Aqualine? Scam?

[knitoneyarnover]

I bought a coffee filter from a seller called yehhub3 (182), who has been a member since Apr 2022, and has a hundred percent positive seller rating. If I recall, it was Tuesday afternoon when I ordered it. It was supposedly delivered Thursday morning. But there was no package delivery slip in my post office box, and the guys at the desk in the office said there was no package for me. I've contacted the seller, but in looking it up online, I find nothing good said about this aqualine thing. It's not a shipper? It only provides tracking numbers? Preposterous. eBay should only allow tracking numbers from services that actually ship, like the Postal Service or UPS.

I have contacted the seller, but have yet to hear back. I don't want to cast aspersions, but from the things I've read about this Aqualine thing, I'll be pleasantly surprised if I ever receive the coffee filter that I ordered.

Why is eBay allowing people to claim that Aqualine is a shipper, when so far as I can guess, no one has ever received a package from them?

[twinkling.smile]

@knitoneyarnover 

I suggest to start a procedure for an item not received.

When the latest estimated delivery date has passed, you have maximum 30 days to report the item you didn't receive. Three business days later, you can ask eBay to step in, if it’s still not solved.

So, it's a two step procedure.

This is your guide: https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/returns-refunds/get-help-item-hasnt-arrived?id=4042

[knitoneyarnover]

I contacted the seller, yehhub3 , yesterday, and today got a mealy-mouthed response from them saying I should ask my relatives, neighbors, and the carrier, where the package is. I told them that doesn't apply in my case as I receive my mail at an office, and my package is not in the ( locked ) package cupboard beside the mailboxes. I'm pretty sure the office staff are trustworthy as they always have been before.

As they hadn't anything useful to say, only contemptible stalling tactics, I did indeed open a case with eBay. But what gets me is that these blasted people have a hundred percent positive seller rating! How do they manage that if they are scammers? Or are they only drop shippers who believe that Amazon sent me what I ordered from them, and Amazon, with its notoriously over-worked, under-paid and unreliable drivers, has lost my coffee filter gd alone knows where?

Thank you for taking me to go ahead and report not received to eBay. I've never had to do that before. A small envelope for about $2 went missing last month, but when I contacted the seller, they refunded promptly.

[twinkling.smile]

Thanks for the update.

[knitoneyarnover]

I'm having absolutely no luck with this. Ebay's résolution for not received items must be automated. The "seller" is obviously a scammer who has been allowed to get away with it for 2 years and maintain a hundred percent positive seller rating. 

This is the seller's stalling response

[New message from yehhub3 (183)

"

Hello, We appreciate your efforts and we are truly sorry that this happened. We understand that you are frustrated for not receiving the product but we are doing our best to resolve this issue as easy as possible. Normal investigation can take up for 4 - 6 weeks without any police report. Having one would really speed up the process which would enable us to help you out as well. If you already have communicated with your local post, neighbours or family members at no success, we suggest that you go for the last option by filing a police report if you think the package got stolen. As a seller or sender of the item, we also want to make sure that our valued customers received their orders in good condition. We already covered for the shipping + product (inventory) cost that's why as much as we would want to issue a refund, it will not be possible if the courier tagged it as delivered. We thank you for your continued understanding. Best Regards, Stacy" And this is the alleged tracking info Thu, Apr 4 11:39am Package delivered. Thu, Apr 4 10:49am Package is out for delivery. Thu, Apr 4 4:01am Package being processed at carrier facility. Thu, Apr 4 3:47am Package arrived at a carrier facility. Wed, Apr 3 11:57pm Package left at a carrier facility. Wed, Apr 3 9:31pm Package arrived at a carrier facility. Wed, Apr 3 5:47am Shipping label created. Aquiline awaiting item Wed, Apr 3 12:00am Carrier picked up the package. Tue, Apr 2 10:47pm Tracking number provided The scammer refuses to tell me who the actual carrier is. The item was supposedly picked up at midnight? And yet the shipping label was not created until 547 am. And the tracking number is provided the night before, at 1047pm? I have never heard of any actual shipping service providing a tracking number before they pick up the package and a shipping label hours after! Nor is there any statement whatsoever as to where the package was supposedly delivered. It's infuriating. Do we have any hope of getting eBay to disallow this scam? Aqualine does not ship anything. eBay should not be allowing a company that only creates tracking numbers, and does not ship anything, to be counted as proof of delivery.

