Having just cleansed the Worxlab of extraneous DJ gubbins, my bank account looked a little healthier, just in time for the end of July tax bill. That was until this morning, when a Paypal dispute had been raised against a mixer. The rest of my morning has ended up in the toilet, and it’s a cautionary tale that I wish to share with you all.
Seller beware
You know how it goes — you put something on eBay and hope for the best. The buyer contacted me saying he was having issues getting the payment to go through, so he’d organise a different way. A short time later, payment arrived and a delivery address. So I despatched the mixer, transferred the payment to my bank account, and moved on.
So this morning’s Paypal dispute comes as a surprise. After a morning of digging, it appears that myself and a few others have been the victim of a clever scammer. This scammer had 70+ eBay reputation points, which gave me a good feeling about dealing with him, and was obviously the first part of the con. The good communication and quick payment obviously helped too.
Here’s the con — the payment comes from someone else, and while it appears to link to the original item, it actually links to a non-existent item called “2 channel DJ Mixer”, which when casually glanced, makes you think it’s entirely legit as you’re more likely to be looking at the amount.
THE CHAIN IS BROKEN
This is where eBay and PayPal will wash their hands of the whole thing. Unless the payment follows the item, they’re not interested. And Paypal will only pay attention if the delivery address is the same as the payers. See – it’s clever.
It would appear that I’ve been conned out of expensive product, and the person that paid was probably expecting it to be delivered to them, but it was sent to somewhere else. It hasn’t escaped me that the payer may be in on the scam too.
Summing up
If you regularly eBay stuff, be very careful:
- A history of good feedback matters, but it’s always worth checking in detail.
- Your spider sense should start tingling when they talk of eBay payment problems.
- If a payment arrives, be absolutely sure that it directly ties up to the original item, and that the payer’s address matches the delivery address.
I’m now left with a report to submit to Action Fraud, which is luckily backed up with two case numbers from other victims.
HAVE YOU BEEN SCAMMED?
I had a Nigerian scammer try it on once, but luckily I saw that coming from a distance. So I’m interested to hear about your online selling experiences. Have you been relieved of lumps of shiny without financial recompense? Or has it generally been good for you?