I won an item on ebay this morning and paid straight away (£300, so not small change). Seller then messaged me to say ebay had used an old email address for her PayPal and so the listing showed I'd paid but the money hadn't arrived in her PayPal or bank account. I checked my PayPal and it showed that there was no PayPal account for the email address I'd used. I cancelled the transaction (in case someone quickly set up a PayPal account using that email address and claimed the money). I told the seller what had happened, sent a screen grab and said if she relisted it, I'd buy it straight away.
She said she spoke to ebay and they saidthr problem was at ebay's end and it would take a few days to rectify. She said she was told to invoice me through PayPal, which she did. I was a little suspicious as I know ebay doesn't like purchases to take place outside ebay (more because they don't get their cut that way I suppose). I called ebay myself to check whether that was legit and the woman I spoke to said that she should invoice me through ebay, not PayPal and that I should check with PayPal that I would be covered if it does turn out to be a scam.
I've checked the PayPal Protection smallprint and I might have a problem if it's a scam because it doesn't cover machinery for manufacturing. The item is a domestic appliance but I would be using it for my business so PayPal could to to wriggle out of coughing up if it came to that.
Has anyone experienced ebay using the seller's wrong PayPal email address? Is this a scam? What should I do?