Received return "package" of item I did not sell - fraud of some kind (Fake Order# and Return ID)

[jchan44]

Just a little background, I stopped selling items since last summer and have been traveling lately. I came back to find a small manila envelope sent to me with a USPS ebay return label.  The envelope was empty except for a hand written sheet of yellow legal pad paper. 

The note read:

Ebay #93019205856000

53756000

This is what I got, Nothing

Returning Nothing

Can I have my money back

Confused, I checked my ebay invoices, paypal. etc., and could not find anyone by the sender's name. Nor was there any recent activity on my ebay or paypal accounts. (My accounts have complex passwords, and i routinely change pws)

The only info I had to go on was senders name, address in California, the "Ebay #" and the Return ID & Order# from the return label.

I called Ebay and they told me the Return ID and Order# were not linked to the same item and were 3 years and 1 year old items respectively. 

I can't seem to figure out the purpose of this scam. If it's not a real buyer looking to defraud a seller of an actual item. What is the purpose? 

[gwgw-73]

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@jchan44 wrote:

Just a little background, I stopped selling items since last summer and have been traveling lately. I came back to find a small manila envelope sent to me with a USPS ebay return label. The envelope was empty except for a hand written sheet of yellow legal pad paper. 

The note read:

Ebay #9301920585600053756000

This is what I got, Nothing

Returning Nothing

Can I have my money back

I can't seem to figure out the purpose of this scam. If it's not a real buyer looking to defraud a seller of an actual item. What is the purpose? 

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This is the "enclose exactly what you received and nothing more in a box or padded envelope" here.

1. That seller/scammer uploaded a stolen tracking number which showed delivery somewhere in the buyer's zip code. But their "This is what I got, Nothing" buyer didn't receive any package.

2. The buyer filed a "This is what I got, Nothing" return request. That seller/scammer had a transaction with you previously, and now used your name/address as the return info on the eBay return label, hoping to prevent a refund. Following, the buyer @dailysubscriber mailed back what they received.

3. The "Returning Nothing" empty return package was delivered to you, eBay will see the delivery to the provided address, and release a refund from that seller/scammer back to the buyer.

[jchan44]

It seems like the scenario you linked are from a seller scam, in which the scammed buyer is advised to send the "This is what i got nothing" return back to the seller.

In my incident it appears to be a version where the buyer would be the scammer no? And with all the variants of the scam from your post you linked,  it still seems off. Although it's irrelevant if its buyer or seller if they are just using the tracking zip code for the scam. 

But if that's the case and they just randomly used my address, Why would this person have to use a fraudulent return label that had fake order and return ID information? And why even include the letter of "this is what I received nothing" This could have been accomplished without all that.