eBay

lw81556 · ‎04-04-2017

Item WAS NOT really received, but tracking appears to say it was delivered. I have had this happen twice in the past 6 months and got to the bottom of it with the postmaster and eBay refunded me. I have another one now and I believe I just figured out whats going on. I believe a new scam is brewing and this is how it works. Seller sets up a new account and sells a few orders of something valuable like silver coins at a low price, say $135 for a roll of quarters. You buy it and pay for it. They do not use an Ebay mailing label but mails via their own label via USPS priority mail. The kicker is they mail it to an address in your town but not to you. Tracking only says it was delivered to a mailbox in you town. Ebay assumes it arrived at your address when it did not because it says "DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM, Your Town, 55961" but it does not confirm it arrived at your mailbox. It is extramely hard to find out what address it was actually sent to. Unless you can get that info... you lose. The new seller has no history, if all the new buyers leave negative feedback he doesn't care. I have had photos from the postmaster of packages sent to others in my town with my tracking number on it.

This is my opinion about the matter. It was confirmed twice by USPS, so I think there is something to it. Try to fing out from USPS were it was addressed to. Any Ideas?

lw81556 · ‎04-08-2017

Ebay staffer and all Ebay contibutors,

Sorry to all about the frustration in he last post. I strive to be reasonable but between my personal and bussiness Ebay accounts I have had 4 of these lately and it seems another for around $1,300 brewing as I write this (2 days past delivery date, no tracking number, no response from the seller) . To get these issues worked out just takes a lot of time. I have hours in it. Why so many for me? I am considerate of new sellers and try them out (Iwas a new seller once). We all need new sellers and good ones need a fair chance, new seller accounts seem to be the common factor in all this.

Sorry again about the previous frustrated post...

View Best Answer in original post

needleinahaystack714714 · ‎04-05-2017

@lw81556 wrote:
Item WAS NOT really received, but tracking appears to say it was delivered. I have had this happen twice in the past 6 months and got to the bottom of it with the postmaster and eBay refunded me. I have another one now and I believe I just figured out whats going on. I believe a new scam is brewing and this is how it works. Seller sets up a new account and sells a few orders of something valuable like silver coins at a low price, say $135 for a roll of quarters. You buy it and pay for it. They do not use an Ebay mailing label but mails via their own label via USPS priority mail. The kicker is they mail it to an address in your town but not to you. Tracking only says it was delivered to a mailbox in you town. Ebay assumes it arrived at your address when it did not because it says "DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM, Your Town, 55961" but it does not confirm it arrived at your mailbox. It is extramely hard to find out what address it was actually sent to. Unless you can get that info... you lose. The new seller has no history, if all the new buyers leave negative feedback he doesn't care. I have had photos from the postmaster of packages sent to others in my town with my tracking number on it.
This is my opinion about the matter. It was confirmed twice by USPS, so I think there is something to it. Try to fing out from USPS were it was addressed to. Any Ideas?

Not a new scam but is getting more and more prevalent. You were right in involving the USPS postal inspector, you can also contact your attorney general and involve them since postal fraud is a felony:

Mail fraud, a felony, carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and/or fines of up to $250,000 when individuals are involved and up to 30 years in prison and/or $1,000,000 in fines when a financial institution is involved.

eBay, Paypal and the USPS are going to have to do something before this fraud goes away. Not really certain how they will do this because the solution has problems of its own. Somehow they need to attach the tracking number to the actual address where it is viewable... But then who really wants their address posted to the WWW via just a tracking number?

Anonymous · ‎04-05-2017

@lw81556 wrote:

Item WAS NOT really received, but tracking appears to say it was delivered. I have had this happen twice in the past 6 months and got to the bottom of it with the postmaster and eBay refunded me. I have another one now and I believe I just figured out whats going on. I believe a new scam is brewing and this is how it works. Seller sets up a new account and sells a few orders of something valuable like silver coins at a low price, say $135 for a roll of quarters. You buy it and pay for it. They do not use an Ebay mailing label but mails via their own label via USPS priority mail. The kicker is they mail it to an address in your town but not to you. Tracking only says it was delivered to a mailbox in you town. Ebay assumes it arrived at your address when it did not because it says "DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM, Your Town, 55961" but it does not confirm it arrived at your mailbox. It is extramely hard to find out what address it was actually sent to. Unless you can get that info... you lose. The new seller has no history, if all the new buyers leave negative feedback he doesn't care. I have had photos from the postmaster of packages sent to others in my town with my tracking number on it.

