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Ebay story (every seller's nightmare)


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Hi guys! Just wanted to share with you my story with an ebay sale. 

Few weeks ago, I sold a 500g Silver bar. After 1 week, I get the message from the buyer that the bar was fake and he wants to return it for a refund. He also asks me to pay for return postage, although the item as advertised as no returns accepted. The buyer had around 13 feedback (out of which  4 negative as a seller mainly-only checked when he requested refund). Moving on, he could not provide any evidence of the bar being fake and I asked ebay to intervene. Called them few times and they mentioned I will get the money back as the buyer is not eligible for returns. When he saw that there was no success with ebay, the scammer went through paypal and opened a claim there. 

Although ebay was supporting me, they could not do anything since the new claim was with paypal. After explaining everything again (and warning paypal that this guy is a scammer and will return an empty package or something else inside the package), paypal decides to have the buyer return the bar, with the funds on hold. After 1 week, I finally receive the famous package: with 0.019kg weight!! When I saw this on the RM label, I immediately decided to record opening the package to have it as evidence. Now, the tracking number was matching with the one the guy filled on paypal so he could not imply that I exchanged the package with another one. 

When I was trying to add evidence on the claim on paypal, they automatically just refunded the money to the scammer as the parcel was received (that made go nuts). Anyway, I filed a police fraud report straight away and contacted paypal on different platforms (twitter, their messaging centre and by phone-no staff available on the phone) and the guys on twitter were really helpful and appealed the decision for me. Then, I was able to provide full evidence on the messaging centre and finally, today, I found out that the case was closed in my favour. 

Now, I was lucky because the scammer did not fill the parcel with something more heavy (but even if he did, recording should be enough and I recommend you do that if you get in my position). 

How could someone avoid this in the future? What I do now, I ask any buyers with less than 40 feedback or any negative feedback in the last 12 months to pay with bank transfer (If someone is a genuine buyer and you, as a seller, have plenty of positive feedback, should not be turned down-otherwise, better no sale than losing out money or products!) 

I hope someone finds this helpful and make sure you take precautions, not just when buying but even when selling! 

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10 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

The buyer had around 13 feedback (out of which  4 negative as a seller mainly-only checked when he requested refund).

Big mistake :(

11 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

What I do now, I ask any buyers with less than 40 feedback or any negative feedback in the last 12 months to pay with bank transfer (If someone is a genuine buyer and you, as a seller, have plenty of positive feedback, should not be turned down-otherwise, better no sale than losing out money or products!)

Without going into details, I'd be very careful about giving anyone unknown your bank details. Much trouble (fraud) can ensue.

Anyway, thanks for sharing :)

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Feel your pain mate. I wouldnt use ebay full stop and I find thier selling fees a bit cheeky also There are plenty of scammers who just know the system so well - that they hope that people wont raise case against them. 

Well done for your persistence. i know your a geniune guy as Ive bought from you, alike other members on TSF.

Glad you got sorted.

Best HB

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1 minute ago, kimchi said:

Without going into details, I'd be very careful about giving anyone unknown your bank details. Much trouble (fraud) can ensue.

Anyway, thanks for sharing

I guess that can happen anywhere (even here) but it's not as risky as going through paypal. Normally, you are protected by your bank unless you share like sensible info (card number, security codes etc)

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1 minute ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Feel your pain mate. I wouldnt use ebay full stop and I find thier selling fees a bit cheeky also There are plenty of scammers who just know the system so well - that they hope that people wont raise case against them. 

Well done for your persistence. i know your a geniune guy as Ive bought from you, alike other members on TSF.

Glad you got sorted.

Best mark

If he was a genuine buyer with evidence of being fake, I would definitely offer refund and take the loss :) 

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Thanks for sharing.

I wouldn't sell any of my precious metals on eBay....

I purchased one 2016 10 oz kookaburra.

Described as mint

When I got it I could see the fingerprints all over the coin before I even opened the capsule.

It had also been wiped.

The seller had excellent feedback.

I contacted him he got quite angry and try to deny it.

We agreed on a refund of shipping costs.

€15.

I just treated it as bullion silver and it was the first coin I could physically handle.

I'll never buy any precious metals off eBay ever again.

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when i first started stacking i only bought from ebay because the range of products on there they had everything i was after.

in only about 40oz purchased i received 4 fakes from 3 sellers, 1 seemed genuine as she hadn't heard of the neodymium magnet test so i sent her 1, 1 worded every response like it was scripted for everyone and was clearly up to no good, and the last guy i am on the fence about he seemed sympathetic (selling his friends silver....to be fair he didn't sell silver primarily) but he had sold a couple of others to other people at the same time, and he was not willing to contact them with a warning that they could be fake.

although they all refunded without a fight its enough to put me off of ebay for silver at least

glad i found silver trader and the the forum shortly after

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Sorry to hear of your experience - not good at all, and I bet stressful and time consuming. 
 

Sadly, high value items on eBay are a particular “honeypot” for fraudsters and scammers, and chancers.   
 

People also seem to be downright rude at times - see the recent thread from @Abyss on his ebay experiences  

I still occasionally buy from eBay but there are two sellers who I buy from now.  The final straw for me was a Morgan dollar that I purchased.   I received a totally different coin from the one advertised - even the date was different, and the seller was rude when confronted with the evidence. 
 

