Possible seller fraud

[wildwildwestwiki]

I bought a digital weight scale that offered free shipping worldwide (a bit weird in itself). I then researched the seller and noticed ALL his feedback was regarding him selling Microsoft Office/Project license keys. I also noticed his account was created in Dubai yet all the items listed are supposedly in the USA. He has been on ebay since December 2018. I contacted the seller and asked him about the item I bought and when he would ship it - I got a response it was being 'prepared' however its been 3 days and no response/tracking number. I have a strong suspicion the account is fraudulent and intended to take peoples money with no intention of providing the products. How can I report this and see if other buyers are also having the same issue with this seller? When I try open a request to investigate it says I have to wait until August for the item to arrive which is ridiculous considering he has not even provided a shipping number. What if he happily scams multiple other people during that time? All the items on his page seem to come from some type of automatic generated script with no real logical explanation. 

[beez5720]

Well, I guess next time you might want to look at the seller's profile BEFORE purchasing an item. As for this transaction, as long as your are in good standing with ebay, you are protected with the MBG. Open an INR case the day after the last estimated delivery date. That is how you report a bad seller and get your money back.

[wildwildwestwiki]

Yes I checked the % without reading all the comments. It still doesn't make sense you have to wait until the last date in cases where the seller has not even provided a shipment number and therefore makes it impossible to arrive before that date.  You would think ebay would want to know about fraudulent sellers as quick as possible rather than letting hundreds of others get scammed and have to refund them all at their cost. 

[myescape]

Sellers can set handling times for as long as they want and are not required to mark as shipped or use/share tracking  just ship as described(it's good business but not required...).
You are covered by buyer protection for 30 days past the last estimated delivery date.Since that in August(did you not see that when buying?)you can not open a case.If other buyers have problems w him unless they leave non positive feedback or ebay removes the account

[wildwildwestwiki]

The delivery time is actually reasonable to my country IF he shipped the item.. I guess that is likely part of the scam - it gives them months to scam others until anyone can start to file a complaint. Hopefully I'm wrong about the whole thing - but after doing more research I think it's no bueno. I might have managed to find the sellers instagram profile as well which is interesting... Lets see how it plays out. Still think ebay could do a better job of allowing users to report likely fraud behaviour so it can at least be investigated without having to wait months. 

[beez5720]

You need to look at more than a feedback percentage. Anything below 99.8 is NOT good despite what it looks like. And you also NEED to look at the Estimated delivery date that is right on the listing, not hidden anywhere. Did you not see the August date BEFORE you purchased? Or you were hoping you would be an exception to that delayed handling time. The policy of Item Not Received must be based on some actual date. The seller specified it was going to take several months and this information was not hidden, and it is used by ebay to calculate the estimated delivery date.
I know you want to be mad at the seller because they're suspicious. I know you want to be mad at ebay for "allowing" this. You probably even want to be mad at me for explaining this, although it is not what you want to hear. But the bottom line is that all the information that you needed to make an INFORMED purchasing decision was available from that listing. You did not process that information until you became worried that you were not going to receive the item.
Come August, be ready to open the INR because you're likely not getting any item from that seller.

[wildwildwestwiki]

I agree with you - I should have been more cautious. Lucky it's not much money anyway - I'm more interested in preventing others who might be gullible and not experienced enough to detect these types of fraud accounts. The fact I can't make ebay aware of it until 2 months is not great because it means the fraudster can rip more people off in that time. That is the biggest issue. Ebay will just have to eat the losses with their own pocket - life goes on !

[beez5720]

A lot of buyers already know what to look for. You are now one of us.