Was I scammed and what now? PayPal/eBay

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Summary: The discussion begins with dekraan wondering whether they were scammed through PayPal and eBay. nogmeerwinst replies, leading to a brief conversation between them about the situation. Eventually olympuse3 joins in, but no specific details or solutions are mentioned in the discussion.

Hello!

I’d like some advice about a recent purchase via eBay from a seller in Lithuania.

I made this sale on December 16 and paid right away via PayPal. A day later I got a message saying the package had been shipped. Unfortunately no tracking number on PayPal and no carrier information either.

Anyway, the package was supposed to arrive between January 3 and January 17. Today is the first day, so technically.

I should be patient, but I have a bad feeling about it.

The seller got a (first) negative feedback a few days ago that says:

Did not send the item or reply to my messages.

And what do you think? I’m not getting any response to my messages either.

On eBay it’s still too early to open a resolution.

If I want to open a dispute with PayPal, PayPal says the seller is unable to respond and then asks whether I want PayPal to look into it. Since it’s only the 3rd, I don’t want to do that yet. They’ll probably just say: try again after the 17th.

What should I do now?

1) his email address is listed on PayPal with a name that seems fake to me (because it’s not Lithuanian). Also a number with what seems to me like a Latvia area code instead of Lithuania. I could send an email there.

2) open a dispute with PayPal anyway and let them look into it; chances are they won’t get a response either, I think.

3) wait tensely....

4) something else!

dekraan

16 View listings

Posted 12 years ago·Last reply 5 months ago

4 comments

nogmeerwinst

·12 years ago

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Direct claim. You only get your money back if it can still be recovered.

dekraan

OP12 years ago

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Yeah, I was just wondering that too. Despite what eBay says, or PayPal, it’s still easy to scam people. Just collect the money and withdraw it from PayPal. Then there’s probably nothing you can do about it...

I’ve at least filed a claim. We’ll just have to wait and see what that brings. I’m afraid nothing. You do learn a hard lesson that way!

nogmeerwinst

·12 years ago

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http://cgi.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=321274162134

Only red flags, literally too in the past.

Never sold anything before, suddenly two identical hi-tech items for sale.

A clearly copied standard description.

Eastern Europe.

Etc.

olympuse3

·5 months ago

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No, not just Eastern Europe. That’s not the problem. Try to recognize the signs of fake listings. They’re new members in all countries who have zero feedback but supposedly have already sold various products. Sometimes there is feedback, but it’s not credible. (thanks for the lovely €2 hair clip). I recently warned Ebay about listings for new expensive cameras (Leica, Hasselblad, Fujifilm etc) with a value of 5,000-10,000 euros for the price of 800-1,500 euros. Ebay left them up, except for one (!). Some listings already had 80 followers and the camera was already in 7 carts. I counted 25 of those websites in Germany, France, the UK and Canada. In this case their names seemed similar in composition, a combination of random letters and a few numbers with a hyphen in between. The positive thing is that the money-back guarantee is good, but do read the terms and conditions.