Dealing With a Legitimate Fraudster

[egarchow89]

I am friendly with 3 other sellers who have been victims (or at least were attempted to be made victims) of fraud by the same buyer. That buyer is now trying to scam me out of $800. One seller's experience:

"I mailed the package. I checked the status a few days later and it said the package was undeliverable. I tried contacting the guy multiple times with no answer. After about 3 weeks, I got back the package in the mail, but it was totally empty. I had to fight with USPS for months to finally get them to cover it with the insurance."

My package went out for delivery on the 24th of April, and then "disappeared." Not sure how the buyer is managing to game the system, but at this point I have zero doubt that I am dealing with a legitimate criminal (and I have no use for the one in a billion possibility that THIS time the buyer is being honest). 

I looked up reporting mail fraud but it seems like that is for things where I am the recipient. Obviously short of a videotape of a buyer brutally beating a seller eBay is going to side with the buyer. I have tried several times over the past few days to contact the buyer's post office but they don't pick up the phone at any point during their business hours. Should I call the buyer's local police department? 

[7606dennis]

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@paradiso*bella*a*venire wrote:

but you ARE familiar with the term  "you said this, but I knew what ya meant"  😋

We all know youre smarter than that

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I would hope the OP wouldn't use the term when making their police report.  Frankly, a lot of the world's problems would be alleviated with the use of proper communications.  I had an uncle when I was a kid that use to use the term, "hycalm" when he wanted my to hand him a particular tool.  If often handed him the wrong item several times before hitting upon the right one.  It seems that his "hycalm" was his personal word for "how you call it" which many people interpret as "whatchamacallit."  

[paradiso*bella*a*venire]

I get ya. 😉

[egarchow89]

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@bonjourami wrote:

"At this point it's been 5. One of the other sellers fell victim to the same scam I did;"

Your post clearly shows how much stock Ebay puts in buyer reports...Ive seen horrendous buyers right here on the boards who were reported multiple times and Ebay did nothing. 

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To be fair to eBay, the other sellers only reported him recently, even though the fraud has been occurring for about a year. The issue seemed to come either before the item was delivered (3 cases) or paypal/ebay decided in the seller's favor (2 cases).  Only after I started connecting dots and contacting sellers did it become clear the buyer has been up to something.

[egarchow89]

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@7606dennis wrote:

I'm not quite sure that I understand the use of the term, "Legitimate Fraudster."  How can one be legitimate and a fraudster at the same time?

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I did not say he (or she, as this person does not appear to have used his/her real name) is legitimate and a fraudster. I said the person is a legitimate fraudster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate
"also: being an actual example of something specified: 'a legitimate threat to national security'"

This person I refer to in the OP is an actual example of a fraudster. This issue is not a misunderstanding between the buyer and me. It's not a confused buyer. It's a person deliberately engaging in fraud, making him/her a legitimate fraudster.

It's often helpful to check a dictionary before policing others' English usage. What would be even more helpful is to add something to the discussion of the actual issue (this legitimate fraudster I posted about) instead of attempting to police language.  

[egarchow89]

So I intended to issue refunds for the 30 remaining claims from the fraudulent buyer, since USPS approved my insurance claim, and I shouldn't have the buyer's money and USPS' money too (hopefully law enforcement takes it out of the fraudster as part of prosecution. Hopefully.).

I was working on my full time job (ebay is on the side) when I noticed buyer was escalating claims just a few minutes before I was going to get to them (had just one more document to edit for work, funny timing I guess). So I am able to refund 4 of them and get my fees back, but now 26 are on hold until May 24. The screen for each case says I can refund to avoid being at fault, but I get an error message when I try to do so. "There was a problem sending your refund to the buyer."

This is pretty bizarre. I mean, I am getting my full claim check from USPS so I should have to give this money back to someone, but if the buyer's account is suspended or something (he has recently got a bunch of reports by other victimized sellers), I want to make sure my fee credits come back to me since I will have to give up this money eventually. 

I already contacted eBay chat, just wanted to write this somewhere and see if anyone has dealt with something similar. 🙂

[bebe-1153]

The usual reason is that you must have enough cash in the balance at the actual PayPal account (not the PayPal account currently linked to your eBay, if it's a different PayPal account now) which originally received the payment to cover item price, shipping, and sales tax (eBay refunds sales tax immediately afterwards).

But if you're refunding 26 items, it would seem you have the balance for 1 at a time. PayPal needs cash for refunds, will not pull funds from a card or a bank account.

[7606dennis]

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@egarchow89 wrote:

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@7606dennis wrote:

I'm not quite sure that I understand the use of the term, "Legitimate Fraudster."  How can one be legitimate and a fraudster at the same time?

