eBay

erwina11_3 · ‎03-26-2017

Hello Friends,

We have been victimized by what appears to be a Dummy Package Scam involving 3 cell phones purchased on Ebay and paid for via PayPal. Neither Ebay nor PayPal gave more than a cursory review of our filings and rejected out of hand our claims including Appeals. Clearly their Protection Plans are at best flimsy and at worst a Hoax.

Sadly, the phones were purchased from 3 different, first time Sellers who shipped them from the same Post Office via USPS on separate days spread over 2 weeks. We have detailed USPS Tracking Reports that clearly demonstrate false addresses for receipt. PayPal's response is that they have Strong documentation from the Sellers that Delivery occurred, and our only recourse is to contact the Seller.

Good Luck with that. All emails to the Sellers either by Hotmail or Gmail were promptly bounced back as Undeliverable. The point is that Delivery may have occurred but not to our address - a subtle but critical detail that continues to be overlooked by both Ebay and PayPal.

Sound Familiar? Sure looks to us like Mail Fraud.

The next steps that we are considering are to 1) File Report with USPIS 2) File Report with local Police 3) Contact FBI Mail Fraud Division.

Our questions are if anyone has had a similar, recent experience and was there a successful outcome? i.e. did you get your money back from either Ebay or PayPal? What additional steps should we consider?

Looks like a long slog, but after all we are out nearly $1000.

Many thanks,

chrysylys · ‎03-27-2017

Problem is, there doesn't seem to be any way for buyers to submit such information according to so many posts here. CS looks at the 'Delivered' scan, closes the case and the buyer is done -- no appeal allowed.

Then somebody hails a Blue, they ask for information by email, then come back and say 'it was handled according to policy so nothing further can be done'.

Forget keeping up with the Joneses. Be the Finklegrubers!
OK kids, time to get the Dodge loaded up again. I hear 'Poppy's By the Tree' calling. This trip might be a long one too.

needleinahaystack714714 · ‎03-27-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
@baggs-2017 wrote:
There are tons of threads about this issue. The seller would win because the pkg shows as Delivered to teh buyer's zip code. The zip code has lots of addresses in it. the label would not have been purchased using ebay's shipping system, so they have no official record of the actual address that teh seller used. As long as it is in teh same zip as the buyer, they win when it shows Delivered.
Hi @baggs-2024 - While we aren't able to step in and help this OP given the timeframe, we do have protection options available for buyers in this same circumstance. We would need to obtain documentation from the shipping carrier that the package was delivered to a different address but we do have additional protections.

@Anonymous

While I do understand that if the OP's timeframe has exceeded 30 days you cannot help THIS buyer, however there have been numerous threads about this exact scam and eBay has been stonewalling buyers according to their posts. It really isn't good enough to post on the board that individual buyers need contact eBay CS via these channels since only a fraction of the people it is happening to come to the forums. eBay's telephone support needs to be educated to deal with this scam. Something needs to give in regards to just accepting the zip code for proof of delivery. Something needs to give in thwarting this scam.

postingid2017 · ‎03-27-2017

@erwina11_3 - one more thing to keep in mind- do not, I repeat do not throw out any boxes, information, etc., that you have. Without everything that you have, keep it. It may take a while before you get a response, but keep everything.

Wishing and hoping that you are able to recover what you lost - Best of Luck!!

erwina11_3 · ‎03-27-2017

Thanks so much!! We will let everyone know what happens.

erwina11_3 · ‎03-27-2017

The 30 day timeframe is extraordinarily difficult for us. We travel frequently and usually allow 2 weeks for deliver of our items. Some items arrive really fast and others don't. In this case, we allowed another week durng which time we attempted to contact the seller to no avail. THEN, it took the USPS 3 weeks to investigate and get the detailed tracking information to us. BAM, 30 days gone! We were almost 6 weeks out before we were sure we had a problem.

hafoster · ‎03-27-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
@erwina11_3 wrote:
Hello Friends,

We have been victimized by what appears to be a Dummy Package Scam involving 3 cell phones purchased on Ebay and paid for via PayPal. Neither Ebay nor PayPal gave more than a cursory review of our filings and rejected out of hand our claims including Appeals. Clearly their Protection Plans are at best flimsy and at worst a Hoax.

Sadly, the phones were purchased from 3 different, first time Sellers who shipped them from the same Post Office via USPS on separate days spread over 2 weeks. We have detailed USPS Tracking Reports that clearly demonstrate false addresses for receipt. PayPal's response is that they have Strong documentation from the Sellers that Delivery occurred, and our only recourse is to contact the Seller.

Good Luck with that. All emails to the Sellers either by Hotmail or Gmail were promptly bounced back as Undeliverable. The point is that Delivery may have occurred but not to our address - a subtle but critical detail that continues to be overlooked by both Ebay and PayPal.

Sound Familiar? Sure looks to us like Mail Fraud.

The next steps that we are considering are to 1) File Report with USPIS 2) File Report with local Police 3) Contact FBI Mail Fraud Division.

Our questions are if anyone has had a similar, recent experience and was there a successful outcome? i.e. did you get your money back from either Ebay or PayPal? What additional steps should we consider?

Looks like a long slog, but after all we are out nearly $1000.

Many thanks,

Hi @erwina11_3 - These types of things don't happen too often on eBay and I'm sad to hear this has been your experience. As you mentioned, our options to help are extremely limited if we're passed the 30-day coverage window through our Money Back Guarantee. Along with that, we aren't able to override or open a case once a PayPal claim has been filed.

