My partner and I are selling items in order to raise money to buy our 4 month old daughter new clothes and toys. We have no spare cash and the only way to raise the money was to sell stuff - this item was the item that was worth the most money and now we have no item and no money. :doh::doh::doh::doh::doh:

I'd keep chasing the police, maybe the 'buyers' local police as well. Even if his contact details were false i assume the address you sent the item to is valid.
You probably won't get your money now, but the satisfaction in helping to catch this crook might be rewarding. Best of luck.

dastephens

I'v always left feedback as soon as paypal payment made, but after reading your awful experience I won't in future and will also consider requesting cheques.
Hope everything works out for you.

kit

dastephens wrote:

I'v always left feedback as soon as paypal payment made, but after reading your awful experience I won't in future and will also consider requesting cheques.
Hope everything works out for you.

Thank you all for your kind words.

dastephens - you may want to also consider nochex and eggpay. I have read the T&C's for both of these and cant seem to find fault - they both say they will not refund money like paypal do. Nochex charge 20p plus a certain % (cant remember what) like paypal do but eggpay is free for the time being (probably until they get well know!).

I'm not going to use paypal to sell anymore. I dont care if I do get less people buying from me..... at least I will receive the money!

pecky

cafenervosa wrote:

Yea this can happen to any business if it be ASDA or a small seller on ebay, the trick is to make enough profits so that you can account for these type of losses when they happen.

The difference in this example is that ASDA is the merchant who is actually processing the credit card transaction, If they don't employ the proper checks then they loose out.

With paypal it should be that they as merchant put the fraud checks in place. The average ebay user has no control over the actual payment transaction, so is totally unfair that you can be held liable for paypals incompetence.

I have used paypal a lot in the past and never had a problem, then again I am just an honest buyer. Guess I will be reading their T&C's, just before I decide never to use them as a seller again.

bargains83

I went through a situation exactly the same as this last year.

I was selling a Nokia N-Gage which was bought using buy-it-now for £120 and paid for immediately. Brilliant I thought, I withdrew the money to my bank account and wrapped the item ready to post the next day. The buyer had put a note with the payment "Please post ASAP" which i never noticed until the problems came in.

The buyer was a newbie but already had 3 positive feedback scores. Fortunately I had the sense to check out what he had bought/sold (and I always do it now when dealing with new ebay members). This Ebayer had bought another 2 mobiles from 2 other sellers which were a new, top model at the time for around £400 each and also a camcorder for £280. These transactions had been completed within minutes of each other

I didn't think anything of all this at the time, and the plan was to post the phone he'd bought from me next day but something came up and I didn't end up posting it and am I glad I didn't!.

The next day (the day I was meant to post it) an email came from PayPal saying that they believed I had been in reciept of fraudulent funds and they were to be removed from my account pending investigation. My Balance was now -£120 and I started to twig that I could have been conned. I emailed the buyer asking for an explaination which was met with "I have moved house & forgotten to change my address details and now you have reported me to PayPal YOU have caused me allsorts of problems. HAVE YOU POSTED THE ITEM YET?". I didn't report him, it was PayPal that discovered there was a problem.

I kept emailing the buyer, who kept saying it was being sorted and continually kept trying to persuade me to post out the item in the meantime and then slowly the emails stopped arriving and so I left him negative feedback. 2 other negatives quickly followed mine so I got in touch with the other sellers and they said exactly the same had happened to them. I also tried telephoning the buyer which turned out to be an 'out of service' mobile number.

One of the other sellers who were conned lived near to where the rogue buyer and went to the house to try and get an explaination. The person who lived there said that there was nobody by the name of the person selling on ebay living there and just shut the door. The police got involved and I sent in all copies of emails from PayPal and the buyer.

In the end I didn't lose out because I never posted the item but it could quite easily have been sent and i'd have lost out. Now when dealing with an ebayer with a low feedback score and who pays by PayPal I wait 3 - 5 days before I even post their item as its the best thing I can think of other than not accepting PayPal full stop.

I also research my buyers by looking at their feedback, checking for what would normally be a one off special purchase being bought several times over and several purchases bought in a short space of time.

Seems to be working so far and i've had no trouble since.

kit

Thanks!

I have discovered how to see details of what the buyer has been bidding on so will be using that from now on!

Discovered that my 'buyer' bought from 5 people on the same day. The other 4 were all power sellers and their items costs a lot less than mine did - shouldnt have looked really, just depressed me more!!
I'm not saying that the others deserved to lose out anymore than I did, it just hurts that I was the only 'private' seller he went for. :mad:


I have the buyers phone number from ebay - not sure if it works, not tried it. I'm too much of a wimp, I know I should phone him but just cant bring myself to do it.

ditzymuppet

How about waiting to see if your item that you sent out and had the problems with re-turns up on ebay under a different seller id? May only work for particularly distinguished items.

Hmmm

And thanks for your words of warning... I think I may just stick to cheques and good ol' postal orders now....

~ditzy x :rolleyes:

Jo4

kit wrote:

I have discovered how to see details of what the buyer has been bidding on so will be using that from now on!

How do you do this?