Scam on tracking?

[rah-honda]

I purchased dish towels. It took several days for them to ship. I contacted seller to ask and lo and behold they were shipped. The same day a tracking number was posted and then said “delivered”. I contacted the seller who refused to give me a refund because I did not receive the item. Eventually ebay refunded me. Well, I bought the same towels from a different seller and the same thing happened. This time the eBay message said it was sipped May 2 and delivered May 1. I suspect they are the same seller using different names. I have an open case now. I am wondering if they are hacking the tracking system. Buyer beware. 

[eburtonlab]

Check your order details to make sure the correct address appears there. That is the address the seller is required to ship to.

Contact the shipping service to determine if the tracking number you received was for a package that was addressed to you.

Good advice for dealing with false tracking can be found in the marked solution to this thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/I-tried-contacting-seller-i-tried-contacting-fedex-i-tried/m-p/...

What kind of feedback does your seller have?

You can avoid many fake tracking issues by choosing to only do business with experienced sellers that have a proven track record of delivering similar items as seen by examining the seller's feedback page, and by avoiding inexperienced sellers, sellers with patterns of negative feedback indicating serious problems, or sellers with large gaps in the selling history or recent drastic changes of seller behavior.

[mudshark61369]

@rah-honda,

"The same day a tracking number was posted and then said “delivered”. I contacted the seller who refused to give me a refund because I did not receive the item. Eventually ebay refunded me".

You were issued a refund likely because the shipping label was created before you made your purchase. That is a variation on the fake tracking number scam, which ebay can deal with easily. 

"Well, I bought the same towels from a different seller and the same thing happened. This time the eBay message said it was sipped May 2 and delivered May 1. I suspect they are the same seller using different names. I have an open case now. I am wondering if they are hacking the tracking system".

There does seem to be a way some scammers can get access to already used shipping labels, and post them on ebay.  This has gone on for a number of years, but more recently scammers, create a label and change the address on it, which ebay has a hard time dealing with, due to shipping agencies, privacy policies.

What date did you purchase the towels on?  If it was after May 2nd, then if ebay denies the dispute, you can use the Appeal button in the message telling you the dispute was closed in favor of the seller.  A page will open with a text box, in which you can write the shipping label was purchased before I paid for the item on Month/Date/Year.  You can also upload a screen shot of the tracking info showing the tracking number and label purchase date.

This could be the same seller who has multiple accounts, or if the towels are being sold by seller's based in china, they could be one of many sellers who sell the same ones, using the same listing info and photos.