To think I’ve been scammed by a seller on ebay

[Tinyfrog200]

I ordered a phone for my Son from eBay (with buyer protection) I paid with PayPal. The seller chose ‘simple delivery’ 48 hour tracked service. On Thursday I received an email from Royal Mail to say the item had been delivered. I returned home, no red card, no sign of the parcel in the vicinity or with a neighbour. The photo proving ‘proof of delivery’ is really dodgy. Please see attached. EBay have closed my case, as the item has been delivered according to them!
The seller has been absolutely no help. I now need to wait 7 working days to raise a dispute with Royal Mail. I’m absolutely raging. I think I’ve been scammed.

What?

OP, you haven’t been scammed by the seller. They sent it. You have proof of that. Royal Mail made the mistake.

The seller not dealing with Royal Mail for you isn’t them scamming you, they just can’t be bothered and they probably think that you are scamming them as they can see it’s been delivered. You’re the only one who knows that Royal Mail didn’t actually deliver it to you.

If you started a thread asking for help with how to sort that issue out then you’d get it. But you keep banging on about being scammed when no one has scammed you and it makes you sound a bit ridiculous.

lots of people posting out of date information about how eBay works now. PayPal split from eBay over 10 years ago and Simple Delivery for private sellers has been in place since 2024.

The seller has no control over “simple delivery”. The label is bought via eBay by the buyer. The contract with Royal Mail is with eBay so the seller or buyer cannot claim from RM.

Check the tracking on the Royal Mail website, there should be a map? You can contact RM and ask for the address of the delivery scan. They may not tell you the address because their contract is with eBay but they should confirm if it matches the label address.

Ring up eBay usually first thing in the morning you will get Ireland and they are the most helpful. Tell them the photo is not your address and you can prove this. They should then you to complete a denial of receipt form and refund you.

It will not be a scam by the seller because they did not provide the label you purchased it via eBay. It has just been incorrectly delivered by RM either on purpose or more than likely an accident.

I'd assume it's just been delivered to the wrong address OP. It's happened to me lots of times.

That is not the case for “Simple Delivery” which has been in place for private sellers on eBay since May 2024. Sellers have no control over the postage whatsoever.

No. Actually if you read my reply it was in response to the op saying proof of delivery must be a photo of a person receiving the parcel in hand. This is not true. Read the fucking thread.

It’s clearly a photo of the parcel in the Royal Mail office. Hence the red part… it looks like a post office desk. I’d head to your local sorting office Op and check with them. Sometimes to tick off enough deliveries the drivers say it was delivered but leave it at the SO. They’re not meant to but they do when overwhelmed with mail.

all the people who say its on Royal Mail are wrong. The shipper's contract is with the seller. The Op is right to do what she is doing which is to go back to them with a photo of her front door. I think that ebay's services are using AI now which is reallt crap if you get a problem.

Not necessarily, they actually have guidelines to say they’re not allowed to have people (in an identifiable way) in the images.

The address could have been wrong / postie got the wrong building but the photo is fine as far as that’s concerned.

I also don’t understand why you would jump to the seller being disingenuous.

One of two things have happened here - either it’s been delivered to a communal area of some random flats / concierge and left where all packages go or delivery man has done something.

If it’s the first, post on your local facebook page to see if anyone has a package addressed to you.

How do you know it is? Royal Mail do deliver to wrong addresses. That doesn’t make it a scam. A useless postman perhaps yes.

If you go on to the Royal Mail website to track it, there should be an option to view the gps coordinates of where it was scanned when delivered. You might need to pop in your postcode to view it but it should show on a map where it was scanned.

The only issue is that if it was scanned early by the postie (they do it in bulk sometimes to save time) it won’t show you where it was actually delivered for you to retrieve but it should be enough for eBay to potentially look at a courtesy refund as the proof of delivery can be shown to be elsewhere and not your house. Hope you get it sorted.

The contract for RM is with eBay if as the OP has stated this parcel was sent via “Simple Delivery” which has been in place for private sellers since May 2024. eBay state they are responsible for shipping issues until the parcel has been “delivered” and this parcel has not been delivered (according to the OP) and if it is not a photo of their address that can be demonstrated. They state this because after delivery if the phone is faulty then obviously that is up to the seller to sort out.

If the OP is mistaken and it was a business's on eBay sending the phone eg. A reconditioned phone business and they used their own shipping then and only then are they responsible.

With simple delivery claims for non receipt the claim will always auto close if the tracking shows delivered. The OP needs to call up and say they can send evidence it’s not their door and they will ask the OP to complete a denial of receipt form and they will refund.

This is true, and the problem with simple delivery, as basically its in the hands of the gods - neither the sender, nor receiver have any authority to make a claim, only eBay, and they won't.

Right, but that's not the seller's fault.

If you don't specify a safe space, RM will leave your parcel wherever - with neighbours, in the bin, whatever.

It really does look like it could be the RM delivery office with that floor and red door in the photo.

Check the gps coordinates / map when you put in your delivery postcode on the RM tracking. They may have done it to log it as delivered as not to affect their delivery stats and it will turn up on Monday!

I haven’t sold on eBay for a while and I would normally go above and beyond to help a buyer. But TBH if I had messages from a buyer accusing me of being a scammer because of a Royal Mail fuck up, I don’t think I would be rushing to resolve things. I would probably be wanting to contact eBay myself for advice, rather than getting sucked into receiving arsey messages

I'm not sure why you think the seller is responsible. Tracking says delivered so the seller is covered, as far as they're concerned you have it, they probably think you're trying to scam them!
This is between you and Ebay. Its unlikely royal mail will help as Ebay purchased the label.

As I understand Simple Delivery it’s for eBay to resolve the issue not the seller.
When OP bought the item the price she paid included an additional amount for buyer protection and it’s for her to open an item not received case and find a way of sending them a photograph of her doorway with the one that Royal Mail has provided as proof they delivered it. When eBay introduced simple delivery one of its selling points was that it took away the need for the seller to resolve delivery problems.
I’ve been a seller and less so a buyer from eBay for years and if my claim for non delivery was not resolved to my satisfaction I’d be hot foot on the phone to customer services. I don’t deny that you have to go all round the houses to get to speak to a human but when I have, they have always been very helpful and found in my favour.
One question I do have though, is is the address the seller used definitely the OP’s. Also and of no real relevance really is if I was the seller of the mobile phone I’d be ashamed of the way I’d packed it.

A really weird thing happened with us this weekend with an ebay purchase. Got a notification that it was delivered yesterday by royal mail to an a dress across town, the postcode had been changed weirdly. It turned up today delivered by amazon. We're still absolutely confused about what the shells happened.

Open a dispute with PayPal.
We once had the same situation. Declared as delivered and ebay refused my claim.
I then opened a dispute with PayPal and received a refund.
Like a pp has said, they can find exactly where it was delivered and PayPal found it wasn't delivered to my address.

Unless you think the “proof” is a fake it is a RM issue not a scam by seller.

I once had an item ‘delivered’ however when I phoned Royal Mail they said the local delivery office wasn’t even mine and had been delivered to a different postcode. They’d obviously just been sending out the same tracking link to more than one person.

OP is the tracking info def for your address? They haven't sent it somewhere else?

I didn’t accuse anyone of being a scammer thank you

You’ve done nothing but accuse the eBay seller of being a scammer!

I use the Royal Mail app and when I click on proof of delivery as well as the picture I get GPS coordinates for all of my deliveries.