Buyer has effectively stolen my goods.

[fuzzyfreakbrother]

Now before I give you details, please don't judge me, I accept I made a mistake, however based on previous ebay transactions, I have mostly found buyers to be very pleasant and honest, but it seems I have been lulled into a false sense of security...

Buyer won my speaker for £105.95.

I was quite sure I received notification of payment, so I sent the parcel by UPS tracked.

I then noticed that the icon on my ebay account was a sand timer and it says "Buyer marked as payment sent.".

By the time I had noticed this, the item arrived at the location an hour later.

The delivery address was a coffee shop on Bethnal Green Road in London, so I phoned them and spoke with the manager. He reassured me that the item had arrived and that he would hide it from the part owner but writing his own name on the box.

In the meantime I sent and invoice and contacted the buyer.  The buyer said he thought he had paid and promised payment later. Later came and the buyer made an excuse about some deal fallen through.

In the meanitme, I contacted ebay and got his mobile number. I phoned numerous times and received no answer, just a message pointing me back to the coffee shop.

I spoke with the manager who apologised but informed me the buyer found teh box and took it home.

The buyer contacted me acknowledging that he had the speaker but no gaurantee he will pay me.

He has refused to acknowledge any further requests for money.

Paypal cannot help.

I know legally (UK law) that I can take him to a small claims court as he has acknowledged he has the item and not paid but as this has left me feeling distressed and very angry, I don't want to pursue it any further.

I imagine this has happened many times and I have leanred a lesson here but if there is a glimpse of hope somebody can offer me, that would be gratefully received.

Rather annoyingly, I am not allowed to leave negative feedback to warn others of his unscrupulous ways - a search on the net makes him out to be a rather unsavoury character!

[dhbookds]

Only thing you can do is learn from the mistake.........to check paypal for payment; not rely on emails or something in ebay..........

[vintagemoth12]

 I just want to tell you that I’m so sorry this is happened to you. I had this happen to me one time. no matter how hard we work and try sometimes things just fall through the cracks. Try not to beat up on yourself too much. Hopefully, you will get your money but if you don’t  I just always try to think of it like well at least it’s not worse. I know that sounds simplistic but sometimes we just have to find ways to cope with people who just refused to do the right thing. I would rather be on the side of right then  wrong.

It’s going to be OK. And maybe someone else here can give you some ideas on how to pursue this all I wanted to do is try to make you feel better cause you sound really down. 

[chrysylys]

Since you know the location, go there.  Or send a friend.  A large friend.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@chrysylyswrote:

Since you know the location, go there.  Or send a friend.  A large friend.

---

Since the seller and buyer are local, perhaps a visit to the police is in order. Theft by deception is frowned upon by the legal system.

[lewisburggold]

Best you can do is except and move on.    Make sure to block that bidder because they will probably be back looking for something else free.     Best regards

[d-k_treasures]

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@dhbookdswrote:

Only thing you can do is learn from the mistake.........to check paypal for payment; not rely on emails or something in ebay..........

---

I wonder how the Big Bang theory will be handling this.

[sandmansales]

There are at least 6 payment notifications and indicators on ebay\PayPal. Don't know about British law but in the USA when a consumer receives a package, it's his to keep by law.

1. An email from PayPal
2. Seller Hub, Orders, Awaiting Payment
3. Seller Hub, Orders, Awaiting Shipment (only shows up when buyer actually pays.)
4. Seller Hub, Orders, All Orders. Check Mark showing checkout complete.
5. PayPal balance check.
6. Email headers (if potential fake email)

Sellers need to take the time to educate themselves about selling here rather than doing it on the fly and hoping for the best.

[castlemagicmemories]

Always check your Paypal account to be sure the payment is actually there before shipping.

Sorry, OP, wishing you luck with this.

[sin-n-dex]

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@fuzzyfreakbrotherwrote:

Now before I give you details, please don't judge me, I accept I made a mistake, however based on previous ebay transactions, I have mostly found buyers to be very pleasant and honest, but it seems I have been lulled into a false sense of security...

