eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎10-23-2019

So shortly after 3pm I sold something. Not a high scam item, nothing that is highly coveted, nothing I get asked questions about. It's an item a friend gave me that he thinks is garbage, and I thought it would be worth a few bucks to try and sell it to someone. That's worked out because I've sold this item a few times in the past couple of years.

So one minute after the notification that it sold, I get an email from paypal telling me the transaction is under review. I was a little suspicious, so I went directly to Paypal site to see what was going on and it told me the money is on hold. A minute or so later the paid notification came through.

7 minutes later, Paypal sends me a note telling me that they've cancelled the transaction and sent the funds back to the customer.

all done, right? Wrong.

I find out on eBay that it's showing that the item is paid, and on my phone between then and now, I've received an additional 6 notifications that payment is received and that it's OK to ship. But Paypal is still showing nothing since the refund.

So I called Paypal first, and the lady I spoke to told me "the transaction is cancelled, there's no way she can pay you with that account". (It was suggested from my prodding that someone is buying with someone else's account, and that's the reason it's suspicious).

I followed that up with a call to eBay where the following things were conveyed to the rep:

1. Do you realize if I cancel the transaction you will issue a refund to the customer even though she's been refunded.

2. Do you realize if she claims non receipt of the item she will win the case and you will refund her. (He asked if the person telling me that was an actual eBay employee, to which I pointed to this forum and said real members are experiencing this first hand)

3. eBay is telling me I need to ship by this date or get a late defect, and I haven't even been paid yet.

The rep told me there's synchronization between eBay and Paypal and because she keeps attempting to pay me she's constantly sending the message that I've received funds before Paypal blocks the transfer (which is why I don't see anything on Paypal). So I'm waiting it out to see what will happen. The eBay rep told me that under the circumstances I should not engage the buyer in any discussion. (She has not contacted me about this).

Any feedback? I get something weird happen every 3-4 months... looks like it's that time again.

C.

coffeebean832 · ‎10-23-2019

Can't you go to the eBay transaction and manually mark it as unpaid?

I went to look and the choice in the drop down is- unmark as payment received.

sin-n-dex · ‎10-23-2019

@coffeebean832 wrote:
Can't you go to the eBay transaction and manually mark it as unpaid?

I went to look and the choice in the drop down is- unmark as payment received.

I hadn't tried that, and the eBay rep didn't suggest my doing this either.

He gave me directions on how to archive the transaction (at least I think that's what the instructions were). I use the seller hub, and he had me go into a different web layout of the selling page to "delete" the transaction so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore.

It won't do me any good though if the buyer claims non receipt and tries to get a refund. Although I'm not sure that's what their after. As of 5 minutes ago I received yet another notification that I had just been paid, ship now.

C.

csbbct · ‎10-23-2019

It's possible the buyer could have had problems getting the payment to go through and did it six times thinking it didn't work. Maybe that's why Paypal cancelled the transaction? Did they share with you the reason why they cancelled it?

Or, there are scams with sellers getting fake Paypal emails, but this doesn't seem to fit the same mold. In those cases, buyers were talking sellers into giving them their email addresses and sending them fake payment messages. I haven't heard any that made a real Paypal payment first to get that email address, but you never know what someone might be trying for the next scam.

Maybe because Paypal cancelled the payment, there is a delay in getting that over to eBay? I would wait to see what happens in the next few hours, then call Paypal again. Hopefully they'll work this through with you.

Good luck and please come back to update us so if it happens to anyone else we'll have a record of the results.

sin-n-dex · ‎10-23-2019

@csbbct wrote:
It's possible the buyer could have had problems getting the payment to go through and did it six times thinking it didn't work. Maybe that's why Paypal cancelled the transaction? Did they share with you the reason why they cancelled it?

Or, there are scams with sellers getting fake Paypal emails, but this doesn't seem to fit the same mold. In those cases, buyers were talking sellers into giving them their email addresses and sending them fake payment messages. I haven't heard any that made a real Paypal payment first to get that email address, but you never know what someone might be trying for the next scam.

Maybe because Paypal cancelled the payment, there is a delay in getting that over to eBay? I would wait to see what happens in the next few hours, then call Paypal again. Hopefully they'll work this through with you.

Good luck and please come back to update us so if it happens to anyone else we'll have a record of the results.

The 6 or so attempts to pay were bell notifications on my eBay App. No emails, and no record in Paypal of more than one attempt being made. So far I haven't received any fake messages.

Also if you knew what this was... it's technology from 12 years ago. It was worth around $80-100 new, but has a value of $5-10 now, if you can find someone who wants technology that old. Most of these items get shipped to places like Poland, Ukraine and Russia because technologically they are a little behind in industrial equipment. (And buying old technology means getting it cheap).

C.