I’ve been selling on E-Bay lately, and just received this e-mail from a buyer;
Hello I’m sending you this email to let you know that I did receive my package today, to my surprise of opening the box I see shoe trees in there instead of a figure. I noticed you didn’t put a return address on the box so I did some investigating to find out where it was from and guess what it was from Michigan. Let me say this and this is my final warning I want my money returned back into my account, if that doesn’t happen you know the rest, you must really think that you are funny but you fucked yourself over $28.00. What you did my friend is fraud so do yourself a favor if this is really your email address give me my money back!!! This is my last and final warning. Thank You!
What the hell is that? I’ve never had this experience before. I’ve forwarded the e-mail to E-Bay, but now what? I got delivery confirmation, but have never had such a nut-case before. Anyone have experience with this?
Okay, let’s get the big question out of the way. What were you selling and what did the person receive? Or stated another way, are the facts in the email true?
If they are, simply aplogize, refund the money and send them a return sticker for UPS so you can get your shoe trees back.
I sold a hockey figure, and sent a hockey figure. I haven’t even seen a shoe tree since I was a kid. Not sure what’s up, but this is the first e-mail they sent me. What a psycho.
This is why after over 1300 transactions I ALWAYS buy USPS delivery confirmation for .65 cents a box. I used to have people claim they never got the merch etc and I refunded the purchase. These claims have dropped to zero with delivery confirmation. I had claims but after I let them know I have a confirmation # the “I never got it” claim mysterious evaporates after I provide documentation of the delivery.
The problem with that is that the person isn’t claiming they never recieved it, but rather that the wrong item was in the box. This makes for a touchy situation. Have you checked the buyers feedback. See if maybe they’ve pulled this on other people.
Delivery conformation will not stop people from shipping shoe trees out instead of hockey figures. Give the guy his money back or else you know what happens!!! This is you second and final warning!!!
Is there any possible way the guy just partially unpacked the package, and so mistook the hockey figure for a shoe tree? Could it possibly look like a shoe tree from any angle? Or, is that what you are figuring happened? I hope it isn’t that the fellow is fully hallucinating!
Don’t respond to the message until you have read this:
-The message of complaint you received may not even be from your buyer - there’s a phishing scam where scammers - not your buyer - send you an email that looks like a strongly-worded complaint about an item you sold, and it has what appears to be an eBay ‘respond’ button in it, which takes you to what appears to be an eBay login page, but is actually a site that will steal your login details.
If you’ve responded to the email by replying from your client, don’t worry
If the message you’ve received by email also exists in your eBay messages inbox (on the site), don’t worry.
If the message came direct as an email, isn’t duplicated in your eBay messages inbox, contained a ‘respond’ button and you used it, CHANGE YOUR EBAY PASSWORD NOW - and your PayPal one, if it happens to be the same.
Hmm… I suppose the hockey figure could be used as a shoe tree in a pinch - never thought of it that way. I did purchase delivery confimation. I also got another e-mail, and from what I can tell, it is personal;
Hello I’m sending you this email to let you know that I did receive my package
today, to my surprise of opening the box I see shoe trees in there instead of a figure. I noticed you didn’t put a return address on
the box so I did some investigating to find out where it was from and guess what
it was from Michigan. Let me say this and this is my final warning I want my
money returned back into my account, if that doesn’t happen you know the rest,
you must really think that you are funny but you fucked yourself over $28.00.
What you did my friend is fraud so do yourself a favor if this is really your
email address give me my money back!!! This is my last and final warning.
Thank You!
My reply:
I’ve just forwarded this to E-Bay so they can investigate you. I didn’t send you
a shoe tree, have never had one in my possession, and don’t appreciate your
threats. We wrote our return address on the package and got delivery
confirmation. You are assuming something that never happened.
Second e-mail received:
Now you are calling me a liar, I received shoe trees instead of a figure. Either you are lying or someone switched the items in the box which I doubt, I was warned about you by someone who dealt with you before and they stated that you take other peoples photo s and claim them as yours and that you don’t send the item that is auctioned, I know one way or another I will get my money back I think you are a fraud and con artist. I wouldn’t be going through all of this trouble for $28.00 I think you got upset about not getting more for this figure and you put shoe trees in a large box with no return address on it hell I’ll take photos of everything I received. Like I said again $28.00 is nothing it’s the principle if you prove you put that figure in the box and someone switched boxes.
All righty, then. This is definitely a grudge. By the way, what the heck does a shoe tree look like? It sounds bigger than a hockey figure. How would I fit that into a medium sized box? Those should be interesting photos.
Shoe trees are those wooden things you put inside a shoe to stretch it - they’re about the same size as a shoe.
Are these messages coming through the eBay system or by direct email? Are you responding by direct email or by clicking a ‘respond’ button?
However, it does sound like the buyer - if this is the buyer - is working towards scamming you with a Significantly Not As Described dispute.
I suppose it’s possible that your package simply hasn’t got there yet and some other random package has been delivered.
Did you use any kind of consignment tracking when you sent your parcel?
Huh. Well in that case, this is a really strange one. If I had another auction for shoe trees, I could see how there could be a mix-up, but that’s not the case here. My shoes are either on my feet, or tossed in a closet. No trees here… except for the ones in the back yard.
I did use tracking, and asked them for the number. They gave it to me, and it is correct. They are definitely the buyer, and I’m responding to them through e-mail, as well as the E-Bay system. I agree with you that they are going to try and scam me with the SNAD dispute. From what I can understand, they have to mail me what they ‘said’ they got. These e-mails are pretty obviously after a refund or else.
Reading it all over again, the fact that your buyer jumped in with all guns blazing, and especially “I was warned about you by someone who dealt with you before…” makes me think that the buyer is probably trying to scam you (rather than it being some sort of weird theft or mixup in transit).
How did the buyer pay?
Have they rolled out the change where sellers can only leave positive fb yet in your version of eBay?