eBay refuses buyer protection in an obvious fraud case with a fake UPS tracking link | Buy

felix_merkel · 2026-06-10T17:45:37.337000Z

Good evening,unfortunately I have gotten the impression that ebay, by refusing buyer protection, is protecting the fraudster and, despite the evidence presented that should have made it clear that the seller is a fraudster, is actively depriving the buyer, who has not received any goods, of their right to a refund.In my case, I bought from a seller with overwhelmingly positive reviews (approx. 98% at the time of purchase): a mini PC for approx. €260.Unfortunately, the first signs of fraud quickly appeared: after the purchase on 17.5., the seller first sent me a Deutsche Post letter tracking link, which made me suspicious. On 23.5., another partial delivery with a new UPS tracking link was added, according to which the shipment had already been delivered on 21.5. I doubted the accuracy of this UPS tracking link, which said "received by MOHAMMAD". No one with that name lives in my house, so I took a closer look at the seller and found numerous negative reviews in the last few days for all higher-priced items in the €100-€500 range, where buyers warned about the seller and reported false UPS tracking links like mine.At that point I wasn't really too worried, as I expected to be covered by ebay buyer protection. So I opened a buyer protection case with ebay, described the situation, including the false tracking link, that I had not received the item, and also referred to the user's negative reviews.Unfortunately, this was quickly rejected, and I used the appeal to make it clear once again that this is clearly a fraud case if you just look at the user's negative reviews from the last month.Unfortunately, I only received a meaningless rejection of the appeal, which suggested that I check with my neighbor again and that the person responding was sure the package would still turn up. Unfortunately, that has not happened to this day and I was no longer able to pursue my appeal, so I filed a report with the police. However, I am almost even more disappointed by how ebay handled this case, whose employees actively protected the fraudulent seller and ignored all negative reviews. Even a good week after my complaint, the seller was still active and was able to keep scamming with his scheme. I criticize ebay because:1. Seller protection is worthless if, in case of doubt, you cannot rely on it and ebay employees simply reject cases without any research. This gives customers a false sense of security when buying, but when problems arise, they distance themselves? Ebay can also reject cases very quickly and then you can no longer return the item. And other customers are also paying the price because they keep becoming victims of the scheme since the fraudster is not stopped.2. The validation of the UPS shipping link was inadequate; technically it should be possible to evaluate this more precisely, both in terms of item weight and the name and destination address. Apparently only the recipient region is validated at most and nothing else? UPS confirmed to me that the tracking link does not match my address. With DHL tracking, I don't think that would be possible.3. I had spoken on the phone with a nice employee from customer support. Although she had no way to change the assessment of my case, after I made it very clear that it simply cannot be that ebay just keeps letting customers buy from the fraudster, she decided to open a case with the specialist department so that the seller would be blocked. And she said that they would get back to me with a solution, but that was 5 days ago now and I haven't heard anything since.I will no longer use ebay because of these experiences and am even considering reporting ebay as well as the seller; I find the refusal of buyer protection almost criminal...

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eBay refuses buyer protection in an obvious fraud case with a fake UPS tracking link | Buy | eBay Germany