Was scammed for $960.30 as a BUYER on ebay. ebay officially wont help buyers now, not just sellers! HOW TO AVOID...

[Cobra Strike Down]

Long story short, I bought a laptop. Bunch of red flags from shipping being late, shipping coming from a different corner of the nation than user's profile, and 1 feedback.

The scam: you get nothing, and they win the claim against them.

eBay, unbeknownst to me, can't see tracking past it being delivered or not and what city it went to. So what they do is send an empty bubble mailer to some random person in your town, and shows complete. eBay doesn't see it's a different location and can't see the weight, so they are our a buck or two and win hundreds of dollars.

Ironically, post master wouldn't help till I had a pic of the signature confirmation seller claimed he had and sent to eBay. eBay CLEARED this 'signature' but only gave it to me (despite multiple requests) along with my rejection email of my claim. Oh and the signature? Wasn't a signature at all! It was a tracking slip/address label that literally said "to be filled out by mailer" and put on the box. Girl's print handwriting of my name and address with a photoshopped (poorly) stamp of "delivered Nov 6" (2 days after it was actually delivered btw lol).

So yeah, I'm fuckin done with eBay. I had to already stop being a seller because there was no protection, but at least with buyers you were protected. Nope, out the window. I've talked to five managers, nearly double the amount of normal tier 1 works, from several dept. Everyone said to relax, would clearly be over turned. Claims dept had other ideas though. Oh, and they're the only dept without a phone number, even management can't directly call them. It's a joke.

Now had to get Chase mixed into it, and got my money back as they fight them.

I now have proof of what the package looked like and where it went, btw. It's weight, everything. Which is great to proof my innocence to Chase, but since I couldnt get this till I showed them hard proof of mail fraud (signature slip that was forged) it came 1 day later than eBay's premature decision (told me it would be 24-72 hrs, took them 2 hours).

Anywho, hope this helps someone. Fuck eBay and if you use it, and you encounter the same scam, try with all your might to get an email from your post master with that proof before the claim goes through, it's your only chance for a reversal.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Cobra Strike Down

[Cobra Strike Down]

Sorry for the jacked up text, cant figure out how to fix it.

 

fake ‘signature’ slip and actual bubble mailer clearly not a laptop package found by post office that went to another address. 
 

 

 

Oh and seller wasn’t banned either. So he gets to strike again. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Cobra Strike Down

[taxman]

Damn that's messed up. Glad you got your money back and thank you for sharing with the rest of us so we know what to do. Did you consider filing a police report in their location as well or was that the next level of defense if needed?

[+bent_pin]

This is wire fraud. Use maps to find your nearest FBI office and report it. I had a seller ship an empty box once. I had to sign an affidavit for the FBI, thank goodness I didn't have to go to court. Don't bother with local police, this is out of their wheelhouse.

 

If you have the tracking number, you can obtain the delivery address as well as the shipping weight, you can contact USPS on the phone (800 ask usps) but it's better to go into a post office because they can print it out for you. With the printout, ebay will refund you, but do not bother to file a claim until you have it.

 

Always use a credit card and never use a debit card. The law allows for charge disputes on all credit cards, but with a debit card the money can be much harder to recover. Using paypal as an extra level of buyer protection is useful as well. 

[Cobra Strike Down]

1 hour ago, taxman said:

Damn that's messed up. Glad you got your money back and thank you for sharing with the rest of us so we know what to do. Did you consider filing a police report in their location as well or was that the next level of defense if needed?

I havent, no. I asked the Post Master about that, basically said look this is illegal this is mail fraud. She basically said it was, but good luck proving who this guy was. Based on other factors I didn't list here, it seems pretty obvious he's from China, so going after him would essentially not be something the cops would pursue. 

 

33 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

This is wire fraud. Use maps to find your nearest FBI office and report it. I had a seller ship an empty box once. I had to sign an affidavit for the FBI, thank goodness I didn't have to go to court. Don't bother with local police, this is out of their wheelhouse.

 

If you have the tracking number, you can obtain the delivery address as well as the shipping weight, you can contact USPS on the phone (800 ask usps) but it's better to go into a post office because they can print it out for you. With the printout, ebay will refund you, but do not bother to file a claim until you have it.

 

Always use a credit card and never use a debit card. The law allows for charge disputes on all credit cards, but with a debit card the money can be much harder to recover. Using paypal as an extra level of buyer protection is useful as well. 

