Sold an IPHONE 11 Pro and i got scammed

[kurt_sto]

I sold an Iphone 11 Pro, unopened brand new that i won at a holiday work party. ughh first the buyer claimed that it was opened when he received it. I sent pictures of the unopened box as it was being shipped. A week later he claims that the phone is locked. guess what?

 Ebay says there is nothing i can do about it! I have to refund his money and accept the stolen Iphone, or rock or whatever is sent back to me. regardless of having pictures, tracking numbers, and a receipt for the new purchase.  better yet, there is feedback in his reviews where he has done this before. EBAY wont help and Paypal wont help. Ebay wont even let my dispute him, nothing!! really disappointing, ill stick with amazon for all of my purchases. 

  Anybody have any ideas of anything else I can do. i have spent a total of 2 hours on the phone with paypal and 4 hours with EBAY, they all just keep repeating the same thing they are reading from the computer screen.  Further more i asked what happens if i dont get my phone back, the response was :there nothing EBAY can do

[mvls1]

If you have the ID # of the phone, I think you can contact Apple, report the phone stolen and they will be able to brick it for you so it cannot have service to it. That will at least give you the satisfaction of having sold him an I Phone 11 paper weight instead of a new phone!

[gwzcomps]

This is the irony of eBay pushing individuals to sell their phone on eBay. I feel bad for the people who do this since electronics are a high scam item and shouldn't be sold on eBay by casual sellers.

They won't back you up on this. Also you will lose out on the $30 worth of PayPal fees you paid. Best you can do is report your phone as being stolen and wait to see what they send back. Depending on what happens I would let the buyer know you plan on filing a police report with your city and their city. You can also file a Mail Fraud report with USPS and do an IC3 report. Also report the buyer to eBay through their system for funsies. Hopefully it works out, but the cynic in me wonders otherwise 😞

[wesk_36]

You can't really do anything until you receive it back to confirm if it was switched or not, so technically you could still get your original phone back even if your senses are screaming fraud.

There is an app called "Find My" that would lock the phone if you reported to Apple as  lost but if it was unused then you wouldn't have an Apple account with it. (phone activated and an iCloud account)

Likewise, if it's reported stolen, there would have to be an active account to report and disable, as far as I know.

If anyone could have Apple disable a phone, before it was registered and had an active account, then chaos would result.

Apple suggests reporting stolen phones to law enforcement with the serial number.
You could only report it to law enforcement with a serial number as stolen but given that it was an ebay transaction, they may be reluctant to get involved.

Ebay won't back you, that's the nature of their policies. It would be your word against the buyers word and ebay wouldn't know what was sent back to you or what you sent despite tons of pictures.

I think gwzcomps summed it up succinctly as far as actions to take, but again, until you get something returned, you cannot claim it was stolen yet. If you are "lucky", the buyer changed their mind but claimed otherwise to avoid return shipping costs.

[nkmipgolf]

eBay's return policy can make anybody a scammer now.  My money is on a stolen phone, if so tell him you will return it personally to him at 3am. wink wink

[gwzcomps]

That is a good point. I was thinking more along the lines of a preemptive strike to force the buyer's hand. Probably not the best route to report it as stolen till something is returned. I did not consider how that would run the risk of complicating things.

[luckythewinner]

I have to refund his money and accept the stolen Iphone, or rock or whatever is sent back to me.

Or the original iPhone.

regardless of having pictures, tracking numbers, and a receipt for the new purchase

If all it took was a picture and a receipt to win a case, unscrupulous sellers on eBay would have a field day. Bcaise pictures and receipts can be fraudulent, just like returns.

Secure selling and buying environment my ass.

Who told you this was a secure selling environment? The eBay user agreement states clearly that you agree to let eBay do anything they want when there is a dispute: 

"You agree to comply with the policy and permit us to make a final decision on any eBay Money Back Guarantee case."

[papermoneyforme]

---

@kurt_sto wrote:

I sold an Iphone 11 Pro, unopened brand new that i won at a holiday work party. ughh first the buyer claimed that it was opened when he received it. I sent pictures of the unopened box as it was being shipped. A week later he claims that the phone is locked. guess what?

 Ebay says there is nothing i can do about it! I have to refund his money and accept the stolen Iphone, or rock or whatever is sent back to me. regardless of having pictures, tracking numbers, and a receipt for the new purchase.  better yet, there is feedback in his reviews where he has done this before. EBAY wont help and Paypal wont help. Ebay wont even let my dispute him, nothing!! really disappointing, ill stick with amazon for all of my purchases. 

  Anybody have any ideas of anything else I can do. i have spent a total of 2 hours on the phone with paypal and 4 hours with EBAY, they all just keep repeating the same thing they are reading from the computer screen.  Further more i asked what happens if i dont get my phone back, the response was :there nothing EBAY can do

---

If you lose the phone, your only recourse will be the Luigi and Guido Collection Agency.

Maybe go to the press as well. If enough people do this, it may have some results as the stock holders may not want all the bad publicity.

[kensgiftshop]

If buyer has filed an INAD, all you can do now is accept the return and provide return shipping.

[nickelsanddimes2015]

You will have to take the return back however in your pictures it shows the serial number on the box in your listing so if you get the phone back and it doesn't match the phones serial number on the box you can call back ebay again and ask for a supervisor and then ask for trust and safety.

I had a customer claim that there was something wrong with an item which I knew was incorrect that I sold for $400, I accepted the return and when I received the item back it was all rusted out, dented and so on so obviously the guy sent back his old unit and kept my new one. I got on the phone right away with ebay they sent me to trust and safety and basically told me all I had to do was go down to the police department and file a theft claim and I received my money back as soon as I uploaded the report from the police department.

Make sure you accept the return though because if ebay steps in as soon as it shows delivered that money comes out of your account immediately but this way you have a couple of days to get to the police dept.

[bussanmasb]

I did get my phone back but he pass-coded it so I'm not able to access it at all. It's locked. What the?

[bussanmasb]

I will never use ebay again. Not only did I lose money for fees, etc., but when the buyer returned my iphone it was locked so now I'm screwed. What can I do? He won't even respond to me.

[bussanmasb]

How do you find the ID # of the phone if it's locked?

[bussanmasb]

I feel your pain. Ebay sucks. Everything I've tried going through Ebay doesn't work because they say "the case is closed". What a crock!

[orangehound]

---

@kurt_sto wrote:

Anybody have any ideas of anything else I can do. i have spent a total of 2 hours on the phone with paypal and 4 hours with EBAY, they all just keep repeating the same thing they are reading from the computer screen.  Further more i asked what happens if i dont get my phone back, the response was :there nothing EBAY can do

---

First, just let me say that I sympathize with your situation.  It happens a lot with new sellers and expensive items ... eBay does not do newly enough to help educate new sellers, and warn them of the potential negative things that can happen.  Just the opposite - eBay actually encourages new sellers to get expose themselves to such situations.

Second, it is possible that you will get back the original phone, simply because a lot of buyers are honest but just don't know much about technology.

Third, on the off-chance that you have encountered a thief (and not merely an incompetent buyer), and they return something back to you that is different than what you sent, then you can send a polite email requesting that the correct item be returned or you will file criminal charges and file charges with the USPS for mail fraud ... that small threat might loosen the phone from the hands of kids, but not seasoned criminals.