eBay/PayPal Scam Warning

hnisc

I just want to make you all aware of a scam I was unfortunate to be a victim of. PayPal as you would expect sided with the scammer as you will read about below.

Basically I had bought a mobile phone through a seller on eBay. The seller then sent a letter via Royal Mail's Special Delivery at a cost of £4.10 (the amount of P&P I paid for) saying that my item would arrive in the next few days. I thought this a tad strange as I had not experienced someone doing this before instead of just sending an e-mail like anyone else!

The item never arrived within 10 days and through a lack of response from the seller I filled a claim via PayPal. The seller was asked to produce proof of delivery so he subsequently supplied the Royal Mail tracking number for the letter which was sent via Special Delivery. This was obviously signed for by myself upon receiving it.

PayPal took this evidence as being sufficient that the seller has indeed sent me the phone when he infact he sent just a letter. Eventually after a while of trying I managed to speak with someone at PayPal. My original claim was changed from item not received to item not as described which downgraded the claim. I tried telling them what had happened and not to change the claim being filled and that it was a simple hole in their system for people to defraud others through eBay but they simply told me to conact the police. I also faxed the letter and communication to them as they had requested this.

I contacted the police but they were not interested as it was a cival matter between myself and the seller.

It got worse because PayPal claimed they never received the fax (even though I had confirmation that it was received ok). I checked the fax details with PayPal again and faxed the information. Again they failed to receive it. I then e-mailed and attached the scanned evidence but by this stage they had closed the claim as a certain number of days had elapsed since it was opened.

So I am warning all other eBay users of this simple scam that PayPal turns a blind eye to

mum2one

if you have the sellers address, your option would be small claims court, as its civil action, u do noy have to prove 100% that the phone did not arrive, merely enough to prove probality of the event happening. Which in ur case the letter saying the item is coming counts as the proof of the phone coming.

Brooker_Dave

hnisc wrote: »

I just want to make you all aware of a scam I was unfortunate to be a victim of. PayPal as you would expect sided with the scammer as you will read about below.

Basically I had bought a mobile phone through a seller on eBay. The seller then sent a letter via Royal Mail's Special Delivery at a cost of £4.10 (the amount of P&P I paid for) saying that my item would arrive in the next few days. I thought this a tad strange as I had not experienced someone doing this before instead of just sending an e-mail like anyone else!

The item never arrived within 10 days and through a lack of response from the seller I filled a claim via PayPal. The seller was asked to produce proof of delivery so he subsequently supplied the Royal Mail tracking number for the letter which was sent via Special Delivery. This was obviously signed for by myself upon receiving it.

PayPal took this evidence as being sufficient that the seller has indeed sent me the phone when he infact he sent just a letter. Eventually after a while of trying I managed to speak with someone at PayPal. My original claim was changed from item not received to item not as described which downgraded the claim. I tried telling them what had happened and not to change the claim being filled and that it was a simple hole in their system for people to defraud others through eBay but they simply told me to conact the police. I also faxed the letter and communication to them as they had requested this.

I contacted the police but they were not interested as it was a cival matter between myself and the seller.

It got worse because PayPal claimed they never received the fax (even though I had confirmation that it was received ok). I checked the fax details with PayPal again and faxed the information. Again they failed to receive it. I then e-mailed and attached the scanned evidence but by this stage they had closed the claim as a certain number of days had elapsed since it was opened.

So I am warning all other eBay users of this simple scam that PayPal turns a blind eye to

Just do a credit card chargeback, or sue paypal.

MARTINS_DOLL

Good luck, I do hope you can get this sorted out. There are some nasty people out there. xxx

RFW

Trading standards would be interested, especially if someone has reported them before.

Also is it not possible to prove that only a letter was sent? Does special delivery have different rates for letters and packets? It has rates above and below 100g, so unless they were extremely devious you should be able to prove they only sent you a letter.

pdel61

Sadly Paypal make it so easy to commit fraud it's no surprise it happens so often. In the end they are a business out to make money so as long as they get there cut from one party or another they don't care. There dispute procedure is simple:

Seller: Can you prove you've delivered somthing to the buyer.

Yes: Seller wins
No: buyer wins.

mum2one

special delievery does go via weight as well, not sure what exactly in grams etc, but try www.royalmail.co.uk or .com and that will give more info.

try every option, your newspaper, newspaper their area, police, trading standards.

RFW

hnisc wrote: »

I just want to make you all aware of a scam I was unfortunate to be a victim of. PayPal as you would expect sided with the scammer as you will read about below.

Basically I had bought a mobile phone through a seller on eBay. The seller then sent a letter via Royal Mail's Special Delivery at a cost of £4.10 (the amount of P&P I paid for) saying that my item would arrive in the next few days. I thought this a tad strange as I had not experienced someone doing this before instead of just sending an e-mail like anyone else!

The item never arrived within 10 days and through a lack of response from the seller I filled a claim via PayPal. The seller was asked to produce proof of delivery so he subsequently supplied the Royal Mail tracking number for the letter which was sent via Special Delivery. This was obviously signed for by myself upon receiving it.

PayPal took this evidence as being sufficient that the seller has indeed sent me the phone when he infact he sent just a letter. Eventually after a while of trying I managed to speak with someone at PayPal. My original claim was changed from item not received to item not as described which downgraded the claim. I tried telling them what had happened and not to change the claim being filled and that it was a simple hole in their system for people to defraud others through eBay but they simply told me to conact the police. I also faxed the letter and communication to them as they had requested this.

I contacted the police but they were not interested as it was a cival matter between myself and the seller.

It got worse because PayPal claimed they never received the fax (even though I had confirmation that it was received ok). I checked the fax details with PayPal again and faxed the information. Again they failed to receive it. I then e-mailed and attached the scanned evidence but by this stage they had closed the claim as a certain number of days had elapsed since it was opened.

So I am warning all other eBay users of this simple scam that PayPal turns a blind eye to

Have you posted this on the Paypal board on Ebay, you may get some attention from that.

The scam can happen both ways though (a buyer can say they only received a letter when they received a phone) so unless Paypal have logged previous complaints on either side, how will they know who is telling the truth?

pdel61

RFW wrote: »

Does special delivery have different rates for letters and packets? It has rates above and below 100g, so unless they were extremely devious you should be able to prove they only sent you a letter.

I think SD only goes on weight, but yes I would assume a phone would be in a different category than just a letter.

pdel61

RFW wrote: »

The scam can happen both ways though (a buyer can say they only received a letter when they received a phone) so unless Paypal have logged previous complaints on either side, how will they know who is telling the truth?

It can, but the problem is Paypal decide who is telling the truth using a very blunt measure of has something been delivered.

steviebabes

A phone would weigh more than a letter but as the seller planned this from the start he matched the SD rate to a letter and not a phone.