eBay

emlayy2013 · ‎03-04-2019

So I recently made a large purchase that my grandmother put on her credit card and even though my shipping address in Arkansas and everything was right, the tracking number said the package was unable to be delivered in Delaware! Asked the seller what address he shipped it to, and he informed me that he shipped it to the Delaware address he was provided in a message after the purchase! The message said there needed to be a change in address because the buyer was moving to be close to their dad in the hospital. Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address, but I never got a notification that the address changed and it still shows my address on my purchase. Has this happen to anyone else?? I know this Delaware address has been identified as a sketchy buyer, but I haven't seen anything about them STEALING peoples purchases!

pburn · ‎03-04-2019

File an "Item Not Received" case in eBay's Resolution Center within 30 days of the estimated delivery date for your item. eBay should see that yours is an Arkansas ZIP code but the package was delivered to a Delaware ZIP code.

There's a link to the Resolution Center at the bottom of virtually every eBay page.

P.S. Your seller fell for a very old scam. S/he should have known better.

pburn · ‎03-04-2019

I hate to post twice in a row, but I just reread your post and noticed it said "the package was unable to be delivered in Delaware."

Do you know where the package is now? Is it going back to the seller? If it does end up back with the seller, s/he should be willing to send it to you again--with new tracking and without any additional shipping charge. Or you could file the "Item Not Received" case, if you prefer to just get a refund.

juststuffisell · ‎03-04-2019

As noted above, the seller fell for a well known scam. Your protected, unfortunately for the seller, they are not.

As noted, the seller messed up. Fortunately for them, the item was not delivered which means they should get the item back. Could of been a very expensive loss for them. The return time on the package can take a week to 30 days depending on how it was shipped and the reason for the return.

As noted, you can work with the seller for them to send it to the original address in the transaction - naturally, without additional cost to you - or you can file a item not received with ebay and simply get a full refund and buy from another seller.

This particular transaction - imho - has some bad karma associated with it now....

Those choices are yours.

Cheers

disneyshopper · ‎03-04-2019

This is exactly one of the reasons a seller should never ship to any address that is NOT attached to the Paypal payment.

Should the seller ever receive a legitimate request to switch addresses, the seller needs to refund the payment, and the buyer repays and uses the CHANGE option during Checkout to change the SHIP TO address.

disneyshopper
Volunteer Community Member

castlemagicmemories · ‎03-04-2019

Sorry, your seller fell for a scam.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎03-05-2019

@emlayy2013 wrote:
... (the seller) informed me that he shipped it to the Delaware address he was provided in a message after the purchase! The message said there needed to be a change in address because the buyer was moving to be close to their dad in the hospital. Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address...

How did the scammer know about the purchase? Or do they just send a random personal message after they note an item was sold? "I purchased your recent item blah-blah-blah and I need you to change the shipping address..." without actually providing any real identification?

monster-deals · ‎03-05-2019

@little.font.lord.leroy wrote:
@emlayy2013 wrote:
... (the seller) informed me that he shipped it to the Delaware address he was provided in a message after the purchase! The message said there needed to be a change in address because the buyer was moving to be close to their dad in the hospital. Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address...
How did the scammer know about the purchase? Or do they just send a random personal message after they note an item was sold? "I purchased your recent item blah-blah-blah and I need you to change the shipping address..." without actually providing any real identification?

More than likely because they were following the item.

7606dennis · ‎03-06-2019

The whole thing seems odd to me. I would probably advise the cardholder to advise the credit card company of the incident.

"It is an intelligent man that is aware of his own ignorance."

lacemaker3 · ‎03-06-2019

@little.font.lord.leroy wrote:
@emlayy2013 wrote:
... (the seller) informed me that he shipped it to the Delaware address he was provided in a message after the purchase! The message said there needed to be a change in address because the buyer was moving to be close to their dad in the hospital. Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address...
How did the scammer know about the purchase? Or do they just send a random personal message after they note an item was sold? "I purchased your recent item blah-blah-blah and I need you to change the shipping address..." without actually providing any real identification?

I'm sure the scammers just choose recently closed listings at random. Maybe they are targeting particular items, or a particular category, since they are basically trying to steal the items that were just sold. Obviously, they intend to resell the stolen items for a profit.

This scam has been reported frequently in recent months. It is definitely not new, or unusual.

A random family member in the hospital out of town is a common thread with this scam.

----------------------------------------------

"...Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address..."

FYI, when a purchase is paid for with PayPal, the seller doesn't get any information at all about what card (if any) was used to pay for the purchase. They have no way to know if a credit card was even used to pay. They definitely don't get any information whatsoever about the card itself. Not the name, the number, or even what kind of card it was.

The seller should have noticed that the scammer contacted him from a different user ID. That's the key mistake on the seller's part. I would guess that most of these scam attempts fail, and are never reported on this forum. The scammers only have to succeed in stealing a few items to make it worth their while.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎03-06-2019

@lacemaker3 wrote:
@little.font.lord.leroy wrote:
@emlayy2013 wrote:
... (the seller) informed me that he shipped it to the Delaware address he was provided in a message after the purchase! The message said there needed to be a change in address because the buyer was moving to be close to their dad in the hospital. Since my name was not on the card that was used to make the purchase, the seller didn't find it odd that a different person was messaging him to change the shipping address...
How did the scammer know about the purchase? Or do they just send a random personal message after they note an item was sold? "I purchased your recent item blah-blah-blah and I need you to change the shipping address..." without actually providing any real identification?

I'm sure the scammers just choose recently closed listings at random. Maybe they are targeting particular items, or a particular category, since they are basically trying to steal the items that were just sold. Obviously, they intend to resell the stolen items for a profit.

Thanks for the answer, that was basically what I meant to say (after they note(ice) the item was sold.) They are either tracking items that they want (to resell or what ever) and then once it is sold send a PM through eBay messages claiming to be the buyer.

If eBay can troll PMs to see if a seller is making a deal offline, you would think that it would be easy enough to protect unaware sellers with this scam. "(mother, father, son, etc.) in the hospital out of town" would be easy enough to robot troll, and either alert trust and safety or send a warning eMail to the seller. "It seems that a buyer is asking you to ship a purchase to a different address other than the one provided by eBay or Paypal. ..."

fossil_diver · ‎03-07-2019

@emlayy2013 if the item has not been delivered contact the seller and tell them to call the post office and recall the package. It costs a couple $$ but not too much. I wouldn't rely on the return to sender message.