Ebay Customer Service takes shortcuts in investigating disputes! Beware!!!!!!!!

[vfrankenstein]

I bought an item off Ebay and asked for the tracking number.  The seller was late in shipping the item but said it would be delivered by UPS  with a tracking number would be available soon. Next thing I know,  I get a message from Seller that according to tracking I received the item, and if I'm happy with the service to give him/her a good review. But I didn't receive anything. I went to the Ebay tracking site that stated the item was "delivered," and the ebay tracking gave the UPS tracking number. I went onto the UPS.com website and inputted the tracking number and it stated that the item was delivered to the city, state, and zip code where I reside. I called UPS and spoke with UPS Customer Service. I gave them the tracking number. UPS Customer Service told me that the tracking number shows that the item went to ANOTHER person at ANOTHER street address, NOT to me. UPS Customer Service said that the name on the recipient label was to ANOTHER person entirely. I messaged the Seller with what UPS Customer Service told me and I gave the Seller the UPS contact numbers and contact information. Seller just kept reiterating that the item was "delivered." I went to Ebay Customer Service for help, but since it's automated and since the records show that it was "delivered." Ebay Customer Service stated that I couldn't ask for help because the item was "delivered." End of case.  I , thankfully, was able to get a hold of a human being in Customer Service and told her that the item was delivered to another person entirely, and I gave her the UPS contact information. I told her that the Ebay Investigation team would need to contact UPS itself to get what was happening. The Ebay Customer Service agent said she made specific notes that Ebay had to contact UPS directly. She said that there would be an investigation. After a day or two, I get a message from ebay stating that after an investigation, Ebay  determined that the item was delivered. I called UPS and got them to send me their official UPS record that the item was NOT delivered to me or my specific address but to someone else who happened to live in the same city and state that I do. I appealed the Ebay decision, and sent a photocopy of the official UPS record that showed that the item was indeed sent to someone else who happened to reside in the same city and state as I do. I eventually got refunded by Ebay.  Ebay Investigators never called UPS in the first place. It just relied that the item was "delivered." This is the lapse in Ebay security to prevent scammers from stealing from others. Beware!

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

If you can obtain hard copy documentation of 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.

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.

[vfrankenstein]

>If you can obtain hard copy documentation of 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. 

1. If one cannot obtain a hard copy documentation, then one is in deep $hit. The only reason why I was able to get hard copy documentation was because one of the UPS agents took pity on me. Initially, they told me that the EBay Investigators needed to contact UPS. And the UPS agents gave me their names, phone number and email address. But still the Ebay Investigators didn’t do a **bleep** thing about contacting UPS  but sit on their asses!
2. Ebay does not explicitly cite “false tracking” as an option in Ebay’s “Get help with an item that hasn’t arrived.” And I didn’t see Ebay making explicit that one can “contact Ebay via social media and explain the case there. What social media is that anyway?
3. Ebay makes it difficult for those who were scammed to be made whole again.

[eburtonlab]

Ebay makes it difficult for those who were scammed to be made whole again.

Scammers take advantage of eBay's largely automated "item not received" system and the privacy protection around shipping and tracking, and eBay definitely has not made things easy for victims of false tracking.

eBay via social media:

https://x.com/askebay

https://www.facebook.com/ebay

https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/

[vfrankenstein]

Yeah. If Ebay isn't part of the solution, then it's part of the problem!

[mr_lincoln]

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@vfrankenstein wrote:

>If you can obtain hard copy documentation of 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. 

1. If one cannot obtain a hard copy documentation, then one is in deep $hit. The only reason why I was able to get hard copy documentation was because one of the UPS agents took pity on me. Initially, they told me that the EBay Investigators needed to contact UPS. And the UPS agents gave me their names, phone number and email address. But still the Ebay Investigators didn’t do a **bleep** thing about contacting UPS  but sit on their asses!
2. Ebay does not explicitly cite “false tracking” as an option in Ebay’s “Get help with an item that hasn’t arrived.” And I didn’t see Ebay making explicit that one can “contact Ebay via social media and explain the case there. What social media is that anyway?
3. Ebay makes it difficult for those who were scammed to be made whole again.

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@vfrankenstein 

The False tracking scam is one of the hardest ones for eBay to fix for Buyers and to protect them against.  Sellers only have to upload a tracking number to a sold item to satisfy the automated system eBay has in place to confirm delivery.  So, if they pay at the counter and manually load tracking there is no recorded connection to the address the Buyer had on file when they purchased the item.  Professional criminal scammers know this ... 

I think there might be an answer in there somewhere ... they may consider that Sellers would have to print labels through eBay AND eBay would check the label address against the Buyer's address on file at the time of order ... in this scenario, Sellers would lose their protection if the Buyer claims they did not receive their item if the label with tracking was not printed through eBay.  

[vfrankenstein]

UPS personnel (UPSP) told me that they were waiting for the Ebay Investigative Dept (EID)  to contact UPS. I gave EID the UPS contact info: phone numbers, email, names of UPS personnel. EID was practically spoon fed and burped. But EID didn't even bother contacting UPSP. It just relied on the "delivered" notice, and that was the end of case. No questions.