A warning tale from my experience - e-bay scam

[mumofhelen]

I bid for an item. I won the item. I sent off a cheque by recorded delivery. The seller signed for the cheque. The cheque was cleared. The item never arrived. In the meantime, this person went on to make several bids, but never paid for them, thus getting himself struck off. E-bay, in strucking this person has cut off my line of communication with this seller. In effect, I've given away £25.95. E-bay told me to make a claim for my money back through the small claims court. Trading standards offered the following:

Dear x
Thank you for your enquiry to Consumer Direct dated 03/11/2007. Your reference number for this case is x and should be quoted in all further correspondence regarding this case.

Unfortunately you would not be able to hold Ebay Liable in this case, as they are legally classed as a notice board for sales. We must agree with Ebay's statement to you in that, ultimately, your final option would be to take the seller to the small claims court. Firstly however, we would recommend you send a letter (with proof of
postage) to the seller stating that you require delivery of your goods or a full refund within 10 working days. Should the seller fail to act on this letter, we would suggest you consider court action as ultimately only a judge could make the seller refund you.

If you require any further advice or information about this case, please do not hesitate to contact Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06 quoting the case reference number. Please do not respond to this email as the Consumer Direct inbox is not monitored and your response will not be replied to.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Despite receiving 323 positive feedback (ie. 100% positive feedback) myself - mainly on purchased items - I will never use e-bay again. This chap has effectively found a method of defrauding people, knowing that no-one will bother to pursue the matter. E-bay and trading standards will tell the victim of this kind of fraud to chase the thief through the small claims court. I'm writing this post because 1) I'm angry that this thief has got away with it 2) This chap is free to continue to defraud other people with impunity. I want other people to be aware. You will loose money and even open yourself to identity fraud - this thief has my bank details and signature (printed/written on the cheque) and of course my address (which is where he was suppose to send the items).

This is just awful Are you going to try to get your money back?
Thanks for sharing this and I hope other people will take note.
Personally I only use Paypal to pay for or receive payment for transactions.

Really sorry. This is why I use paypal.

It changed not so long ago, where you are only covered if you pay by paypal. I only ever used paypal as buyer before, but certainly when the change came about there would be no way i would send cheques or postal orders.
If a seller does not accept paypal then I am already suspicious.

So sorry you have lost your money

Send a very official sounding letter to the seller - prob won't get you anywhere, but you never know

If you sell on ebay please be aware of the following PAYPAL scam. You sell something on ebay it is paid for by paypal. You send it to the paypal confirmed address, they pretend the never received it and start a claim through paypal who will find in their favour and get refunded the money from you (and keep the goods) Proof of postage is not sufficient you must have proof of delivery ie send stuff recorded delivery via courier.

I followed the trading standard officer's advice, but not surprisingly, I've heard nothing back. I would definately advise people never to pay by cheque. I might as well have gone up to a total stranger in the street, ask for his name, give him a signed cheque with my address - because in effect, that's exactly what I've done.

I've been a member since 2003. It's sad to say that I never had problem until the latter half of last year. Up to then, 10/10 of the transactions were hassle free. This has since dropped to 1 in 10. Only 1 out of my last 10 transactions has gone smoothly. I simply can not spend my time and effort chasing up all these problems. This fraudulent transaction, together with E-Bay's unwillingness to do anything about it, is the last straw. I simply can not afford to use E-Bay anymore.

If you do go back to ebay, never pay by cheque again. Always PayPal as you can claim money back and are protected. I mainly sell, but I don't accept cheques at all.

CarGirl - re your point about the paypal scam - you sell it, you send it, you have cert of posting - an email/PayPal claim (printed out) is sufficient "proof" of non delivery for Royal Mail to pay out on a cert of posting. I have made a few claims recently for items which I have sent (and people tell me are lost) and each time I have sent the cert of post and email from buyer to RM with the claim form and have always been paid out. (I do usually sell things for under £10 or £15 so we are not talking huge claims).

Crokky - good to know that RM are OK about paying out

At the moment, I am mainly using courier delivery. I also offer RM options, but I make them more expensive than the courier, which I offer at cost price, so 9 times out of 10, people choose courier delivery.

However, that only works if you're selling largish things.

I was scammed also and lost £62

Will only ever use paypal and buy off sellers with 100% feedback from now on.

crokky thanks for that info before now royal mail have always wanted to send the buyer a form for them to fill and claim. Dh has had someone really nasty towards him over it and it's really put him off bothering but unfortunately we need the money! We've never had a bounced cheque though!

Sorry for your experience. Ebay seems to bring out the worst in some people. (I was selling & had an email from someone asking me if it was knocked off , and could I get any more, for him!) It all seems such a lottery, you never know what you're getting. I bought a 'new' DVD that turned out to be a pirate, downloaded copy that I could've done myself if I'd felt like breaking the law

mum of helen, this sounds, as you say, like something you have to chalk up to experience. I believe in karma, though, and if this guy screws people, one day he will get screwed, good & proper

I am crap at links so I will try...

You fill in the web form on royalmail.com and once you have done it, it will ask you to print it out and send it freepost to them with the certificate of posting, proof of market value and any other supporting papers.

Proof of market value = do a print out of the auction page showing the final price.

Proof of buyer not received item = I think I meant if you get an email from the buyer that says "I have not received my item...etc" then print that email out to send with the form. Unfortunately if the buyers email contains abuse, it won't help your case, but usually their first email will be farily polite and just state they haven't received it.

Remember: you have to wait the allotted number of days that Royal Mail deem something to be "lost". For second class mail, the due date of delivery is the 3rd working day after you posted it and you have to then wait 15 working days after this until they accept it is "lost".

ALWAYS get cert of post - covers you up to £34 which is basically everything I sell!

This may be a link to the start of claiming for a second class item:

www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/customerservices;jsessionid=BWATTJKBDHPA0FB2IGDUQEQUHRAYSQ2K?catId=40014 4&pageId=cs_filter&csd=late&gear=authentication

And another thing, as soon as you get the first email from the buyer saying they haven't got their item, reply straight away telling them the date you posted it and include the date from which Royal Mail will consider it lost. Say if you have not recieved by this date, write me another email and I will give you a refund (it will be this email you use as proof for RM). Otherwise, please let me know if you receive the item in the meantime.

Have you tried cancelling the checque with the bank?

I,m sure I have read on another ebay thread that it is possible even after it has peeb prented and cashe, they can reverse it.

Worth giving your bank a call if you haven't already done so.

been presented and cashed!

stupid typist me.

I had this happen to me too on ebay when I paid by cheque. Ebay struck the person off and I couldn't then contact them to make a claim.

Ebay wanted nothing more to do with it and for the amount of money it wasn't worth the time and hassle re the small claims court since ven then you don't get your money back if they have moved or changed a business slightly.

Its paypal for me where I can from now on too