Well, I used Paypal. And stupidly I had clicked on my debit by accident (it's on there for bill processing). If there's anything I can say without a doubt about Chase, is despite this, they have stuck up for me as if it was a chargeback. I had my money back within 2 hours and they basically told me it'll be solved completely in 7-10 days. I had an ebay rep tell me this when I inquired: "Look, I'm not supposed to tell people this but, when a bank comes to us and lays out a claim on something we went against, we fold immediately at that point. We can't afford to get in fights with large banks like your Chase bank for example as we have connections with them for our own company loans and financing options. If we started to get a bad rep with them we wouldn't be able to finance things as easily and we'd be in trouble, so we're just instructed to refund whatever it is once the complaint comes in"

 

She answered this because I told her I found the empty bubble mailer he sent (post office gave me that screen grab of the package so I was able to retrieve it from that neighbor). I was basically asking her should I start a refund and send this back? And if he bitches it's not a laptop then provide the proof he sent me that empty mailer at 8oz, or do I continue with the bank. She said that after saying stay with the bank as it's a sure bet while the return could go either way for you.

 

As far as involving the feds, honestly man, when I officially get my money back and it's all said and done, I'm not going back to ebay. They'll figure out the seller is shit the next buyer he effs over and I'll be long gone from the platform. I've literally had 5 nights from dinner to 10:30PM or later in a row completely stuck on phones, plus lunch breaks at work. And I'm just flat out exhausted.

 

PS: I tried offering the email and picture proof from the post master to ebay now 3 times, twice with managers. I was denied each time. I even told them it wasn't about the return and simply about warning them of the seller and taking in the proof so that he could be taken off the site. They didn't care, one even hung up on me. It's nuts.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Cobra Strike Down

[Tanooki]

That's fucking disgusting, not going to sugar coat that one.  Good on you for finding someone honest at ebay and ramrodding their complicit asses by using the bank.  I've had over the years Chase go to bat for me too ever since going with them I'm thinking 15 years ago now or so (as the previous bank decide to then steal money from my fiancee saying she didn't pay a charge, then tried to roll fees on fees to steal about what you just almost lost.)  I went in, calmly told them what they did was bullshit and hand my money over, they tried to buck it and I went to Chase.  Unlike that pigsty, any issue I've had with rando-charges (super rare), or some screwy net clown trying something with withholding I've had them handle it and fast.  And what ebay said is right, these super banks, the biggest of the bigs who have contracts and loans over entities like the arrogant ebay clown pit can hold that over their head when times come for more loans, re-negotiation, etc and they don't want to lose business as they'd lose their business if one big like Chase blackballed them as others would likely follow suit out of distrust.  Would be a fantastic way to see ebay fold if they just crumbled under debt and lack of a bailout.

[+GoldLeader]

Thanks for posting this!  It's not one I was previously aware of.  eBay Really needs to pull their head out! 

 

Side note:  I'd love to see a replacement for eBay;  Anybody know of one?  The problem is stuff like this.  Most smaller websites are not going to be able to employ staff to fight these kinds of things.

[+bent_pin]

2 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

Thanks for posting this!  It's not one I was previously aware of.  eBay Really needs to pull their head out! 

 

Side note:  I'd love to see a replacement for eBay;  Anybody know of one?  The problem is stuff like this.  Most smaller websites are not going to be able to employ staff to fight these kinds of things.

Any site could do it if they forced shipping compliance. With ebay, you are given the option of uploading a label. If instead, they forced you to buy the label directly through them, they could guarantee that it is shipped to the correct address. Setting up a contract with each shipping partner could force each to provide a weight and dimensions for each package. This would displease many who like package pickup options, but over a certain price I think these are a bad idea anyway.

 

Also, this company would do well to form a working relationship with the FBI and provide valid complaints to them for investigation regularly. 

 

There are a lot of other issues that could be fixed in an ebay competitor, such as sliding scale pricing, duplicate listings, a private shipping network within and between large cities, and more.

[holygrailvideogames.com]

File a complaint at the link below.  Provide as much detail as you can.  It has been years since I have filed a complaint but in the past they did investigate.

 

Internet Crime Complaint Center(IC3) | Home Page

[Jason Wilson]

File a claim with ebay. They will side with seller. File a police report with your local police department and then give them the report number etc to ebay. You will probably have to talk to an ebay rep about this but this is precisely what I had to do to get $1500 back on a sealed game 3 years ago.