Did I get scammed? Or was it my fault

[jackliu1001]

Alright, leme get this straight.

About two months ago, I sold 2 GPUs to a buyer (he had over 200 ratings) for a total of 1075.05 dollars. The buyer sent the payment to the wrong address of PayPal (for some unknown reason), I decided to simply add that email to my Paypal account (and mailed the items to him since payment was on the way), however, the payment automatically canceled and the buyer refused to resent the payment. I have contacted Paypal multiple times and they were unable to reach the buyer as well. 

This was my first time selling and I had a lot going on so I wasn't able to deal with this ASAP, but right now, I've decided to file a police report against him. Is this my fault or am I taking the right actions? 

[kensgiftshop]

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@jackliu1001 wrote:

I've decided to file a police report against him. Is this my fault or am I taking the right actions? 

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You shipped the item before making sure the payment was received, so why would you file a police report?

This is all on you.

[iart]

There's a difference between being scammed and simply running across a dishonest buyer who will take advantage of a situation if presented to them.

It sounds like you gave them that opportunity.

I think you should continue to pursue it. Through Paypal or eBay or any others who might be able to step in.

[fashunu4eeuh]

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@releasethekraken_1 wrote:

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

That doesn't work as you discovered, and though remote, the added email might have already belonged to another account which could have complicated matters. 

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If the address already belonged to another PayPal account, the OP would not have been able to add it to theirs.

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Oh duh, you are right. My bad.

[releasethekraken_1]

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@jackliu1001 wrote:

To clarify a few things:

1. I triple checked the Paypal address, I even reset it to make sure it ends up in the intended address 

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WHERE did you check it? What do you mean, you "reset" it? There's no "reset" option in the Payments section of a listing when you create it.

[lagarto_electronico]

You are not morally or ethically at fault. However, your naivete caused you to make some basic errors that made it easy for you to be scammed.

The reason was not unknown. The goal was to make it appear that you accepted Payment outside of the parameters of the transaction, negating any protections that eBay offers.

You should have reversed payment to the incorrect PayPal email address and requested the person send it to the correct PayPal email address (which they would naturally have refused). You are not going to outsmart a scammer by adding the email address to your PayPal account. In fact, it was likely a criminal enterprise that targeted you, not a single individual.

Worse, there is a good chance that scammer(s) actually has access to the email address you added to your PayPal account, so if I were you I would remove that new email address ASAP and change the passwords to it as well.