Buyer won my speaker for £105.95.

I was quite sure I received notification of payment, so I sent the parcel by UPS tracked.

I then noticed that the icon on my ebay account was a sand timer and it says "Buyer marked as payment sent.".

By the time I had noticed this, the item arrived at the location an hour later.

The delivery address was a coffee shop on Bethnal Green Road in London, so I phoned them and spoke with the manager. He reassured me that the item had arrived and that he would hide it from the part owner but writing his own name on the box.

In the meantime I sent and invoice and contacted the buyer.  The buyer said he thought he had paid and promised payment later. Later came and the buyer made an excuse about some deal fallen through.

In the meanitme, I contacted ebay and got his mobile number. I phoned numerous times and received no answer, just a message pointing me back to the coffee shop.

I spoke with the manager who apologised but informed me the buyer found teh box and took it home.

The buyer contacted me acknowledging that he had the speaker but no gaurantee he will pay me.

He has refused to acknowledge any further requests for money.

Paypal cannot help.

I know legally (UK law) that I can take him to a small claims court as he has acknowledged he has the item and not paid but as this has left me feeling distressed and very angry, I don't want to pursue it any further.

I imagine this has happened many times and I have leanred a lesson here but if there is a glimpse of hope somebody can offer me, that would be gratefully received.

Rather annoyingly, I am not allowed to leave negative feedback to warn others of his unscrupulous ways - a search on the net makes him out to be a rather unsavoury character!

---

I'm sorry to hear you got scammed. I do have to say though, I admire how clever you were to do some detective work to try and track down your package and have the shop owner conspire with you to get it back (whether he was trying to help you or lied to you, who knows).

Gather all your facts and write a police report. The amount of detail you can provide about what happened will be very helpful, and the way I think... even if I don't get my item back, if I can ruin the scammers day and cause him trouble, that's enough.

Good luck,

C.

[vintagecraze50]

It seems to me TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for Ebay to Allow a buyer to check off themselves that they have paid in their system. Totally confusing info that anyone could make a mistake with. They need to get rid of this problem.

[vintagecraze50]

It's either paid or not paid and not almost paid. Rarely have we seen the hour glass icon and some people do not know that that means it has not been paid. Easy mistake, especially with a new user.

[honeysuckle-lane]

@fuzzyfreakbrother

This is exactly how the scammer hoped this would go. Sorry you had to learn a hard lesson.

[swenson8781]

I think if I were you, I'd be inclined to at least phone the police and get their opinion.  Minimally, I would report on the actionfraud.police.uk site, and I'd email the buyer to let them know that I was taking those actions.  If your 'buyer' isn't a true scammer, rather simply an opportunist, that might give them the kick in the rear they need to make payment.

It looks like the Action Fraud site keeps track of unsavory characters in your area, so if your scammer were to pull this again and be reported, I'm guessing they'd get a phone call from someone.

And no judgement from me, we've all made mistakes!  Sorry this one has cost you.

[fuzzyfreakbrother]

So, two things to be thankful for today.

The first is that after an early start this morning, as the sun rose to a clear sky I opened my e-mail to find you wonderful lot with your incredibly supportive messages. It made the frustration and anger dissappear and helped me to accept that there are bad people in the World but there are more good people, ready to spend their time for a felllow human being. Thanks to you all, you have restored my faith in humanity.

The second is that he just paid me!  Yep, after apologising for mucking me about, he promised to pay me tomrrow, then to my surprise, after I supplied him with an anonymous e-mail address associated with my PayPal account, he paid me.  He even paid me the fee I was charged by Paypal, so I now have the money in its entirety, plus he offered me a coffee if I was ever to pass his cafe 🙂

There was one request from him though - he pleaded with me to remove the unpaid item strike as he says "It affects my selling".....I suddenly feel empowered, yet I mustn't go down to his level right?

Weekend looks rosy all of a sudden.

Thanks ebay community!