Dealing with a Scammer on Ebay

In My Humble Opinion
1

At least, I’m 99% sure I’m dealing with a scammer.

I’m selling my laptop on Ebay - my first time buying or selling. A guy speaking in broken English contacts me and asks if I can ship it to his client in Indonesia, and he will pay for shipping. Rather than go through the auction he wants to ‘‘Buy it Now’’ for the substantially higher price.

I agree to do this.

His response time is lightning fast. He wants an invoice, he will make the payment. He asks me repeatedly to ship TODAY. The payment comes through from some woman in Australia, along with an e-mail from her account stating that the payment has been made. The guy says this chick is his cousin.

In anyone else’s mind these would be major red flags, but I’m pretty notorious for my naive and trusting nature. Once I confirm that PayPal has received the payment, I figure it must be legitimate. I print out the shipping slips ($80) and drop it off at the post office.

I no sooner park my car upon returning home when I get a call from PayPal. They tell me that they are holding the funds because they aren’t certain where they came from, and they advise me not to ship the package while they investigate the payment. They also told me not to ship to an address other than the one listed on the account because it’s not covered under e-bay’s seller policy.

I go to the post office and reclaim my package.

The buyer has messaged me two or three times asking for proof of shipment. I reply that I figured out I’m being scammed and I’m not doing business until they prove to PayPal that the payment is legitimate.

This morning I get a response that they will contact PayPal immediately to rectify the situation and still want to do business.

  1. I’m not going to ship anything to Indonesia.
  2. I don’t really want to deal with this person at all anymore.

I’m not sure what I’m contractually obligated to do. Since the funds are being held I don’t know if I can refund them right now, but what I would most like to do is refund the money and tell the person to get lost. I imagine I’m going to have to wait until PayPal makes a decision about the payment. What am I supposed to tell the buyer that is probably trying to scam the pants off of me? Am I allowed to say, ‘‘Sorry, I now refuse to ship the package overseas’’? Am I allowed to say, ‘‘Sorry, I think you’re scamming me, here’s your money, get lost?’’ Should I still be corresponding with this person at all?

This is really stressing me out.

Thanks,
Christy

2

Run away. You’re dealing with a scammer.

Don’t correspond anymore. Refund the money and don’t look back.

3

At this point I wouldn’t worry about your so-called contractual obligations – you have none, because this person is clearly trying to scam you, and you should have nothing more to do with them. Block the e-mail address, consider your lesson learned, and be glad you didn’t lose anything other than your time.

I suppose you could report them to eBay, but I’m cynical enough to believe that wouldn’t do any good. Just be more skeptical in the future.

4

First, just take some time out.

Second, it’s in the hands of eBay. It’s not your problem for the next while.

If the money comes through fine, and there are no eBay rules to say that it can be withdrawn by the purchaser, then why not ship it wherever?

I’m a bit weirded out by you saying you’re “not going to ship anything to Indonesia”. Foreignness is not necessarily an indication of criminality. I currently live somewhere foreign and exotic too and may still want to buy stuff from a vendor in the US, and would be sad if they refused to ship just because the destination were abnormal.

It could of course be a scam. But eBay is investigating. If eBay says “yes, it’s a scam” then you know what to do. If not, and you get the cash, then go ahead and ship, in my opinion.

Are you going via PayPal by the way? That can be a pain for a first-time user. I sold a camera via eBay as a first-timer and PayPal held the cash for weeks until I contacted them and then they said “oops we made a mistake”.

5

On Ebay, I have learned, you can’t ship to an address other than the address listed on the account and be covered under Ebay’s seller protection policy. It’s not the specific location so much as the fact that the person’s account is listed in Georgia, U.S., the payment came from Australia and the package was to be shipped to Indonesia. From now on I’m only comfortable shipping to the address listed on the account.

6

PayPal and eBay work together. If Paypal is holding funds they find suspicious, you’ll have recourse with eBay for non-timely shipment.

Also, the policy of only shipping to the confirmed address of the Paypal account isn’t just PayPal’s policy, it’s good advice for you as well. Should the seller dispute receiving the item, your delivery confirmation to the address will clear things up. But if you’re sending it to a completely different address than what’s on PayPal, no one has any proof you’ve even sent the item at all and the benefit of the doubt will go to the buyer (along with a refund which you’ll be responsible for paying back).