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I did not say he (or she, as this person does not appear to have used his/her real name) is legitimate and a fraudster. I said the person is a legitimate fraudster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate
"also: being an actual example of something specified: 'a legitimate threat to national security'"

This person I refer to in the OP is an actual example of a fraudster. This issue is not a misunderstanding between the buyer and me. It's not a confused buyer. It's a person deliberately engaging in fraud, making him/her a legitimate fraudster.

It's often helpful to check a dictionary before policing others' English usage. What would be even more helpful is to add something to the discussion of the actual issue (this legitimate fraudster I posted about) instead of attempting to police language.  

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So you're saying that you claim of fraud being committed is a legitimate one.  Gotcha.

[egarchow89]

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@7606dennis wrote:

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@egarchow89 wrote:

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@7606dennis wrote:

I'm not quite sure that I understand the use of the term, "Legitimate Fraudster."  How can one be legitimate and a fraudster at the same time?

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I did not say he (or she, as this person does not appear to have used his/her real name) is legitimate and a fraudster. I said the person is a legitimate fraudster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate
"also: being an actual example of something specified: 'a legitimate threat to national security'"

This person I refer to in the OP is an actual example of a fraudster. This issue is not a misunderstanding between the buyer and me. It's not a confused buyer. It's a person deliberately engaging in fraud, making him/her a legitimate fraudster.

It's often helpful to check a dictionary before policing others' English usage. What would be even more helpful is to add something to the discussion of the actual issue (this legitimate fraudster I posted about) instead of attempting to police language.  

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So you're saying that you claim of fraud being committed is a legitimate one.  Gotcha.

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By extension, sure. But more directly I was saying the buyer is a legitimate fraudster, which is a simpler way of saying the buyer is an actual example of a fraudster, rather than there being something else going on such as a confused or misinformed buyer acting honestly.

[egarchow89]

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@bebe-1153 wrote:

The usual reason is that you must have enough cash in the balance at the actual PayPal account (not the PayPal account currently linked to your eBay, if it's a different PayPal account now) which originally received the payment to cover item price, shipping, and sales tax (eBay refunds sales tax immediately afterwards).

But if you're refunding 26 items, it would seem you have the balance for 1 at a time. PayPal needs cash for refunds, will not pull funds from a card or a bank account.

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Thanks! I did actually go into negative for the first time last night and that was why. I was able to do 1 refund today and then got the same error message, although there is now plenty in my paypal account. I also got into a loop where I kept having to fill out a captcha or whatever and it wouldn't let me issue the refund. This is so tedious.

[anma_138491]

Many people are experiencing lost and misdelivered packages due to the epidemic taking out the regular postman. There is no fraud going on here. It's just mistakes by an overworked postal system. The fact that the buyer's post office doesn't answer their calls shows how busy they are. There is no way for him to be stealing packages from a locked post office or a post vehicle.

[japan-treazures]

@egarchow89 

All sellers and buyers need to report this type of fraud. By filing a report this will get all buyer and sellers committing the different address frauds to be looked at by teams working cases, they can't get caught if they aren't reported. 

Please report them! 

https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

This is directly sent to the FBI internet crimes. Police stations also use this to report fraud. You can actually report any internet fraud here. 

Hope this helps!

[egarchow89]

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@anma_138491 wrote:
Many people are experiencing lost and misdelivered packages due to the epidemic taking out the regular postman. There is no fraud going on here. It's just mistakes by an overworked postal system. The fact that the buyer's post office doesn't answer their calls shows how busy they are. There is no way for him to be stealing packages from a locked post office or a post vehicle.

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The claim in this post is mistaken. This buyer had 7 transactions (as far as can be seen from automated seller feedback) on eBay. One seller didn't have a problem. One seller didn't get back to me. Two sellers had false chargebacks filed against them. Three sellers had items disappear after having gone out for delivery. That bears repeating: out for delivery. Not delivered. All of the transactions are for cards from the same card game. 5 of 7 transactions went badly for this buyer, but it's not fraud?

No person of this buyer's name was found in searches of public records in the area. The buyer gave 2 different addresses within the same neighborhood on the same street, neither of which are deliverable (there's nothing there, they are between residences). The buyer gave the wrong city for each address in that neighborhood. The buyer gave a phone number that belonged to a lawyer in the area of no relation to the buyer. The buyer did not communicate in messages, merely filed INR claims ASAP and escalated them ASAP. These incidents span back over a year, not just during the pandemic.

The buyer is absolutely fraudulent.