Having said that, I bought a Mercedes (not too expensive) on eBay from a private seller a few years ago, and I arrived with cash and the gent tried to give me 500 quid back because there was a couple of dents he had not mentioned.  Was a cracking car and naturally I refused - for me a deal is a deal, so he gave me a bottle of very nice scotch instead.  Not all of humanity on eBay is bad  

Take care

Dicker


 

 

 

 

Not my circus, not my monkeys

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21 minutes ago, dicker said:

Sadly, high value items on eBay are a particular “honeypot” for fraudsters and scammers, and chancers.

I am very grateful to the community on The Silver Forum last year I had a spare 1 oz Gold QB Lion put on sale in the forum and eBay during £1 selling fee promotion and I had a scammer buy the item and then request I send it to a different address because they had moved and "forgot" to change their address on eBay and PayPal. Number of people on the Forum advised this was a scam and soon sent the item and they have received it they would put in a claim for item not sent through PayPal. Also advised how to cancel the transaction without the scammer having the ability to leave negative feedback.

In the end I did successfully sell it on eBay after exchanging numerous messages with a genuine buyer on eBay. Thanks @Emanuel for sharing lots of different scams happening on eBay and video recording the boxing/unboxing process of high value items is always a prudent way to protect yourself.

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1 hour ago, Abyss said:

I am very grateful to the community on The Silver Forum last year I had a spare 1 oz Gold QB Lion put on sale in the forum and eBay during £1 selling fee promotion and I had a scammer buy the item and then request I send it to a different address because they had moved and "forgot" to change their address on eBay and PayPal. Number of people on the Forum advised this was a scam and soon sent the item and they have received it they would put in a claim for item not sent through PayPal. Also advised how to cancel the transaction without the scammer having the ability to leave negative feedback.

In the end I did successfully sell it on eBay after exchanging numerous messages with a genuine buyer on eBay. Thanks @Emanuel for sharing lots of different scams happening on eBay and video recording the boxing/unboxing process of high value items is always a prudent way to protect yourself.

Do you remember how to cancel a transaction without negative feedback being left? 

I just recently had a run in with my first scammer on there, not much fun. 

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3 hours ago, Abyss said:

I am very grateful to the community on The Silver Forum last year I had a spare 1 oz Gold QB Lion put on sale in the forum and eBay during £1 selling fee promotion and I had a scammer buy the item and then request I send it to a different address because they had moved and "forgot" to change their address on eBay and PayPal. Number of people on the Forum advised this was a scam and soon sent the item and they have received it they would put in a claim for item not sent through PayPal. Also advised how to cancel the transaction without the scammer having the ability to leave negative feedback.

In the end I did successfully sell it on eBay after exchanging numerous messages with a genuine buyer on eBay. Thanks @Emanuel for sharing lots of different scams happening on eBay and video recording the boxing/unboxing process of high value items is always a prudent way to protect yourself.

a friend of a friend made the mistake of sending a Rolex on the address asked by the buyer whilst his paypal address was different...



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2 hours ago, Milkyo said:

Do you remember how to cancel a transaction without negative feedback being left? 

I just recently had a run in with my first scammer on there, not much fun. 

talk to the buyer and if anything, ask ebay and they will remove from you if you have good reasons :)

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7 hours ago, Milkyo said:

Do you remember how to cancel a transaction without negative feedback being left? 

I just recently had a run in with my first scammer on there, not much fun. 

If you have already been left with negative feedback have a look at this thread I had someone try use negative feedback on eBay to reduce prices and Bay removed the feedback after I offered full refund (refused). I know bad press about eBay but last 10 weeks Sold 116 items only had an issue with a single buyer. I do like eBay but need to be aware of the pitfalls and take extra precautions.

 

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8 hours ago, Abyss said:

If you have already been left with negative feedback have a look at this thread I had someone try use negative feedback on eBay to reduce prices and Bay removed the feedback after I offered full refund (refused). I know bad press about eBay but last 10 weeks Sold 116 items only had an issue with a single buyer. I do like eBay but need to be aware of the pitfalls and take extra precautions.

 

Yeah that's a good read.   You really are selling a lot, it's good that scammers are rare. Problem I had posting from Ireland is that I was finding it hard to sell much with registered post adding so much to the cost. So I took a chance with standard post and  who would believe it a Romanian living in Dublin buys one of the first coins.  A week later I get a message saying item not received, refund me.  A bit of research later on the guy and it shows he has 30 item not received cases against sellers in the last 6 months alone.  He then leaves the most terrible feedback against sellers as a way of extortion basically. I contact eBay. Yadayadayada.    I message some others who were scammed by him. They are furious and say they also reported him. Nothing done.  So I informed the guy I was a serving member of the police force and sent him some links from the police website regarding fraud and what a terribly serious offence it is  and that ebay are investigating him also 👮‍♂️Amazingly I got a message a week later saying the item had arrived 🤔 Still waiting for him to leave me dirty feedback though cos he is that kinda guy. 

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3 hours ago, sstrrs said:

I usually have positive experiences with anyone from Germany. Not sure if its just coincidence or if scammers are less common there.

Germany had a big problem with negative feedback in the 40s, but it's been uphill from there. 

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