Hello,
Recently our company got scammed by two different buyers on eBay stole from us approx $2,000 worth of items. That was a very silly scam and clearly fraudulent activities. Buyer 1 located out of the US and based in (Georgia) according to the extra 1.5% international fee we got charged. Purchased an item worth over $680 and had it shipped to his logistic/forwarders based in Brooklyn NY. Once the buyer received the item they immediately opened a return request with some kind of an excuse. We automatically approved the return and provided a USPS return label. That return label was never used and the return status was in "waiting for buyer to ship return". a week later or so we receive some envelope from USPS which we had no idea where it came from and who it came from. We opened the envelope and saw some cheap $1 item inside and had no idea what that was and who sent it so we just put it on the side thought maybe it belongs to our next door neighbors. Couple days later a case was opened by the buyer letting eBay know they returned the item and that it was delivered to us by providing eBay a USPS tracking number. We thought that was some kind of an error as eBay saw a "Delivered" tracking notice that the buyer provided them with and immediately issued a full refund to the buyer out of our account. We digged into this more and tried to find out how this item was returned back when the return status remained on "waiting for buyer to ship the return" and the label was never used. We went into the buyer's order details and guess what? We found a second tracking number that the buyer/scammer provided eBay with to let them know he shipped the return already. I then remembered we put on the side an envelope that came from USPS and checked the label attached to it and boom that was the same tracking the scammer provided ebay with. So what exactly did they do? Very simple, Since the scammer is out of state and didn't really meant to ship anything back just to steal from us and other sellers he simply went on another online market place, Purchased a $1 item and put our shipping address for that item in order to obtain a USPS tracking number and a delivery notice for eBay. YES SIMPLE AS THAT. The same scammer from the same country "Georgia" did the same scam to our company over a year ago with the same easy trick however back then eBay protected us and confirmed that was a scam and refunded us back the money. This time we appealed the outcome decision since the case was closed under the buyer's favor but eBay decided to keep the original outcome with a refund to the scammer. We tried again emailing eBay explaining how they scammed us and manipulated eBay's system but nothing helped as it seems that nobody at eBay really cares or read our emails whatsoever and we only get replies with same templates like email bots. this scam is very stupid as eBay should understand but nobody really helped us via emails nor chat with live agents. Our company been on eBay since 2016 with 100% feedbacks and no issues whatsoever. Seems to me that since covid eBay don't really have any agents that are really live reading emails and investigating the real issues as it seems that only bots are replying back without even reading anything or replying with any sense to our emails. That was over a month ago. Moving forward, ebay invited a new scammer to their platform which purchased an item worth over $1,200 from us. We shipped the item as usual via USPS, a week later the buyer emailed us and opened a case saying they didn't receive the item yet and that was true it wasn't delivered. Buyer asked for a refund however we told the buyer to give us some time so we can investigate this issue and contact USPS. We did contact USPS and guess what they told us, The buyer contacted USPS requesting to have this package on hold for him to pickup however their request is not showing on USPS website and this buyer knew exactly that USPS website is not accurate and updated so he knew how to manipulate it. Moving forward, Buyer had it on hold in order to contact eBay to let them know that he never received the package and that he wants a refund and planned to get the refund and then stop by their local USPS office to pickup the package, However this didn't go well for them as we extended the time of our investigation with ebay in order to resolve the issue. 14 days passed and USPS returned back the package to our company since it was unclaimed by the buyer. Thank god we received it back and then we issued a refund to this buyer. However this buyer didn't give up as he made the same purchase again for the same exact item. NO we didn't ship to them again, We canceled their order. Guess what? he still didn't give up, he purchased the item under a different user id and yes we knew it was the same person but this time we did ship the item with FedEx as we knew fedex are more accurate and harder to manipulate. So we shipped fedex using signature required, Buyer received the item and signed for it. 2 weeks later opens a return request claiming that his father is saying that inside the package is not the real item they purchased, instead he claims he received a screen protector for an iPhone instead of a real iPhone device in a box. We immediately knew he's about to scam us for the $1,200 so we let eBay know about this but they told us to wait until we receive the return and then report them. So ye they returned back a stupid screen protector instead of a real iphone device and yes we reported them but guess what? eBay closed the case under the buyer's favor. We appealed the decision provided proofs of the actual weight we shipped with FedEx and actual weight we received back but again eBay decided to keep the original outcome and not refund us back the money or even ban this scammer. So ye guys just wanted to share my experience with these scams so hopefully other sellers won't fall for that but i'm not sure how not to fall for that when you get an order and simply ship but then get this issue and ebay not protecting you as a seller. You can't even becareful as there's not much you can do. I have sent over 50 emails to ebay explaining and explaining their tricks and scams, providing photos and proofs but nobody is understanding or helping. Anyway just wanted to share this with all good sellers out there and maybe some real eBay agent will get in touch with me with a real resolution.
KrazzyKats • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1998
