I wanted the ‘‘Buy it Now’’ option - I’m not complaining about that.
He asked me to ship to Indonesia, and I agreed. Now I’m out $80 because I paid for international shipping and had to cancel the shipment at the last minute. Is he obligated to pay me back for that before I ship it again? Am I obligated to ship it to Indonesia after PayPal told me to stop the shipment and sent me an e-mail that they think the payment was unauthorized by the account holder?
If I have to wait until the money is in my account, that could take weeks. Do I even have the right to wait until the payment is in my account? I feel like I’m getting screwed no matter what happens.
Why didn’t you get a refund on the shipping costs? The shipper didn’t ship it. Also, did you agree to pay for shipping, normally the buyer pays for shipping.
Why would you want to ship the laptop before you’ve received the funds? No you’re not obligated to ship to Indonesia as you haven’t been paid yet. Talk to the paypal/eBay people, they’ll instruct you as to what you are obligated to do or not do.
ETA: In the future you need to think through all of the issues and risks that you are willing to accept as a seller, and structure your listings appropriately. You’re not getting screwed, you just left yourself exposed in a few areas.
I invoiced him for shipping… which he paid with an apparently illegitimate transaction. I received an e-mail from PayPal saying that the funds were received and to ship my item now. In retrospect I don’t even know if it was really from PayPal or just some scam thing, but I did go into the account myself and see that the funds were received, being held by PayPal because that’s what they do until the item is received by the buyer.
I assumed the funds were good so I paid for shipping through PayPal on the assumption that I would be reimbursed. If it does turn out to be a scam, I’m out $80. If he turns out to be legitimate, I’m still out $80 because I’ll have to pay $80 again to ship to Indonesia.
He later told me he had to use his cousin’s account to pay because his own PayPal account was overdrawn. His account is overdrawn but his cousin is fronting him the money for a $1200 laptop for a client? That doesn’t sound scammy?
File with Ebay to get your seller fees back on this transaction and don’t look back. You are being scammed and the “buyer” was hoping that you shipped before PayPal discovered what was going on. PayPal does have some protection for you when you ship, but you MUST follow their shipping guidelines to the “T”. Read them and then re-read them, know exactly what you have to do to protect yourself. If you have any questions, call them. PayPal had great customer support and will take the time to explain everything to you.
I would love to move on. But right now I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of a big ol’ mess. I guess I will have to call eBay/PayPal and find out what my options are at this point.
Did you log into PayPal by going there directly, or by following a link in an email you received? If the latter, your PayPal account may be compromised. To be on the safe side, I would suggest logging into PayPal from a different computer, and changing your PayPal password as soon as possible.
The whole thing sounds really scammy, IMO. The urgency, the offer of extra money, the weirdness of shipping and payment arrangements. These are all big red flags.
First, as a new seller, NEVER EVER sell something as expensive as a laptop on eBay. Things like laptops, iPhones, etc, are notorious for attracting scammers. They also look for new sellers too. The situation you described is definitely a scam and do not ship that laptop.
I sell very little on eBay but I refuse to sell internationally and here is why; eBay/Paypal require you to have delivery confirmation which is very expensive. Most buyers don’t want to pay that much in shipping costs. Also, it’s just too much of a hassle if they want to return the item for whatever reason.
Here’s another reason why you don’t want to sell high priced electronics on eBay. The scammer will receive the item and then claim it is “not as described”. As per eBay they can file a claim to return it for a refund but they can send you a box of rocks back and they will still be refunded. eBay is ripe for scamming. Try reading in their forum, that’s where I am learning all of this stuff.
She’s not obligated to complete anything, really, especially if he is asking to send to a different address than is confirmed on the PayPal account.
Yes, and then if you contact eBay and PayPal and say, “He sent me a box of rocks”, they close the case in the buyer’s favor because this somehow proves to them that your item was not as described (i.e., that you sent the box of rocks rather than the laptop and the buyer was justified in calling this ‘not as described’.)
Seller protection is practically nonexistent at eBay these days.
So what I’m hearing is that even though I narrowly missed getting screwed by this guy, someone else is going to screw me later. Lovely.
You know, I’m an honest person. I took the laptop to the store and there was only about a month’s worth of good battery left on it. I replaced the battery at my own expense out of respect for the future buyer. I replaced the adapter and power cords. I offered in my ad to pay Ground Shipping. I damn near included a friendly card for the recipient encouraging them to enjoy the laptop as much as I did.
Definitely a scam. Never ship anything to this person.
Are you in the US ? You might be able to get your postage back, possibly in credit if you talk to the carrier and prove you didn’t & won’t ship it.
You should never sell anything expensive on Ebay until you have a decent amount of feedback (built up by buying & selling inexpensive items). That is because not only are scammers out to get you, the seller, but there are sellers that are scammers out to get buyers - so most legit buyers won’t look at a seller with few feedback or will only buy if the price is extremely cheap.
Things like Laptops, TVs, and other expensive electronics etc belong on something like Craigslist where the transaction is in cash and the merchandise is exchanged in person, unless you are a very experienced Ebay seller.
Honestly, depending on how old the computer was and how much you spent, you might have doubled the value of the system. In other words, it’s not worth it to put too much money into an older computer.
It’s a 1 year old MacBook Pro and I spent $140 to replace the battery. It’s still a pretty sweet laptop, and I figured if I would replace the battery as an owner I should replace it as a seller.
In your case, I’d list the laptop on your city’s local CraigsList, cash only, pick-up in person only.
If it’s a good laptop and you’ve set a decent price, then you should get some interest. And there’s no stress involved with shipping or hoping that the funds aren’t backed out later due to fraud.
I didn’t mean to make it sound that dire, and good sellers like you are out there, as are honest buyers. It’s just very important to carefully screen buyers by looking at feedback, etc. Thing with eBay is that sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers, so you have to go with your gut instinct and look at the number of transactions a person has conducted.
There is also a website called Toolhaus that allows you to see feedback that ebay has removed or hidden for whatever reason. It’s a great way to see the more complete picture. Every once in a while, they get shut down by ebay, but I’ve gotten a lot of good research done there. The url is www.toolhaus.org.
Ebay and PayPal have strict rules and if you follow them exactly, your chances of getting screwed are close to zero. 99.9 of the Ebay/PayPal screwed me and I’m a seller! stories are from people who didn’t follow the rules. They tell you not to ship to an unconfirmed address for a reason.
I only accept the risk of shipping to an unconfirmed address under certain circumstances. Like when someone is an obvious collector of a certain item and asks me to to send the item to their office and they have a couple hundred feedback spread out over a few years. Them I’ll take the risk … but I accept the fact that I am taking a risk and would be on the losing end in a dispute.
I don’t see why the post office won’t refund shipping. You may have to fill out a form or two, but you should get your money back. And Ebay and PayPal will refund your fees for a fraudulent transaction that you had no part in.
I got a fake PayPal e-mail this morning asking me to fill out a survey. I changed my PayPal password this morning just to be on the safe side. I got a notification that the buyer (the real account holder) filed an unauthorized transaction claim, so I refunded her money. Now I have the option to relist the product if I want to.
I might try Craigslist. But I’m not rushing into anything anytime soon.
You need to get moving if you want to get your shipping refunded. IIRC the PO has fairly short time limits for how long after the fact you can wait to do this.