I am terribly sorry for any frustration but you would need to continue to work with PayPal directly or seek third-party options as suggested to have this resolved further. Please do keep us posted and I hope you're able to get this taken care of shortly.

Very recently, Trinton reopened a case on eBay and forced a refund after that OP sent details to askcommunity.

deep-garnet-red · ‎03-27-2017

@needleinahaystack714714 wrote:
@erwina11_3 wrote:
We really appreciate your informative replies. Could you explain this part further?

"I also recommend discussing with your CC company a chargeback code that will not fall under Paypal's seller protection. The idea isn't to punish Paypal by just getting a refund, the idea is to get the money back FROM THE SELLER. There are actually CB codes that are almost impossible for the seller to win against... That's the one you want to choose."
When you contact your CC company, they will be able to best advise you on which chargeback code to open... Discuss codes 53 and 85 with them.

The same codes scammers use to rip off sellers.

ir0nmaiden66 · ‎03-27-2017

Sorry to hear you ran into this fraud issue.

I actually spent the last 8 days battling with ebay and finally got a refund after the seller(who was brand new to ebay by the way) sent me a fake/wrong tracking number.

Luckily the post office were a huge help by providing us detailed information about the delivery of this "item" (which were documents from what the guy at usps told us).

We used the detailed documents and sent them to ebay who saw that the seller sent this "item" to a different address and this phony item came from Amazon.

Funny thing is, my purchase was also a cell phone, so this is looking to be quite an epidemic on here these days?

I hope you get it resolved soon and good luck.

hafoster · ‎03-27-2017

@ir0nmaiden66 wrote:
Sorry to hear you ran into this fraud issue.

I actually spent the last 8 days battling with ebay and finally got a refund after the seller(who was brand new to ebay by the way) sent me a fake/wrong tracking number.
Luckily the post office were a huge help by providing us detailed information about the delivery of this "item" (which were documents from what the guy at usps told us).
We used the detailed documents and sent them to ebay who saw that the seller sent this "item" to a different address and this phony item came from Amazon.
Funny thing is, my purchase was also a cell phone, so this is looking to be quite an epidemic on here these days?

I hope you get it resolved soon and good luck.

Did you go straight to talking to eBay for eight days instead of opening the wrong case, and so they were able to help you?

needleinahaystack714714 · ‎03-28-2017

@deep-garnet-red wrote:
@needleinahaystack714714 wrote:
@erwina11_3 wrote:
We really appreciate your informative replies. Could you explain this part further?

"I also recommend discussing with your CC company a chargeback code that will not fall under Paypal's seller protection. The idea isn't to punish Paypal by just getting a refund, the idea is to get the money back FROM THE SELLER. There are actually CB codes that are almost impossible for the seller to win against... That's the one you want to choose."
When you contact your CC company, they will be able to best advise you on which chargeback code to open... Discuss codes 53 and 85 with them.

The same codes scammers use to rip off sellers.

@deep-garnet-red

Unfortunately this is true. But as you can see, they have their legitimate uses. You comment is exactly the reason I know about these codes and how they work... I got hit with an 85 some time last years. I decided to do some research on them and discovered they were the perfect weapon against sellers who know how to use eBay's own rules to defraud people.

ir0nmaiden66 · ‎03-28-2017

After calling ebay customer service, they told me which case to open, since I've never had this issue before.

They did help at the end, but the post office was a bigger help with providing the required documents.

When I said eight days, I didn't mean literally eight days of talking and calling. There was a waiting period too.

erwina11_3 · ‎03-28-2017

UPDATE: Paypal has reopened our case. They finally agreed that there are some serious "irregularities" about the case. They are going to do some more investigation and get back to us. Wish us luck!!

carlmarxx · ‎03-28-2017

@erwina11_3 wrote:
UPDATE: Paypal has reopened our case. They finally agreed that there are some serious "irregularities" about the case. They are going to do some more investigation and get back to us. Wish us luck!!

Yes Good luck! I'm wondering if those sellers are from outside the U.S. ?

erwina11_3 · ‎03-28-2017

We carefully studied the 3 sellers profiles and know their names, but do not know if the names are real. One interesting thing is that they live in 3 different states, and yet all the phones were supposedly shipped from a 4th (different) state.

Does anyone know a different, more direct way, other than feedback, to report a fradulent seller?

deep-garnet-red · ‎03-28-2017

@needleinahaystack714714 wrote:
@deep-garnet-red wrote:
@needleinahaystack714714 wrote:
@erwina11_3 wrote:
We really appreciate your informative replies. Could you explain this part further?

"I also recommend discussing with your CC company a chargeback code that will not fall under Paypal's seller protection. The idea isn't to punish Paypal by just getting a refund, the idea is to get the money back FROM THE SELLER. There are actually CB codes that are almost impossible for the seller to win against... That's the one you want to choose."
When you contact your CC company, they will be able to best advise you on which chargeback code to open... Discuss codes 53 and 85 with them.

The same codes scammers use to rip off sellers.
@deep-garnet-red
Unfortunately this is true. But as you can see, they have their legitimate uses. You comment is exactly the reason I know about these codes and how they work... I got hit with an 85 some time last years. I decided to do some research on them and discovered they were the perfect weapon against sellers who know how to use eBay's own rules to defraud people.