two different names/addresses for buyer

[queenrollo]

I sold an item which has not yet been paid for.
I logged into Ebay to send an invoice and noticed that the name and registered address on the email that came when the auction finished do not match the name on the account that Ebay allowed me to invoice.

I'm not experienced in selling on Ebay at all but this is clearly not right and I am wondering if this is some kind of scam.

Not sure what to do, so any advice would be welcome!

I received an email at 3am saying they will pay on Friday and thanking me for my patience...

Its a known scam, you send the item tracked to the new address and meanwhile they change back, so it looks like you sent the item to the wrong address.

If you're not comfortable, you can cancel the sale on the grounds there's a problem with the buyers address.

ok thanks. I spoke to Ebay who said that I should send it when they pay tomorrow, but I am really uncomfortable with this as it's quite a high value item.

Be careful - they are trying to scam you good and proper here.

And definitely don't allow them to come and collect the item unless they pay you in cash on collection.

Unsurprisingly I had no communication for days.
I cancelled the sale just after I responded here, and messaged them to tell them why.
Within half an hour I have had a message saying that they were buying it as a gift for a friend, and I have ruined everything and my words are hurtful. They have also stated that no-one has ever raised such a weird suspicion about their account.
The registered address is in Scotland and the invoice address in the south of England. The scottish name gives nothing on a google search, the southern one is an older woman.

I'm just not happy to risk losing nearly a £100 over this. If the person is genuine they need to sort the address out on their account.

Also the account is set to Private, so I can see they have only positive feedback but I can't actually read any of it.

ok, now they have left me negative feedback

Im sorry but this does not at all sound like a scam. The 'scam' with addresses is when Buyers pay and then ask you to send to a different address instead - they hadnt done that.

eBay state to dispatch items only to the address given at payment - the one you would have been shown when the Buyer paid. The address shown here cannot be changed afterwards - even if a Buyer was to change their address on the account afterwards it would not change the details of that particular transaction.
For a valuable item send it tracked/signed for and add the tracking info to the transaction.

For what is worth Ive been running an eBay store for a furniture company for a long time and so deal with high value items daily - the names/addresses on the payment invoices are quite often different to those of the eBay account. People purchase for family, friends, to go to their new house, work etc - its not really an odd occurrence.

The only thing I would find annoying here is them advising they would be paying later than expected, without asking if that would be okay prior to purchase.

well it's done now. I've ended all my other listings on Ebay and given up. It's really too stressful and the support from Ebay themselves over this was pretty poor. I asked for advice and got a very non-commital response from them.

I would understand if the name was the same but addresses different, but they didn't match at all.

Ah im sorry to hear its put you off altogether, Im a big eBay user but I know it can be tricky sometimes.

If ever you do decide to list again and need any help, rather than calling eBay themselves I would advise to try the eBay community boards - theyre full of long time Sellers/Buyers who literally know the ins and outs and can be really helpful - and quite often similar questions will have been asked previously so you can search for answers easily. :)

Ask Customer Services to remove the feedback, they aren't supposed to use a different address.

But the Buyer hadnt used a different address?
They hadnt yet paid so hadnt yet given any definite address for this transaction.

For anyone this may help in the future:
www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/account-account-settings/delivery-billing-address?id=4201

JustABasicWitch
Thank you, your responses are very helpful. I have probably panicked about this, but after a couple of tricky transactions this one just set alarm bells ringing and I simply cannot afford to lose the money. Ebay seem to side with the buyer no matter what these days. If it had been £20 I might have been less bothered about the risk but not at just shy of a £100.

I do feel let down by Ebay customer service who I don't think handled any of my enquries about this well at all to be honest.