Help me figure out the angle on this buyer scam

[lalo9797]

I had a recent sale of an Apple iPad and something about the transaction seems hinkey. I just thought I'd put something up there to see if anyone has had a similar experience and can help me figure out what the scam is. I should first say that I've been an eBay seller for a long time and as such I've experienced more than a few scammers and fraudsters, especially with selling Apple gear. 

In this case, the sale of the one year-old Apple iPad Pro ended and the buyer was M.I.A. No after sale communication. 48 hours after sale and the payment never came through. Fearing I had a deadbeat bidder, I looked at the account to see if there were any clues that they were a scammer. Of course, they had feedback and the account was not new. But other than a few recent transactions for small things, there seemed to be a gap in the account usage. Not a good sign.

I sent a message to the buyer asking her to let me know if she did not intend to complete the transaction so that I still had a decent chance of getting a Second Chance buyer before everyone had moved on and I had to re-list the item and wait for another 7-day auction to run. The buyer did finally get back to me with some drama-filled story about how she went to make payment but realized her wallet was missing so she had to scramble to retrace her steps to find it. (Something did not ring true about this but I didn't feel the need to comment). She said that she was ultimately able to connect with her PayPal account and make payment. (The payment came through eBay's system, actually. So I'm not sure if the source was PayPal. I guess it could have been). 

Anyway, with the payment in hand I shipped the iPad to the provided PO Box in Tennessee the next day. The name of the recipient was "Annie G." (no last name provided beyond that) which was not the same name as the eBay account holder.  The parcel was delivered a few days later and then........nothing. No one picked it up.  According to the USPS tracking they sent a reminder to the person that the parcel was available to pick up but no one ever retrieved it. And three weeks later it is presumably still sitting there at the PO Box.

A subsequent message was sent to the buyer but to date I've not had the courtesy of a response. So this is the basis of thew weirdness, beyond the (suspect) drama-filled tale about lost wallets.  Who pays $1,000 for an iPad on eBay and then seems fairly unconcerned about receiving it?  I mean, I've been around for a while and I've seen and heard some things. But this one just seems odd. More than three weeks elapsed. The iPad still sitting there. And the buyer no longer responding to messages. 

I called eBay support today and discussed this situation. They agreed it is odd and have made a note on the account. They've also assured me that Seller Protection should cover me should this woman retract her payment.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my podcast. If anyone else has had a similar experience I'd be grateful to hear from you. 

[katzrul15]

@lalo9797  - you did use Signature confirmation for this order correct?  To be protected as a Seller, any item over the $750 threshold requires same.  

if your parcel is ineligible for intercept, it is considered "delivered".  If that is the case, I would not be spending the money, just yet.  

[wahlstreetmkt]

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@lalo9797 wrote:

Thanks everyone for the responses. Unfortunately, the USPS system is saying that the package is ineligible for intercept.

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Maybe try contacting the post office holding the item and see if it's possible to go around the website.

[lalo9797]

Thanks. The point is moot if it is ineligible to recall. I just looked at the auction again and I think I originally had the shipping listed as Fed Ex Ground. But I changed it on the fly after the close of auction as USPS appeared to be a bit less expensive. So that may have complicated things for this scammer who now (for whatever reason) cannot show ID and sign for this package. And according to the USPS website, they will return the package to me this coming Saturday which is 15 days since the first delivery attempt was made. So I guess we'll see what happens. 

[nuclearomen]

if buyer doesn't pick up package from post office in 30 days it will be automatically returned to sender. End.

[nuclearomen]

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@lalo9797 wrote:

Thanks everyone for the responses. Unfortunately, the USPS system is saying that the package is ineligible for intercept.

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because it's not in transit anymore - obviously - so there is no package to intercept. Like i said before - if package isn't picked up in 30 days the package is then returned to sender. 

[duffy4444]

Greetings, chapabargain,

     This also happens occasionally on accounts with higher feedback, too. Scammers  are getting bolder. I currently am approaching 10,000 feedbacks. In the recent past a couple scammers even tried pulling one on me when I had around 6,000 feedbacks. Of course I laughed and dispatched the problem immediately, reported them to Ebay, and made use of my BBL. I don't get scammed anymore.

       In the funniest case, at about 5500 feedbacks I had sold a $60 picture book and shipped it. After it was delivered, the buyer emailed me a photo of the book that looked like it had been run over with a tank. The buyer opened an INAD claim and demanded a full refund without the need to return a destroyed book, of course. I responded that I would be glad to give a full refund when he returned the book and I could confirm that it was the same book I sent by my having put a hidden secret mark on one of the pages to prove it was my book. I never heard from him again, and the INAD case timed out. He was obviously trying to replace for free his own copy that was somehow destroyed.

 Cheers, Duffy   

[nuclearomen]

but there is nothing to "scam" - the buyer purchased the item, item was shipped to a po box, buyer hasn't picked up package - that isn't a scam, that's someone who hasn't picked up a package. 

[duffy4444]

  Greetings again, nuclearomen,

     I said it MIGHT be a scam, and maybe not. But from all the unusual details and red flags that even the OP said made him think it might be, it also made me wonder, because I've seen enough heartache on this board from trusting sellers who lost out to scammers that are smarter than they are.

