eBay

jkokoshop · ‎05-16-2021

When the tracking shows return delivered, but you did not receive the package?

Most sellers would think the package was stolen or lost. But please think again.

The buyer could use their friend's address or any random address to send the item back.

And when the tracking shows delivered, they get their money back.

Isn't this crazy?

I've been an online seller for more than 15 years now and this fraud is something I've never seen before.

So this buyer returned an item. The tracking says delivered but I never received it.

I thought it was lost too. But usually, when things are lost in my neighborhood, people bring them back and I suspected that maybe this buyer made a mistake on the shipping label.

But there is no way to see what the buyer returned to where on ebay.

So I went to the post office hoping that if there is a way to see the receipient's address for that tracking number, and the nice clerk even gave me a copy of the shipping label!

And guess what I found out, instead of returning what she purchased from me which was almost 4 lbs, she returned a first-class mail to Walgreens in my neighborhood!!!

What is more surprising is that she opens a case right after the tracking says delivered, and she gets her money back right away!

SELLERS!

PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR POST OFFICE FOR THE RECIPIENT'S ADDRESS WHEN YOU DID NOT RECEIVE THE RETURN PACKAGE WHEN IT SAYS DELIVERED. MAYBE IT IS NOT LOST.

THE BUYER MIGHT HAVE USED A RANDOM ADDRESS TO KEEP THE ITEM AND GET THE MONEY BACK AS WELL!

Because the tracking shows delivered, she wins the case automatically right after she opens the case and I assume that most sellers would not even have enough time to respond.

Of course I reported this to ebay and I think ebay should really pay attention to this new fraud method.

Now I am waiting for the case result and hopefully ebay looks into it and makes right decision.

jkokoshop · ‎05-18-2021

Your suggestion sounds really reasonable and effective! I wish ebay people should really pay attention and do something.

I thought this was a new scam until I googled and found out that this scam has been around for a long time!

It is surprising that ebay didn't do anything until now....

nono-8172 · ‎05-18-2021

@jkokoshop wrote:
It is surprising that ebay didn't do anything until now....

Until now ... do you mean eBay has finally done something about it? And if eBay did, eBay will cough up a courtesy refund for you, while unfortunately your buyer still gets away.

donsdetour · ‎05-18-2021

This is just not returns, it is also a scam on purchases.

Item sent to different addy in same zip code. Delivery confirmation shows as delivered.

Just a way to scam users on both ends of the Internets.. or any mail order system.

jkokoshop · ‎06-13-2021

After several appeals, I finally got the result.

I was covered by ebay seller protection but I had to keep appealing and had to spend a lot of time on it.

I suggested ebay that sellers or ebay should have access to the original return shipping label that is provided to buyers only for cases like this. Hopefully, it can be updated soon.

After this scam, I check the customer's shipping information if it matches with the publicly verified address.

And if they don't match, I contact the customer for more information.

Good customers usually contact me back but scammers never do.

If I do not hear from them, then I cancel the order for an "inaccurate shipping address" reason.

This is the best I can do to fight with them now.

everydaydealssss · ‎08-02-2021

Hi, thank you for your inputs here. Exactly the same thing happened to me today. One thing that I don't understand, I know the buyer did not use the shipping label that was automatically generated by the system, but was the label uploaded to your ebay portal the correct one, or for the walgreens one? If they used a different label for the actual shipment, how is it possible that the tracking status for the system-created label was even updated as delivered? (Because that label was not even used). Thanks!

xelltra · ‎08-26-2021

This kind of fraud happened several times to us. These are professional fraudsters and take advantage of ebay's return system. The recent one is a buyer purchased an expensive item and claimed damaged upon receiving. He never provided us requested pictures of damaged item. His return was granted by eBay with a case against us, but we felt fishy about the return. So we checked his shipping address and it's actually a mail forwarding address but he disguised it with an apartment number, and someone complained about fraud through Google search of his address. His purchasing history is twice $0.99 items and suddenly jumped to over $500 item. So we had to take action. Before the return was delivered, we contacted ebay to put a hold of the case in case of delivery. eBay was very kind to hold the case in 5 days upon delivery. This is very important to request ebay to hold the case, otherwise ebay's bot will automatically issue a refund if the return is delivered. So USPS informed us the return was delivered at 10:55AM and signed by someone we don't have. Actually we got USPS delivery at 11:28AM that day. This immediately validated it's a potential fraud. We went to our local postal office and provided the tracking number and thanks for USPS's Informed Delivery Service, the return was delivered to a local department store, and the postal manager said the receiver's address was altered to that department store according to postal office's record, and suggested us to report to Postal Inspector Service. Anyway, in order to provide ebay hard evidence, we went to that department store and talked to the manager, and explained this fraud scheme. We were able to get that return. It's an empty bubble envelope with a fake sender's address, store's address, and USPS's tracking bar code. There is no numerical tracking number and ebay's return ID. So we had to go back to the USPS and asked them to scan the bar code so that we could get the numerical tracking number in order to provide to ebay.

We sent a message to that fraudster and reported him to ebay. eBay had taken care of the case for us.

mama_583368 · ‎08-26-2021

@xelltra wrote:
So USPS informed us the return was delivered at 10:55AM and signed by someone we don't have.
We went to our local postal office and provided the tracking number

So we had to go back to the USPS and asked them to scan the bar code so that we could get the numerical tracking number in order to provide to ebay.

You have numerous inconsistencies in your story. Even without a tracking number shown on the label, you already had the tracking number, from which you found out where it was delivered. Please clarify?

robike42 · ‎12-06-2021

I have 5 coins left to complete a series of walking liberty half dollars and in the last month I've bought like 15 have gotten all but 2 they are from different stores through ebay and only ones missing said delivered to my mailbox Nov 22 I have not got them I have a locked mailbox and I have the keys

kh-vince · ‎12-07-2021

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.