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Scam Loophole
How to deal with this? Purchased an item. Seller sandbagged processing and delivering the item for 2 weeks until I contacted them. They told me they would ship the following week. Week goes by and I send the seller a message to provide tracking number or I was contacting eBay. Seller said they would check with shipper (not the indicated shipper). Two days go by and I contact the seller for tracking again. No response. So I started a 'did not receive item' with eBay, they send a message to the seller, and the seller manually plugs in a fraudulent tracking number that has been delivered (maybe, somewhere - picture is not of any house in my neighborhood). Also, the shipment has a lock on it with UPS so a case cannot be started on it through them. This also locks me out from contacting eBay again for at least 3 days due to the site workflow mechanics for dispute resolution. Additionally, seller doesn't accept returns, so I can't use that venue to recontact Ebay. It's a pretty clever scam. Dug through the seller's reviews and appears this isn't the first time this scenario has played out.
While I'm pretty certain I'll get my money back eventually (eBay's guarantee), it seems like there should be an easy way to report obviously fraudulent (or at the very least, slippery) behavior like this to eBay - but their myriad of lock-stepped troubleshooting trails only make you wait it out. So now for at least a month, my money is tied up and cannot be used to perhaps find another option on eBay. R-diculous!
eburtonlab
Mentor1 year ago@dynoenviro
If tracking shows delivery, but nothing arrives, contact the shipping service to determine if the tracking corresponds to a delivery to your address.
If you can obtain hard copy documentation that the tracking does not correspond to a delivery to your address, contact eBay via social media and explain that you have a case of "false tracking" and you should be given the opportunity to provide your documentation to eBay via direct message. This is different than the usual "item not received" case which is handled automatically and which allows the seller to win by providing tracking that shows delivery.
https://x.com/askebay
https://www.facebook.com/ebay
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/
You can avoid many issues entirely 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.