[knitoneyarnover]

This is the answer I just sent them

"You suggest that I make a police report. I do not know that they would take a report without a carrier's name provided. USPS? UPS? FedEx? Amazon? Who did you ship the item with? You have not given me this information. If I can give the police the carrier's name, perhaps they'll write me a report. Other than that, I have only you to mention to the police. Aqualine is not a carrier. They deliver nothing. They provide tracking numbers compatible with eBay for Amazon drop shipping. You shipped the item? Then tell me what carrier says they delivered it, and send me a copy of their picture of where they say they delivered it."

I don't expect that it will do any good. If I go to my bank and tell them I've been scammed, and they get me my money back, will the seller be able to report me for non-payment and try to get me in trouble with eBay? I'm furious that I'm having to deal with this scam from a seller with a hundred percent positive rating, because eBay is allowing Aqualine, which does not ship anything, to count as proof of delivery.

[twinkling.smile]

Your request was denied by eBay?

Can you ask eBay to step in?

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/returns-items-not-received-refunds-buyers/ask-ebay-step-help-buyers...

PS: this is a site where you can add a tracking number to get a clue who the shipper was: https://www.17track.net/en

[knitoneyarnover]

They told me to contact the seller and that I couldn't ask them to step in until the 13th, which is tomorrow. Most recent communication from yehhub3 they are trying to claim that the carrier is Aqualine. Aqualine is not a shipper. If you Google Aqualine scam, you find that there's something called Aqualine International, but they charter airplanes and sell airplane parts, they don't ship within the United States. The website that invents the tracking numbers does just that and only that. It should not be being accepted as proof of delivery, especially because they provide no address the package was supposedly shipped from, no addresses of the facilities it supposedly passed through, and no address it was supposedly delivered to. Preposterous.

[knitoneyarnover]

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/aquiline-tracking.com

Trustpilot knows Aqualine is a scam(evidently worldwide). That eBay is not acknowledging the fact is willful ignorance.

[knitoneyarnover]

Fortunately, once I reported it to eBay, quoting the scammer saying that it would take 4 to 6 weeks to find out what had happened to my package, and refusing to send me a copy of any picture from Amazon showing where they delivered, and trying to claim that Aqualine had delivered it, eBay issued me a refund on the day I asked them to step in. So at least one eBay scammer has been put a stop to,.at least for the moment.

[shipscript]

@knitoneyarnover 

Aquiline is a tracking number consolidator, and scammers can easily use this service to obfuscate actual carriers and delivery. Additionally, drop-shippers also use this service to hide the fact that the item location is not fixed and could be in any distributed warehouse.

I similarly had an Aquiline shipment reported as delivered, when it wasn't. This was a repeat buy from the original seller, so I knew it wasn't a scam, but the seller was overseas and would not help. The tracking came from the drop-ship warehouse.  I went directly to Aquiline's tracking site and to a third party tracking site.

https://aquiline-tracking.com/

https://parcelsapp.com/en/tracking/

From the two sites, I was able to get more detailed hand-off information, but not the names of the carriers.  Based on the hub information, I was able to deduce that the primary carrier was UPS, and the delivery time told me it was handed off to USPS for final delivery. With that information, my local post office was able to locate the package in the back.

eBay is aware of the abuse surrounding Aquiline tracking. With all of the complaints, and the exposure of some underlying seller scams, eBay is taking action.