Archive Buying & Selling Basics

[#1]

i heard of scam where buyer "claims" received shipping box was  "empty" (or weighted) , seller gets their money clawed back by paypal. anyone know how to protect against this? am thinking about having a notary witness contents and shipment (which we might be able to get done) am about to list some high (over $1k) items. any other ideas or how prevelant is this scam? thanks in advance. mike

thankyou lace for earlier comment-couldnt see way to thank you on page-lace felt notary no help with ebay/pypl-still wondering if another way to protect myself, as im afraid the powers that be do not perhaps-thanks in advance anyone

[#2]

I was a victim of the empty box scam earlier and won the case against the seller.

From my experience, Ebay does not side either the buyer or seller. I have to report the case to the police and have to submit pictures of the box. The box was made to look like it has been opened and re-taped. Seller was trying to claim someone has taken the contents during the delivery. However, his plot was foiled as the tracking sticker was quite big and has sticked over the re-taped area which proved that the box was opened before posting.

Lesson learnt here is never to accept an item that is not properly packed and sealed.

[#3]

I have also been scammed this way twice this year 2012. I am ready to get the national media involved. Maybe when Fox news pulls the scam, enough sellers will pull away from eBay. There is NO protection from this scam. The seller will lose every time! Get ready eBay, this will be exposed!

[#4]

There is no way to protect against this scam.

Ebay will never side with the buyer in such a dispute.

[#5]

If a buyer claims that he got an empty package, you would be well within your rights to request a closeup photo of the package. It would have some form of notice on it by the P.O. that the package was damaged.  If it is not so marked, I would not refund.

[#6]

>>>"The rep suggested i film the packaging and physical delivery of the item to the usps."<<<<

This would be a total waste of time.

There is no way to present such 'evidence' if a buyer files a SNAD case.

However,  the postage you pay  can be  evidence that the package was not empty when sent.

And  if you insure the item,  that will protect you against loss or damage to the parcel.

[#7]

One more thing - documentation such as photographs, statements of a notary, etc are of no help. In any dispute Ebay/PayPal sides with the buyer with considering any of these (admittedly easily falsified) "evidence" items.

[#8]

to the one guy that said about documents i had the post office contact all the post offices where item  went thru and signed that if package was tampered with.or opened they would of returned it  ..also they have sent four complaints to the USPS recovery center with list of missing items ..nothing  has made to them i doubt they ever will either..some people don't have an sense of right or wrong i do agree paypal and ebay need to protect its sellers if it wasn't for seller they wouldn't have a business  they need to think about that

[#9]

This has actually happened to me. I sold a Hermes bag for $800, the buyer paid with Paypal. When the buyer received it, she said it was damaged and wanted either a $200 discount or return the item for a refund. I told her to return the item for a refund. Paypal refunded the $800, but I did not get my package. After we tracked it down for six weeks, it turns out she put the wrong address intentionally so we wont get the package and there was a magazine instead of the bag. I contacted Paypal immediately and they opened a case and told me they needed a police report. I did the police report the next day or so and uploaded the report to Paypal and they refunded me the money $800 within 24hrs.

[#10]

 Hi,

   This is not always a SCAM! I just payed for a wedding set on ebay from seller PERIWINKLES11 the set cost me $940 and this morning when I received the package in the mail, the box conatined nothing more than two plastic bags, an envelope, an empty ring box! Now I am left trying to sort this whole mess and figure out how to get my hard earned money back. There is not much protection we are given either in these kinds of situations! I can't believe that someone would do such a horrible thing to someone else, but there are so many scams out here nowadays, you really can't trust anyone. I think the best thing to do is just buy direct from the retailer or go to a store, where you can pay and get exactly what you are paying for right away without any discrepancies. In my case it is also easy for the seller to say now that he in fact actually did send the ring I ordered and that I must be the one trying to pull a scam, either way it is a lose lose situation! I now that people should be extra cautiousl when buying such extravagant items online, thats why I figured I would ask the seller to mail the ring with insurance protection thinking that would cover me in case anything happened! Immediately as soon as I opened the empty package I rushed straight down to the post office to report it, but was told that insurance only covers the package if it is lost or damaged by USPS! Now what? This will be the last time I make this kind of mistake, and I hope that other people pay closer attention when dealing with these kind of people. EBAY is a really unsafe place to buy and sell things! There just simply isn't enough protection offered. I already filed a claim with EBAY and Paypal but have to wait a week before anything else can be done....

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[#11]

I just got scammed by a buyer with an empty box.  I sold the item, she wanted to return it and before I confirmed the return of the item, ebay refunded the buyer leaving me with an empty box.  The way I see it is ebay is always screwing the sellers over the buyers.  Will never sell on ebay again.  Ebay itself has no system of protecting the seller.  The rep on the phone was no help at all he told me to press charges in Puerto Rico. I am in US. They are a joke...

