Buyer scam?

[bykergyrl]

Hey everyone. I've never posted before, and I'm just casual eBay seller. I've only ever had good experiences with buyers in the past, and I've had something odd happen. I sold an item a couple days ago (collector plate)to a buyer who had just created her eBay account that day. It was a Buy it Now item and she paid immediately with PayPal. I packaged the item and printed the label. Two hours later, another plate from the same collection was purchased and paid for. Paid for out of the same PayPal account and to be shipped to the same address, however it was under a different eBay account with different name also opened that very same day. The user names were very similar. The only difference was the use of an underscore. I was immediately suspicious, but since I've never had anything but good experiences, I figured I was overreacting and shipped this item out as well. Both items shipped with free shipping for the buyer, and cost me about $24 to ship both. I made about $10 profit each. Now, two days later it's still bothering me that something "scammy" may happen. Anyone ever experience anything like this? Any good advice? Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

I think you're worrying about nothing.

[nkmipgolf]

Is the money in your PayPal account? scammers now send a fake PayPal email and ask for gift cards to go with the item.

[le-5262]

I'm not qualified to answer per se...

but I assume that when they come across like that

it's not an Ebay account

just a sort of transaction marker  

[this*old*attic]

More than one EBay account can attach to the same PayPal account.

 I’m not seeing plates as a high scam item.

[bykergyrl]

I guess I can see where you're coming from there. Let me just give an example. Item sold to Joe Smith with user name joeblow0, with zero feedback rating and account opened 1/30/2020. The another similar items sells two hours later to Andre Vacovich with the user name joeblow_0 with zero feedback rating and account opened 1/30/2020.  PayPal account for both is Joe Smith. Both items ship to the same address.

The others are probably right, I'm probably worried for no reason, but the whole thing felt weird from the beginning. Maybe just women's intuition, lol. 

Thank you, btw, for your input. 

[bykergyrl]

I have the money. I'm leaving it untouched because something tells me that my item or items will arrive "damaged". I packed the items so well, it would take an elephant stomping on it to damage the plates, lol.

[gramophone-georg]

Buyer buying as a guest, perhaps?

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi! Any buyer can scam any item at any time on eBay.

But in your case, i would define what happened as just two sales. It may be out of the ordinary for a buyer to use different names, but there are reasons that might happen beyond scamming. And new buyers come to the platform every day. A lack of sales history is not suspicious in and of itself. Guest accounts are all zero feedback, for example.

In the ten years i've been selling here, have never been a target of fraud. The fact is that most transactions go off without a hitch and far fewer go south than one might think. Here in the forums, there are a lot of reports of sellers getting scammed, but it is the nature of the boards. Folks primarily come here looking for help, which might give a false impression of fraud prevalence. 

Scams happen, it is a sad fact, but i try not to sweat over a transaction in anticipation of something going wrong. It would make me crazy. My basic philosophy is that i don’t expect problems and don’t worry until something actually happens. So just have your eyes wide open, avoid high fraud items, learn the ropes and read eBay's policies and practices. Good luck to you, and congrats on your two recent sales! 

[tibaek]

be careful, they might be a scammer

[inhawaii]

I had that exact same thing happen to me before.

It turns out the buyer had some kind of ebay promotional coupon code. Limit 1 per username. So he/she created a second username and bought a second identical item, shipped to the same person at the same address. 

Could that be what's happening here?

[bykergyrl]

That makes me feel so much better! I've never had or even heard of eBay promotional coupons, but that makes sense. Thank you for your help! 

[sin-n-dex]

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@bykergyrl wrote:

Hey everyone. I've never posted before, and I'm just casual eBay seller. I've only ever had good experiences with buyers in the past, and I've had something odd happen. I sold an item a couple days ago (collector plate)to a buyer who had just created her eBay account that day. It was a Buy it Now item and she paid immediately with PayPal. I packaged the item and printed the label. Two hours later, another plate from the same collection was purchased and paid for. Paid for out of the same PayPal account and to be shipped to the same address, however it was under a different eBay account with different name also opened that very same day. The user names were very similar. The only difference was the use of an underscore. I was immediately suspicious, but since I've never had anything but good experiences, I figured I was overreacting and shipped this item out as well. Both items shipped with free shipping for the buyer, and cost me about $24 to ship both. I made about $10 profit each. Now, two days later it's still bothering me that something "scammy" may happen. Anyone ever experience anything like this? Any good advice? Thanks! 

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It could be a guest purchase, in which case an ID is created when the purchase is made. She decided to go back and buy more. I've done that with things where I buy a few, think better of it, and go buy more a little while later (hours or days later).

Collectable plates are not a high scam item. Few people under the age of 50 have a house big enough to put up all sorts of plates on display, so the likely case is that your buyer is an older customer who has been collecting for years, and just liked two of your plates.

Scammers like things they can flip for money fast (bullion, electronics, gift cards), they don't pay for stuff, they make excuses to get information to pretend they've paid, ask for extra things that aren't in the listing (like gift cards).

You run the risk of getting a SNAD (like the plate breaks in shipping, or they change their mind and lie about it's condition to get a refund). You run that risk with all customers and any customer.

Don't worry unless you hear something...

C.