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What to do? Scam or shame? Help Ebay or Paypal

Just found out I was scammed by a hacker on Ebay. I am livid but thankfully I followed the rules and regulations on Ebay and Paypal to the letter. Although it isn't clear that I am protected anyway because of the level of the scam.

 

I am curious if anyone has ever dealt with this kind of scam? Its almost feels to me like the Ebay buyer is the one pulling the scam on the credit card company however it could be that the Ebay member was hacked as they said they were. Only thing that causes me to believe the ebay member wasnt hacked is the following. So here goes... anyone can shed any light I would appreciate, all others be very careful because Paypal is still holding my money from me after a week of what seems to be overwhelmning evidence to support the at I have followed the rules and regulations.


Ok so here goes. I will give dates becuase they are important.

 

- August 3rd - 12:00PM

Sold a $500 graphics card for $350 to a buyer with a very good rating (2500 teal rating and almost 90% positive feedback over the course of 5 years and almost 100% positive feedback over last 6 months).

The item was purchased using the Buy it now option and the auction required immediate payment for Buy It Now.

 

- August 3rd 3:01PM

As soon as funds became available in Paypal I went to Paypal to complete the shipping informatoin and print the label (This ensures transparencey between Paypal, Ebay and the Buyer becuase it shows the date and time the postage was purchased, what kind of postage and you can see the entire tracking information from start to delivery). To me its the only way to go.

I purchased Priority 2 day shipping

 

** I  I double checked the shipping address inside of Paypal to ensure the ship to address was verified and indeed it was.

 

-August 3rd 3:47PM

Shipping package deliverd to post office officially out for delivery same day the item was purchased and paid for. Payment had posted I am thinking awesome I did my part and they did their part, everyones happy right?

 

Wrong.....

 

- August 4th 3:32PM

I receive a Notice message from Ebay telling me that they have canceled my auction but the item had already sold and I recieved payment the day before plus I had already shipped the item so I didn't know what I could really do about it at that point. Heres the message they sent me.

 

eBay listings removed - unauthorized user of buyer or bidder account
 


 Hello reneeg1002,

We had to cancel bids and purchases on the following item(s) for the buyer, agbrigg, because they were made without the account owner's permission:
131568687991 - ATI FirePro V7800 2GB GDDR5 PCIe x16 Professional Video Graphics Card Dell PC0T4


Please note that we're working with the account owner to prevent any additional unauthorized activity.

All associated fees have been credited to your account. In these situations, we'll credit the final value fee for removed listings won by this buyer, and also the insertion fee if it was a single-quantity listing.

- We have credited any associated fees to your account.



We’ve also made it easy to relist your item if it was removed. Although the item is no longer available in search listings, you will find it in the “Sold” section of My eBay. For more information, please visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/relist.html

--Selling tip--
To help you avoid this situation in the future, consider setting a Buy It Now price and requiring buyers to make an immediate payment. For more information on immediate payments, visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html

We also recommend you take the following actions if this buyer won the item:
- If you haven't received payment, don't complete the sale or send the item to the buyer.
- Don't communicate with the buyer directly.
- Verify any payments you've been notified of by logging in to your PayPal account (or other online payment service).
- If the buyer requests refunds or additional payments, don't send any money without contacting eBay first.
- If you've already sent the item, try contacting the shipping carrier to find out if you can stop shipment.

If you have any concerns or questions, click "Help & Contact" at the top of most eBay pages.

We're sorry for any inconvenience, and we thank you for your patience and cooperation.

 

Thanks,

eBay

Please don't reply to this message. It was sent from an address that doesn't accept

 

So I looked into this a little bit and googled it. What I found seemed to imply that someone like a child or spouse made a purchase using the ebay account and the ebay member wasn't happy with it so they put a formal complaint into ebay.

 

I tried to request more information from Ebay but ebay removes the product or item listing which means they no longer allow any activity relating to that item becuase its considered an invalid item number and auction. Even though in my case it was a perfectly valid auction up until this point at least.

 

August 5th 8AM

Item arrives at buyers house 2 days later. All good, I try to leave positive feedback for the member but cant because Ebay has completely prevented any use of that transaction or item number. A little strange but I still see my money in my paypal account with no hint of anything being wrong.

 

August 19th 4:45PM 

Paypal notifies me that a buyer has disputed a transaction with me. First time this has ever happened. I notice $350 is not frozen in my Papal account. I look a little closer and notice its that $350 transacton for the graphics card I sold almost 3 weeks ago.

 

Nothing on Ebay's end though.... Strange right? So heres the deal. The member had disputed the charge with their credit card company and not paypal or ebay directly. In fact I was only notified by Paypal because they said they disputing the charges on my behalf but they still wanted proof that I sent the item to the buyer.

 

Thankfully as I mentioned earlier I use the postage tool inside of Paypal which allows complete transparency throughout the entire transaciton. RIGHT?

 

WRONG?

Paypal goes on to say that if the credit card company decides to not pay paypal that I am out this money. To me this doesnt make sense right. A what point did I open myself up for this?

So I immediately emailed the member with this news and plead with them to at least send me the card back considering the fact that I can prove that the item they purchased was deliverd 2 days after they bought it from me.

 

 

The member replys to me saying they are sorry that I was scammed but they were scammed too. They go onto say that someone hacked thier ebay account and purchased over 13000 worth of goods form ebay. They told me I shipped a card to a location that they are not responsible for but how can this be? The address is verified right?

 

So if they were hacked how come they didn't notify ebay or paypal but only called the credit card company to say they were scammed. If you were truly hacked I would assume all parties would be notified right?

 

 So thats where I am now. I am in limbo. I am unhappy with Ebays process or system in place to deal with this issue. Not only did they delete the item number that was assiciated with the auction item that was sold but they require that item in order to place a complaint or open up a problem or dispute with them So my choices were to call or post to the forum and I chose to post here. Hopefully I can save someone the hassle of going through what I went through although I dont know if I can offer any advice  so it doesnt happen to you.

 

In fact I dont feel like I did anything wrong, if anything I was too efficient, because If I had waited an extra day or so before mailing the item I may have been able to stop shipment or not mail the item all together.

 

 So my other thoughts are related to whether this is a scam or not. To me its a scam but it can be a scam on the part of the ebay member trying to scam their credit card company or they truly were hacked. But if they were hacked how come the address was verified in Papal and they did not notify Paypal or Ebay about this. Sure the user submitted that their account was hacked but they didn't file the credit card scam thing until august 23rd? If your account was hacked why didn't you notifiy ebay and paypal on the 4th and why wait until the 23rd only to telll your credit card company?

 

I will say that I played it both ways with the member.I emailed them back stating that I was upset however I felt for them as well. I expressed that I wanted to work with them to seek justice for both of us. I did request that they send me the verification that they sent to Ebay stating their account was hacked and i also asked the buyer if they had ever had anything sent to the address that was confirmed in Paypal. They have yet to answer.

 

Do you think I am covered here with Paypal or do I have to take this to a highter court. Maybe not court but social media, news channels? Make some noise maybe? Why are they holding my funds after all this with so much evidence to prove that this is nothing that I should be held responsible for.

 

 

I opened Paypal to purchase the shipping lablel and filled out the inforation as I have done for 10 years and over 300 sales never having a negative feedback during this time.

The address to ship to was said verified in Paypal so I assumed I was good to go. Thats it I printed the label and drove to post office. 

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