Indonesian scam?

[chessplayera]

A seller from Indonesia sold five new electronics units at an unusually low price.  The Seller apparently joined eBay only to list these items, and has no other listings or activity.  I did not realize the Seller was from Indonesia until the problems developed.  I and a relative  purchased two of these electronic units.  PayPal has paid the seller.  Some possible problems:  Seller did not accept payment for some time and then did; Seller has refused to respond to any communications; Seller has listed free shipping, although the shipping from Indonesia to the U.S. would be significant.  I am wondering if I and my relative may be the victims of a scam in which the Indonesian Seller is selling items at much lower than usual prices, and not planning to ship the items.  If this is so, is there anything I can do outside of eBay to publicize this person’s activities? 

[thatsallfolks · Accepted solution]

No.

[tarpedge]

There is no physical product. There never was. It's just photos and words on a webpage. And the seller is not actually from Indonesia.

"Seller did not accept payment for some time and then did"

You'll notice that while the email address did not change, the unclaimed payment initially showed one name for the seller, and then that name changed when the payment was claimed. The second name is a legit company, trusted at PayPal, with no payment holds.

The exploit is counting on the 5 (it's always five) purchases to

1. not cancel the unclaimed payment

2. open a return request instead of item not received

3. not care enough to retrieve the forget-about-it payment.