Being scammed

[rufert123]

How do you keep from being scammed when selling? I am still fairly new at this and don't know the signs to look for, but am going through my first attempted ( I say attempted but if ebay rules against me it will have been successful) scammer. Do you actually research your buyers before you do anything else? I actually had reservations before I shipped anything and after an email from supposed buyer attempted to cancel the sale and ebay denied the cancelation and then a claim was made against me and therefore I shipped the item. Now I'm sitting with the item shipped to what seems to be a phoney reshipping company, a buyer who now will not answer messages and has a claim against me, and ebay has my funds on hold due to the claim. Today I researched the address and phone number and thats how I found out it most likely is a phoney reshipping company and the buyers phone number is a fake number as it doesn't have a real area code. Personally if I need to do research on my buyers it is not worth me paying fees to ebay to sell things because that is honestly part of what I think they should be doing. After all it's impossible for me to access the buyers info untill the sale has been made. At that point (especially if they won't let me cancel the sale as they did here) it really is out of your hands on protecting yourself from being scammed.

[disneyshopper]

As a seller with mostly fixed price listings, I don't "research" my buyers.  When they pay, I send to the SHIP TO address attached to the payment.

With auction style listings, do not respond when the buyer wants you to contact via text/phone/Paypal.  Those are sure signs of a possible scam.  Always ship with tracking, and only send to the SHIP TO address attached to the payment.  Many international buyers use forwarding services/reshippers....the honest ones as well as the dishonest ones.  Once tracking shows DELIVERED to these reshippers, your obligation is done.

[kensgiftshop]

I never check out my buyers, if they pay, I ship.

Why couldn't you cancel the order?

What kind of claim did the buyer make?

[rufert123]

I was never told why ebay wouldn't cancel the order. I also never could get to a live person in my attempts to contact someone. I just kept being put into circles by the automated system and passed along a couple times and then right back to where I originally started.

When the sale first happened I saw the address and then I saw the persons location as Germany. Since those 2 items didn't match I asked the person via ebay messaging and he told me the address was incorrect in the ebay system. I then stated that my auction clearly stated I do not ship overseas and I would have to see about cancelling the sale. I immediately put in to cancel the sale and relist and at first it said it was cancelled then 2 days later I got a message that it couldn't be canceled. I then spent a couple days trying to figure stuff out by trying to contact the buyer with no response. Trying to contact ebay with no response except to look thing up in the FAQ which was no help and like stated before I couldn't get a live person to talk too. That's when the notice came to me the buyer started a claim. I have maintained a perfect sellers record and wanted to keep it so I immediately shipped the item to the address listed on ebay and provided tracking numbers. 

It was after the PO reported that the first attempt to deliver was unsuccessful that I started the research I did because that seemed very strange. The address itself does exist but the suite number does not. Then I looked up the phone number of the person (didn't try to call just looked the number up) and the area code does not exist. So I looked at the address again and it is registered as a russian based package forwarding company whos website and phones have been disconnected and seems to have changed names and such more than a couple times. And I can't even find a way to contact ebay to give them this information because I still get in that same loop because everything is automated. This is the closest to talking to a real person as I have ever been able to get with ebay and it's honestly got me rethinking my options on selling my storage unit finds. For the amount of my sale that ebay keeps I would think I could at least get to a real person to get explanations on things. And now I've got my money being held up by ebay when truth be told I am the only one (ebay included) who has been trying to resolve anything.