“So you have to be careful only to ask for general information not exact addresses or package information.”
As I said in my initial post, I did precisely that, and they verbally confirmed that the package was not mine, twice. When I asked the service reps to put this in writing, they balked, and the second one directed me to the fraud webform.
“eBay will not accept emails forwarded to them, not addressed directly to them from a shipper, because emails can be faked or altered.”
In the case I mentioned, presumably an Ftrack document is not a mere email.
“If you check a seller's feedback profile page before buying from them and see a comment(s) saying a package was delivered to a different address or zip code. It was allowed to remain, because that person never filed a dispute through ebay.”
Yes, the person in question filed their dispute through PayPal, and made no mention of doing so through eBay. To reiterate, this feedback only showed up yesterday. It is still up as of now. Prior to buying, the guy had some feedback as a seller including one positive feedback on the very listing I was scammed from—I suppose from another compromised or straw account.
The only bits of new-ish information in your link is to go to an actual UPS or FedEx location, to try to get an email statement from a rep prior to showing up—not being able to get this out of them was part of my question; they are largely uncooperative—and to make sure to request a statement on corporate letterhead that is signed and dated (I figured it would come to this, but appreciate the clarification).
Unfortunately the vast majority of UPS Stores are clueless franchisees that have no authority or familiarity with issues like this; I found this out by showing up at one before even trying to contact UPS by phone. A guy on the line heard my situation, and that’s how I managed to get the number of a local dispatch person to begin with. Which UPS Stores are not franchisees is not, to my knowledge, publicly listed anywhere.
There are sometimes Customer Service Centers at their actual hubs, so if nobody had any idea how to get phone reps to cooperate—and it doesn’t seem like anybody does—my plan was to try to get to one, though this is not trivial for me. I am not sure it’s worth trying to coax an email out of the UPS reps before showing up, especially with no strategy to do so (I have to emphasize, again, that I did not ask for anybody’s personal information, only for confirmation that the package was not sent to my address, and twice they refused to do this in writing, even in an email). The only reason I could see to do this is to speed up the process a little—unless such clerks don’t have access to the same, more complete information that the reps do.
One more thing—the package weight of the scam package is within the ballpark of what my item should be. The dimensions of packages aren’t publicly listed, as far as I know, so I can try to get them to check that as well, though once they find it was addressed to somebody else at a different address, if they still raise objections on this score…well, I’d be livid. (Well, more than I already am.)
