eBay

megankit · ‎08-24-2018

First off, I’ve been active on eBay for the past two years and have 20 (100% positive) feedback as a seller. (Done plenty more sales but more than half the time I don’t receive any feedback from the sale). My point is I’m not completely new to eBay without any feedback whatsoever but I don’t have a bunch either.. what I do have though is all positive with an “above standard” seller rating. So I’m not sure if I’m necessarily considered an “easy target” or not..?

Anyways, this morning I listed a fairly expensive laptop for sale (around $500) with buy it now / require immediate payment. Within 3 hours of listing it someone had purchased it and I’ve received the funds. Almost immediately after that I received a message from someone that was pretending to be the buyer and requesting I ship to a different address for whatever made up reason.. I was about to reply back saying “no” if you want me to ship to any other address other than the one listed by PayPal/eBay than I will cancel the order / refund you, you can then update the address and complete the purchase again, otherwise I’m not covered as the seller by eBay.

So at this point I know someone is definitely trying to scam me. What I don’t know is if the actual buyer may have anything to do with this or not so I contact them via message explaining the situation and just wanting to get on record that they in fact do want to buy the laptop and that they have nothing to do with the message I had received.

The buyer has all positive feedback, only 14 but 100% positive and all are from purchases & not sales.

Anyways, I’ve not received any response after sending the message a second time.

At this point I’m unsure of what to do. Should I cancel the order? Or wait to get a response before doing anything whether canceling it or fulfilling it? How long should I wait if I’m still not receiving any response at all?

If anyone has had any sort of experience like this or could just offer any kind of help / insight into this on what you think it would be greatly appreciated.

Anonymous · ‎08-25-2018

Call eBay and ask if the buyer's account was hacked.

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castlemagicmemories · ‎08-24-2018

ANYWAY...

Did you check your PP account to be sure you really did receive payment? Are they telling you it is ok to ship? You are only to ship to the address on the Paypal payment.

With your lack of feedback, you could be a target~absolutely.

With all due respect, it seems you listed prematurely here.

Cancellations must have a valid reason or they can cost you your selling privileges~I'm not sure you know about cancellations since you mention it casually.

femmefan1946 · ‎08-24-2018

Contact the person who paid you through his Paypal account.

You can find his email address by clicking on Refund

DON'T PANIC!

Just get the address and click back to the payment.

Let him know you got "his" message, but that you cannot print a shipping label except to an address he has in Paypal.

If he changes it, no problem. Ship.

Since you are a little concerned () use Signature Confirmation-- "for your buyer's security".

You can also look up both addresses on Google Maps to see is either one looks odd.

kensgiftshop · ‎08-24-2018

@megankit

Scammers will watch these type of items from newer sellers and as soon as the sell, they'll send a message claiming to be the buyer wanting you to ship to a different address.

A lot of new sellers will fall for it and ship to the scammers address, which is usually a reshipper.

Buyers feedback doesn't really mean anything because all they can get is positive.

Have a great day

Anonymous · ‎08-25-2018

Call eBay and ask if the buyer's account was hacked.

emerald40 · ‎08-25-2018

Yes, we see a lot of this - scammers who troll the sold listings and then make up some excuse why they need it send to a different address.

And that is why we advise never send it anywhere than the address on the paypal account.

Email buyer and advise.

Then send it out to the address on the paypal account.

megankit · ‎08-25-2018

I did try contacting the buyer but they haven’t responded to either of the two messages I had sent. Which kind of makes me even more concerned. Just trying to be cautious and I’m a bit hesitant to fulfill the order until I’m able to get some sort of communication.

megankit · ‎08-25-2018

Should I be concerned that the actual buyer hasn’t responded to either of my attempts to get in contact? I sent a message shortly after they made the purchase / receiving that message and then followed up later as well.

straightshotgold · ‎08-25-2018

Hello,

If the message you received is from a different user id than the id of the buyer who purchased the item from you, then yes it is a scammer. I've received several of these messages from scammers after an expensive item sells. I just ignore the messages. If you wish you can also report the ID to eBay customer support.

top5mobile · ‎08-25-2018

What's the problem?

Cancel the order, select a reason "Something wrong with a buyer address". This way you'll not receive a defect.

Email buyer "I can't change the address per eBay policy", relist an item and let him buy again.

Stop worry about all feedbacks.

Good luck.

itsjustasprain · ‎08-25-2018

@megankit wrote:
Should I be concerned that the actual buyer hasn’t responded to either of my attempts to get in contact? I sent a message shortly after they made the purchase / receiving that message and then followed up later as well.

The scammer is not the actual buyer who paid you. The scammer is the 3rd party with a different iD whose hoping to fool you into shipping the thing to hs address instead of the address you got with the payment. Ignore him. Ship to the buyer who paid you.

moondogblues · ‎08-26-2018

But according to the OP the 'real' buyer is not responding either. I agree that the 2nd 'buyer' is a scammer and should be turned in to eBay and put on the blocked buyer list, but it is concerning that the 1st buyer hasn't responded.

OP, google the 1st buyers address and also their name...see if anything seems fishy. I hate to seem so paranoid but in today's world, better safe than sorry.

williamh_24076 · ‎08-26-2018

/ Should I be concerned that the actual buyer hasn’t responded to either of my attempts to get in contact? I sent a message shortly after they made the purchase / receiving that message and then followed up later as well.

The actual buyer may be using a cut-out buyer to try to scam you to ship before payment.

thatsallfolks · ‎08-26-2018

@megankit wrote:
Should I be concerned that the actual buyer hasn’t responded to either of my attempts to get in contact? I sent a message shortly after they made the purchase / receiving that message and then followed up later as well.

You sold it on Friday. It's the weekend. Maybe they haven't seen your messages yet.

thatsallfolks · ‎08-26-2018

@top5mobile wrote:
What's the problem?
Cancel the order, select a reason "Something wrong with a buyer address". This way you'll not receive a defect.
Email buyer "I can't change the address per eBay policy", relist an item and let him buy again.
Stop worry about all feedbacks.
Good luck.

The problem is that there's a very good chance that the buyer is legitimate. We're seeing more threads about this type of scam recently; if the OP cancels, the same thing might happen again next time. And this buyer could call eBay and claim that they never asked for an address change, which would get the OP a defect.

They've been paid; they can ship, or try again to contact the buyer. Canceling would not be advisable at this time.