[#12]

As a seller since 1998 I've run into this problem several times. Luckily no one has ever said I sent them an empty box. But I've gotten a few back on returns. The worst one was when I bought something from China with a very large seller on EBay. The box came China Post full of cut up pieces of paper, and a note saying, "HA HA STUPID AMERICAN". The feeling I got from that was the customs people in China were most likely to have stolen the contents as the seller has a great feedback record. I shared pictures of the box, the cut up paper and the note with Ebay and I won the case.

But on my returns, so far I've won all those cases, too. I just explain to the Ebay rep that I've been doing this a long time. And honestly I make sure to get an American agent, that seems to help a great deal. Several times I've had people in the Philippines tell me "there is nothing we can do", or "you don't have a case" or "we can't remove that feedback" where when I called back and got an American the answers were the opposite. Not sure why that is, level of training I would suspect.  All I have done is send in pictures of the empty box and I've won, that was all I had to do. No one ever suggested I file a police report which the next time it happens, I'm going to try that.

[#13]

Yeah I just had that.  Buyer first opened a case saying the item was not shipped/received at all, and having been proven a liar about that, opened a second case saying the item he received was an empty box.  Ebay said they were going to ask for evidence, then decided not to, and just refunded the money to the buyer.  I am appealing the case.  I am asking in the appeal:  How can honest people sell when ebay helps proven liars steal from them?

Here is my suggestion to all: Let's list for each other the ebay agents who are finding in the buyers' favor when they are clearly scamming us.   Since many of  their findings amount clearly to stealing from buyers, they may need to do it by only using a handful of employees to do it - to be the agents finding in favor of buyers who are clearly dishonest or at fault.  I suspect there are a large number of decent people, and just a few dirty ones working for Ebay.  I am asking in my appeal for the name of the ebay agent who gave my money back to the buyer without him even sending the empty box back. (though their settlement claims he sent the 'counterfeit' item back to me, whatever that means.)  

We need to start getting documentation within ebay of info we have the right to know.  Agents approving ripoffs, and history of buyers who scam us.

[#14]

oh yeah  i even had my post officer see me pack it and what i was packing  she gave me the empty box excuse then did a claim against me i won the first one then she did a different one .. whammo she won and i have looked into others that she has bought from some excuse of the same .. one was told it was lef outside and when  she got it it was opened have a link the ones that didn't insure got the empty box ..i called ebay and payal  telling them that the same things are being sold by her that she bought by me..  but they tell me that oh she may of gotten them somewhere else..  Right

[#15]

thanks all- and as far as i know and from what i have read  you all are correct-ebay automatically sides with buyer. However, i did speak wuth a ebay rep on this, she admitted this is a problem, and the implication i got was that ebay/paypal was concerned about their reputation and business loss from people such as me who are now afraid to list expensive tiems and she said that paypal was trying to work on a solution. In fairness to ebay/paypal, really  a very good conversation. The rep suggested i film the packaging and physical delivery of the item to the usps. I have done that so far, no problems anyway, ill probably ask ebay again before listing really expensive( to me) anyway items

[#16]

I would not sell items worth that much on eBay personally.

While it is rare, scams do occur.

Look into escrow.com, they are the only escrow service advised by eBay, check the insurance and escrow board to make sure I got the name right.

[#17]

I have been getting a few of these lately. Due to ebays buyer protection they are making it easy for this to happen. buyers are buying items, opening cases for stupid reasons for description. i would have 1000 of the items sell and 1 say description is wrong, ebay does no investigations i have talked to many reps. even pictures of the empty boxes sent back do nothing, they say how can we prove you didnt take contents out yourself!. pictures do nothing. buyers always win because ebay needs its buyers to be happy. giving buyers money back gaurantee insures that. there are no rights for sellers. it is the small percentage of losses you must deal with in ebay as a seller. No matter how rediculous the situation is ebay sides with the buyer. That is the rule of ebay. Yes they side with the criminals and scammers as well obviously and are helping commit theft no matter the evidence that is brought to their attension. all you need is a tracking number to show package was delivered and they win period. Yes you may be of the 2% who actually sell and win but is very very unlikely. Its all numbers with profits. As a seller i can either take my losses as the scam percentage and eat my hard earned money or shut down my store. this is how ebay feels about their sellers. do you see a seller gaurantee? correct feedback system for the buyers? how bout a scammer, someone who just sent you an empty box? can you leave him negative feedback? NO YOU CANNOT, because that nice scammer is an ebay buyer and buyers cannot recieve negative feedback. These are the messed up laws of doing business on ebay. Depends if its worth it. PROFITS TO LOSSES?