This is my opinion about the matter. It was confirmed twice by USPS, so I think there is something to it. Try to fing out from USPS were it was addressed to. Any Ideas?

Our customer service team should be able to help you witn an appeal and to investigate this seller's behavior. Have you reached out to them with the details you got from USPS?

theheadphonecompany · ‎04-05-2017

Another case of eBay JUMPING to conclusions that "it MUST be the SELLERS fault" .....

I wasnt the seller, but Im tired of sellers on eBay being treated like door mats.

eBay (as you well know Trinton) accepts Delivery Confirmation "as delivered", and being an eBay employee - you know EXACTLY what that means.

USPS does NOT deliver to specific people only addresses (which is why you cant change an address and still have (what eBay calls) "Seller Protection".

Buying one thing (the silver dollars vs quarters) is an SNAD issue NOT INR - 2 totally DIFFERENT things. How would the OP know what was in the item if they NEVER GOT IT (their words)?

"DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM" means just that. USPS knows (local postmaster) what the routes are in his/her town and who the carrier is/was. They can EASILY figure out where the item was delivered to.

Are you (eBay/TRINTON) accusing USPS of lieing? of fraud? Its easy to be a big shot and blame sellers (as eBay does 24/7) when theres an issue - have we moved on to blaming USPS now too?

If the seller used ANY USPS shipping service and uploaded the tracking into eBay as required - then THEY ARE DONE - they fullfilled eBays requirements.

"what happens with lost mail" is another story ENTIRELY (theres that MAGIC "Seller Protection again" - but thats a FAR JUMP from accusing both the seller and USPS of fraud.

Maybe you owe eBay SELLERS an appology until you get it ironed out?

glyph01 · ‎04-05-2017

While I see your point in general, however, the OP is talking about scammers using a nearby mailing address to ship to instead of theirs and to ship God knows what. The OP is not saying they know what was actually sent but they should know what was supposed to be sent, silver coins, if that is what they ordered. The OP goes to the post office and verifies the actual mailing address used on the label via tracking number and the mailing address used turns out to be not theirs.

There are scam sellers and scam buyers and both are spoiling the whole barrel.

Anonymous · ‎04-05-2017

@lw81556 wrote:

Item WAS NOT really received, but tracking appears to say it was delivered. I have had this happen twice in the past 6 months and got to the bottom of it with the postmaster and eBay refunded me. I have another one now and I believe I just figured out whats going on. I believe a new scam is brewing and this is how it works. Seller sets up a new account and sells a few orders of something valuable like silver coins at a low price, say $135 for a roll of quarters. You buy it and pay for it. They do not use an Ebay mailing label but mails via their own label via USPS priority mail. The kicker is they mail it to an address in your town but not to you. Tracking only says it was delivered to a mailbox in you town. Ebay assumes it arrived at your address when it did not because it says "DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM, Your Town, 55961" but it does not confirm it arrived at your mailbox. It is extramely hard to find out what address it was actually sent to. Unless you can get that info... you lose. The new seller has no history, if all the new buyers leave negative feedback he doesn't care. I have had photos from the postmaster of packages sent to others in my town with my tracking number on it.

This is my opinion about the matter. It was confirmed twice by USPS, so I think there is something to it. Try to fing out from USPS were it was addressed to. Any Ideas?

My apologies, I neglected to include steps to touch base with our customer service team. Visit: http://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/cuhome?from_ocs=1 for steps to reach out!

plummer602 · ‎04-05-2017

Question: So, tracking does not show exact address, just town delivered? I'm confused about this.

plummer602 · ‎04-05-2017

"Tracking only says it was delivered to a mailbox in you town. Ebay assumes it arrived at your address when it did not because it says "DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM, Your Town, 55961" but it does not confirm it arrived at your mailbox. It is extramely hard to find out what address it was actually sent to."

