Accidentally sold a $400 item to a scammer, how can I protect myself?

[tmsills]

Hi, I’m new to selling on eBay. I just accepted an offer (by now the buyer has already paid) without checking the buyer’s feedback (didn’t realize a buyer can’t get negative feedback), but they’re a scammer (paying, accepting delivery, then claiming the seller sold a broken item/empty box, and the seller is charged back without the item). How can I protect myself, or is there a way to somehow cancel/avoid shipment? Thanks for your help.

[kensgiftshop]

You would have to cancel the order as out of stock and earn a defect.

If the funds are being held, you'll have to cover the refund until the buyers payment is released.

[dbfolks166mt]

     What was the item I see nothing sold under this account. Where is your buyer located, US or International? If they are international are they shipping through a freight forwarder or a third party? What makes you think they are a scammer is there something specific in the feedback you can share that leads you to believe this?

[inhawaii]

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@tmsills wrote:

How can I protect myself, or is there a way to somehow cancel/avoid shipment? 

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If you haven't shipped it yet, how do you know the buyer  is going to claim it's broken or a empty box? 

[tmsills]

Thanks for your note, the item was a DSLR camera. The buyer is in the US, selected plain USPS Priority Mail, looks normal other than the feedback. I’m wondering if I jumped too quickly to this conclusion. The buyer has lots of positive feedback (at least 100 different, brief messages just in the past month, maybe implausible), but I was seeing the top few messages when I sorted by relevance, which showed me a small handful of reports from sellers selling game consoles, DVD players and cameras about how the buyer sent photos of a different item and claimed that the different item was sent, then returned an empty box, or returned a damaged item, though the buyer has many more short, positive feedback notes.

[tmsills]

Sorry I wasn’t clear, these incidents were reported in a handful of feedback notes. However, there were many more brief, less-detailed but positive notes (more than 100 in the last month somehow), so I might be jumping to conclusions.

[tmsills]

Thanks for the explanation! As I look a bit closer I realize I might be jumping to conclusions. There was no suspicious behavior by the buyer, but a handful of feedback notes reported these problems, though many more (at least 100 in the past month) were positive, while vague and brief.

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @tmsills 

-List items for sale

-Sell items

-Pack items for shipment

-Label the package

-Ship the item

-In the end there is no protection against selling to someone who might want to scam you.  Here is a link to Seller protections, some may apply on a fraudulent return claim.  Seller protections | eBay

-I see nothing sold or for sale on this account of yours, but I would hazard a guess that you use the No returns accepted right?!?  If so Stop using that, Accept returns because eBay has two return types for Buyers where the No returns accept setting is bypassed AND the Seller gets charged for shipping.  

[reallynicestamps]

A buyer of 100+ game consoles or similar in the past month?

Perhaps a reseller?

What is your buyers FeedbackLeft for Others like? This is useful as a 'personality' check.

Is the buyer also selling on this account?

[mam98031]

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@tmsills wrote:

Sorry I wasn’t clear, these incidents were reported in a handful of feedback notes. However, there were many more brief, less-detailed but positive notes (more than 100 in the last month somehow), so I might be jumping to conclusions.

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You can't tell if the FB was from the past month.  With the way FB reads, it shows you what was receive in the past SIX months, then it jumps to the Past Year and then More than a year ago.  Ebay stopped posting the actual dates of the feedback a few years ago.

So how many is a "handful".  2, 3, 5, 6, or something else.

What can really be telling is to look at the buyer's Feedback Left For Others.  That will tell you what feedback they tend to leave for sellers and that can be very telling sometimes.  So take a peek at that and tell us what you see.

A handful of problems [depending on your definition of a handful] can be plenty of reason to shy away from this sale.  Especially if they are at the top of the page, which means they are more recent.

But take a look at their FB left for others and tell us what you see.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

When is the last time you looked at feedback? You sure can see PAST MONTH purchases and left for others.

[soh.maryl]

Could not find anything listed as "sold" either for the OP under this ID.

[soh.maryl]

So this buyer has evidence of various issues with sellers? If you learned this information from FB the buyer has received, you need to understand that that kind of FB is not allowed.  

Also, why am I unable to see that you have sold anything?  

PS:  How does one "accidentally" sell something?

[ckimodog]

@tmsills 

Sorry for your situation.  As others have pointed out, don't sell anything you can't afford to loose.  I wouldn't sell anything expensive on this site or any site.  It's just too risky anymore.  This is the downside of internet sales and it's only getting worse.  Hang in there.

[bashort]

If you are going to try and vet buyers with feedback set your price high and use "make offer" then if you do not like something about the potential buyer you can just not accept the offer with no account damage