Which brings me to my last point. Don’t ship internationally. I have and I’ve been extremely lucky in that everything I’ve sent has gotten there more or less in a timely manner. But I’m mainly sending envelopes. Anything larger or more expensive (and a laptop certainly qualifies) and I refuse to ship internationally. Period. Doesn’t matter how much they ask or beg to buy the item. The reason why is that there is absolutely NO way to track an international package through USPS. None. They claim some sort of security risk but I think it’s just so they’re not competing with UPS and Fex/Ex. Anyway, without tracking, there’s no way to ensure your package got there so you’re 100% at the mercy of an honest buyer who gets the package and is satisfied with it because short of that, they can file a claim that they didn’t receive it and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

7

Ah I getcha. OK that’s a right mess. Ignore me.

8

Being non-US I’ve often wondered about - and been annoyed by - US vendors refusing to ship internationally. I guess that could explain it. The UK P.O. does have track-and-trace to international destinations, which explains my confusion. Couldn’t you use FedEx or DHL since the purchaser pays the shipping? Or would they just refuse due to prohibitive pricing?

9

If you don’t want to ship internationally, point your customer towards a courier service that does uplift. That way the delivery is their responsibility, and you get a collection receipt to show that they uplifted. Combine that with photographic proof of what was shipped and you’re pretty well set for dispute.

You can miss out on a pretty lucrative market if you absolutely refuse to deal with foreign customers.

10

Fex Ex, UPS, and DHL can run you anywhere from $17 for a simple envelope to $30-$50 for a box. More depending on the weight. Yes, you can attempt to charge that much and if your buyer accepts that then Bob’s your uncle. More likely, they’ll just say that’s too much to spend and go looking at another seller who’s willing to assume the risk and ships more cheaply.

Also, the UK is fine, but I’ve heard some real horror stories coming out of Italy and Spain where postal workers don’t bother to deliever your packages or even just open them up to see what’s inside. A lot of even international sellers refuse to ship specifically to those two countries. I’ve shipped probably a dozen items to Italy and as I said I’ve been fortunate in that everything’s gone through just fine. But it often takes 3-4 weeks to get there.

11

Definitely a scammer, but I wouldn’t try to refund their payment. PayPal/eBay will take care of that - if you try to intervene, it might confuse matters. Just don’t send the goods.

12

Not sure I understand the part about:

Does this mean you did not complete the transaction via eBay, and if so, isn’t this an issue for PayPal and not eBay?

13

If the scammer sends the payment (probably funded by a stolen card) via paypal independently of the ebay transaction, seller protection.doesn’t exist.

14

It’s a royal pain if I want to buy a present for someone else, and have it shipped directly to them, though. This is just one reason among many that I avoid PayPal if I possibly can.

15

No need to be stressed at all! Do nothing and the situation will fix itself. Block his emails if your email provider allows it, and get on with your life. Sleep long and well tonight. :slight_smile:

16

Tell him you changed your mind and that this is a cash-only deal.

If he really wants the laptop, he will have to fly in from Indonesia so that you can exchange cash and computer in person.

17

Even if you have Meg Whitman herself hand-deliver the package and a picture appears on the front page of every newspaper in the world, if you don’t deliver it according to paypal/ebay’s seller protection policy, you will lose the dispute if the buyer claims they didn’t receive it. Don’t make up your own rules, no matter how logical they may seem. Follow the ebay/paypal rules. That means, among other things, deliver only to the verified billing address of the buyer and only via a carrier that provides online proof of delivery, including a signature for more expensive items.

18

Just be honest with him…tell him that Paypal has held up his funds and that he needs to contact them directly and help them clear up the situation. Once you have the money in hand…not just at paypal, but in your own account, then I would feel comfortable shipping the item.

Just curious, did you still run the “Buy it Now” transaction through eBay? Meaning that they are collecting a commission off of your sale?

19

When you put an item up for auction, eBay gives the prospective buyer the option to stop the auction and just purchase the item immediately. Usually the Buy It Now price is higher than the minimum bid price. The scammer wanted the item immediately so he chose Buy It Now. AFAIK the Buy It Now option still counts as an eBay transaction.

And yes, Omar they are collecting a commission off my sale.

20

As a seller, you don’t have to offer the option of “Buy it now”, not every auction is set up that way. Sounds like you included that option in your listing and the buyer took you up on it. Unless you stated in your listing that you restricted shipment to certain countries, you are obligated to complete the transaction, as long as his payment clears.