I didn't realize this. Tracking does not show the actual address? I wonder if this would help: Having a USPS dashboard account, that shows what packages are en route to your address. I have an account with USPS, and on my dashboard it shows what is on its way to my address. I wonder if this would help as some type of proof that a package was actually sent to your address vs someone else's in the same town?

plummer602 · ‎04-05-2017

Thanks for posting this, I've never heard about this until now. And this makes me wonder about ebay's new "Guaranteed Delivery" program. How can they promise something like this when there's these type of scams going on, without having some type of proof of actual address delivered to? I wonder....

dave81556 · ‎04-05-2017

Abay Staffer, l did call customer support today 4/5/17. They said to file an "Item Not Received Complaint" a claim. I tried but system is making me wait 5 more days until the 10th. They then sais: IHAD TO GO TO THE POST OFFICE AND OBTAIN A DOCUMENT STATING IT WAS NOT SENT TO MY ADDRESS FROM THE POSTMASTER TO BE COVERED BY BUYER PROTECTION. Do I have time for this? Is this my risk now every time I buy somthing from Ebay? If USPS can supply the time city and zip on the tracking... They can supply the street from the same database... USPS, START CODING!

dave81556 · ‎04-05-2017

I have photos from USPS sort line showing the other 2 packages had a different street in Bellmawr, NJ than mine. The label was created on Ebay system. The package was returned to seller as "Not Deliverable" and sent to the return address. THAT EVIDENCE IS WHEN EBAY CREDITED ME... BUT THERE IS MUCH MORE!

The return address was also fictitious. Because I had a complaint in to USPS and the return cold not be made, USPS 3 weeks later forwarded it to me. I bought a roll of silver quarters in the well traveled envelope was an old penny taped to a piece of cardboard that the back of the penny said "One Cent" that was the final insult. all of this is documented and witness... no **bleep**

dave81556 · ‎04-05-2017

SORRY TYPO: The label WAS NOT created on the Ebay system.

dave81556 · ‎04-05-2017

Theheadphonecompany,

I understand what you're position is and buyers can be scammers too. Ebay is in a tough spot here where USPS only needs to supply Ebay with easy accessable street address info for Ebay customer service use in-house use only . God knows Ebay pushes enough business their way to deserve this accomadation.

Check me out, I am also a long term seller with 1,297 transactions and a 100% feedback score. This will eventually effect all our sales.

Anonymous · ‎04-06-2017

@theheadphonecompany wrote:

Another case of eBay JUMPING to conclusions that "it MUST be the SELLERS fault" .....

I wasnt the seller, but Im tired of sellers on eBay being treated like door mats.

eBay (as you well know Trinton) accepts Delivery Confirmation "as delivered", and being an eBay employee - you know EXACTLY what that means.

USPS does NOT deliver to specific people only addresses (which is why you cant change an address and still have (what eBay calls) "Seller Protection".

Buying one thing (the silver dollars vs quarters) is an SNAD issue NOT INR - 2 totally DIFFERENT things. How would the OP know what was in the item if they NEVER GOT IT (their words)?

"DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX Mar-16-17, 11:16 AM" means just that. USPS knows (local postmaster) what the routes are in his/her town and who the carrier is/was. They can EASILY figure out where the item was delivered to.

Are you (eBay/TRINTON) accusing USPS of lieing? of fraud? Its easy to be a big shot and blame sellers (as eBay does 24/7) when theres an issue - have we moved on to blaming USPS now too?

If the seller used ANY USPS shipping service and uploaded the tracking into eBay as required - then THEY ARE DONE - they fullfilled eBays requirements.

"what happens with lost mail" is another story ENTIRELY (theres that MAGIC "Seller Protection again" - but thats a FAR JUMP from accusing both the seller and USPS of fraud.

Maybe you owe eBay SELLERS an appology until you get it ironed out?

The OP was very specifically talking about a concern with a seller committing fraud. No conclusions jumped to, just replying to their exact situation:

" The kicker is they mail it to an address in your town but not to you."

This is an indicator of a situation where a seller attempted to commit fraud. We have run into this exact situation before and are able to investigate.

I understand selling on eBay can be stressful, but I do have to ask that you remain respectful in your tone on the discussion boards, particularly when directing your comments to other members or staff.