     My post was a warning not only to the OP, but to other sellers, especially new ones who might wander into this forum and don't know of the current epidemic of very smart buyer scams.

     Yes, let's hope the buyer comes thru, or the seller gets his item returned after the 15-day USPS pickup window.

Cheers, Duffy 

[luckythewinner]

It is possible that she did pick it up, and the peson at the counter forgot to scan the item as delivered. 

Just last week I dropped off an item at the post office, and the person at the counter scanned it, printed the receipt, and then handed the receipt and the package back to me. 

I got all the way back to my car before I realized what had happened. 

[nuclearomen]

@duffy4444 I get it - i do, as a seller on this platform things run through my mind all the time - every sale made - possibilities are there for scams and I don't deny that at all. But I also come to these boards and see a lot of posts about scams and sellers making post on assumptions that maybe or maybe not the whole case to the story/situation. What I meant - for this instance - is not to be so quick to label a scam - to me, and this happens to me with sales now and then, buyer simply isn't available to pick up packages all the time from post office and so they sit for a while. I have also had them sent back to me few times for buyer exceeding the 30 day hold time at USPS. I have one now actually in my recent sales, po box to florida - buyer has not picked it up - usps issued 2 notices to buyer already - expect within next week it will be sent back to me by USPS. 

At this point, this situation, isn't a scam - yet - if buyer picks it up declarers to open case on buyer - then I would say - yeah - something is fishy.

[duffy4444]

   Yes, I agree that at this point it is not a scam, only possibly one. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I do hope it has a positive outcome, and all the red flags that the OP saw and detailed were premature.

Duffy

[sin-n-dex]

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@duffy4444 wrote:

Greetings, chapabargain,

     This also happens occasionally on accounts with higher feedback, too. Scammers  are getting bolder. I currently am approaching 10,000 feedbacks. In the recent past a couple scammers even tried pulling one on me when I had around 6,000 feedbacks. Of course I laughed and dispatched the problem immediately, reported them to Ebay, and made use of my BBL. I don't get scammed anymore.

       In the funniest case, at about 5500 feedbacks I had sold a $60 picture book and shipped it. After it was delivered, the buyer emailed me a photo of the book that looked like it had been run over with a tank. The buyer opened an INAD claim and demanded a full refund without the need to return a destroyed book, of course. I responded that I would be glad to give a full refund when he returned the book and I could confirm that it was the same book I sent by my having put a hidden secret mark on one of the pages to prove it was my book. I never heard from him again, and the INAD case timed out. He was obviously trying to replace for free his own copy that was somehow destroyed.

 Cheers, Duffy   

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A buyer recently took advantage of a lack of delivery scan to get a free item from me. He pulled something similiar on a guy who had 100K feedback who is too busy shipping 10K things a month to bother dealing with the INR and just refunded him (I contacted this buyer). Then he tries it on me think I'm too busy to deal with this nonsense. (He has another think coming, I will give up my whole evening to deal with a scammer or someone trying to damage my account).

I ended up calling the buyer's post office to tell them they forgot to scan the package and their error was going to cost me about $80. They apologized, I said "don't be sorry, just update the scan", which they did. Then the INR closed in my favour. The delivery scan was backdated to the actual delivery day (a week prior to the INR being opened), and when that scan updated miraculously the package was delivered that day and the post office had been "holding it for a while for some unknown reason". Anyway BBL for the buyer, he won't be doing that to me again. I'm also reasonably good with remembering names and addresses of my scammers in case they try with another account (like one guy did, then I cancelled his purchase).

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

but there is nothing to "scam" - the buyer purchased the item, item was shipped to a po box, buyer hasn't picked up package - that isn't a scam, that's someone who hasn't picked up a package. 

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I've always said rule number one of scams, the item matters, a lot.

When my buyer tried to scam me on a lack of delivery scan, I knew immediately it was a scam because of what he bought. Had he bought some stamps or something of historic value that only matters to a collector, I might have been more inclined to believe he really didn't get his package.

I had a joke a few years ago when I was shipping from Canada without tracking, that the mailmen all new when there was about an ounce of silver in a package because those are the only packages that seemed to get "stolen in the mail". It was bad enough that I wasn't taking those types of coins from the shop because 50% of them magically never arrived. I rarely ever had any other type of package not arrive, just the silver coin ones.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

It is possible that she did pick it up, and the peson at the counter forgot to scan the item as delivered. 

Just last week I dropped off an item at the post office, and the person at the counter scanned it, printed the receipt, and then handed the receipt and the package back to me. 

I got all the way back to my car before I realized what had happened. 

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If the OP knows which post office they can call and inquire. The post office should be able to say if they have it or not. If it was delivered and not scanned and an INR is filed, then the OP should be able to file for some type of insurance (which is probably meagre compared to the item's value).

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@duffy4444 wrote:

   Yes, I agree that at this point it is not a scam, only possibly one. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I do hope it has a positive outcome, and all the red flags that the OP saw and detailed were premature.

Duffy

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In two days we'll find out if the package is on it's way back.

I still advise the OP to call the post office and inquire. I always find it helpful to gather information quickly so I can make informed decisions.

C.