Wrong Address Scam?

[thepokepilot]

I'm a fairly new ebay seller, so excuse my ignorance. I sold a Nikon digital camera and immediately got a message from someone that said "Hello, my address is wrong. Please help me cancel the order." Literally minutes after that, I got another message from the buyer who said "Hi, I'm the buyer of this thing. My eBay ID is **** . I just paid for this order. I want to assure you that I will not cancel my order. Please deliver the goods as soon as possible. If someone says that the address is wrong to close the order, please don't believe that person. My address is correct." They then proceeded to send a legitimate screenshot of the order. Is this somehow a scam? Ebay shows that the payment is processing and that I should get the money. I'm just confused. Thanks!

[bonjourami]

Kind of sounds like your buyers partner may have tried to cancel the order and he found out about it? All you can do is ship to the Ebay address you were given with payment. If you are really concerned about all this you can cancel the transaction using problem with buyers address, its up to you. You wont get a defect using that option but you may get a negative feedback. Up to you.

[cityslickercreations2004]

Do NOT change any buyer's address, ever.

Sellers have limited protections and changing a buyer's address really puts you at risk.

Buyer #1    "Hello, my address is wrong. Please help me cancel the order."

Buyer has requested  a cancellation due to an incorrect address. Cancel this order as problem with buyer's address. Then go to your ebay message box and archive their cancelation message as a precaution. 

Buyer #2 claims to have a different ebay ID but the correct address. Ignore the screenshot, promises and anything else they throw at you. This may be the original buyer but I am sceptical. 

I would only communicate with Buyer #1. Something is not right here. Stay vigilant.

[thepokepilot]

To clarify, the person who messaged me first must have known about the order, but they were not the "buyer." The buyer told me to ship to the address that's listed. The original person never gave an address nor any information other than the message they sent me. I've already processed the order as shipped. Should I not have done that?

[bonjourami]

"To clarify, the person who messaged me first must have known about the order, but they were not the "buyer." The buyer told me to ship to the address that's listed. The original person never gave an address nor any information other than the message they sent me. I've already processed the order as shipped. Should I not have done that?"

As long as you ship to the address on the payment, you should be ok. I mean as ok as any seller on Ebay.

[a_c_green]

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@thepokepilot wrote:

To clarify, the person who messaged me first must have known about the order, but they were not the "buyer."

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@thepokepilot : The person who messaged you first was probably just monitoring sold listings in the category of interest. That's a standard scam (which your real buyer seems to be aware of): send the seller a note claiming to be the original buyer using a different ID for some vague reason, and try to get the seller to send the item to him instead at a different address.

If the ID of the sender is not that of your buyer, ignore it. You ship only to the address received with the payment, and you communicate only with the original ID of your buyer.

[kensgiftshop]

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@thepokepilot wrote:

To clarify, the person who messaged me first must have known about the order, but they were not the "buyer." The buyer told me to ship to the address that's listed. The original person never gave an address nor any information other than the message they sent me. I've already processed the order as shipped. Should I not have done that?

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Scammers will watch for certain items to sell and as soon as they do, they send a message claiming to be the buyer, wanting to change the address.

A lot of new sellers fall for it and don't know they've been scammed until the real buyer ask where their item is.

As long as you ship to the address on the order, should be ok.

[cityslickercreations2004]

If you shipped to the address provided by ebay you should be fine.

Your experience just demonstrates how quickly a transaction can get turned upside down.

[mam98031]

@thepokepilot 

This does happen from time to time.  If you have NOT shipped the item, I would cancel the transaction using the reason of problem with the buyer's address.  This sounds like it is going to be a problematic transaction if you try to save it.  NEVER EVER agree to change a ship to address.  ONLY ship to the address on the payment notification.  NO exceptions.

If you have shipped the item make sure you shipped the item per Ebay's requirements, you would be covered under Seller Protection if the buyer were to file an INR.  The buyer would not win.

The things you need to do to qualify for seller protection is:  Ship within your stated handling time, ship with electronic tracking, update the listing with the tracking number if you used another label source other than Ebay and if the sale was $750+ you need to require a signature upon delivery.

Do not worry about your feedback.  If the buyer did venture out to try and post a negative feedback, chances are extremely high you could get it removed for cause.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:

@thepokepilot 

This does happen from time to time.  If you have NOT shipped the item, I would cancel the transaction using the reason of problem with the buyer's address.

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The above would apply only if the message comes from the actual buyer (i.e. from the same ID). In this case the OP has already said that the address change attempt did not come from the buyer, and in fact the buyer himself contacted the seller to emphasize that he was not requesting any changes of any kind. 

It appears that the address-change scam attempts are so common in that area that even regular buyers are aware of it.

[albertabrightalberta]

@thepokepilot 

Always check the ebay ID of the person asking for cancellations, change of address, etc. to see if it's the ID of the actual buyer on the order. 

If not, block that person and do not cancel or change the address. Ship to the address shown on the ebay order page. 

If the actual buyer asks you to change the address (and you've verified that it's the buyer), tell the buyer you need to cancel the order, payment will be automatically refunded and you will relist the item. Make sure they know to give the correct address when they buy the relisted item.

[christworks]

A similar I've seen happen to other sellers is when 2nd buyer wants the item, but someone bought it out from under them. The 2nd buyer sends a message that says something like, "Hey, I just bought XYZ item. I messed up my address, can you cancel the order and relist?" The seller, who may even be in the middle of working on listings, quickly cancels and relists without realizing the 2nd buyer is under a different user id. By the time the 1st buyer realizes their order has been cancelled, the 2nd buyer has scooped in and bought the item. 

Always check user IDs from buyers to make sure they match.