An odd thing happened and I'm mystified.

[Hassled]

We won a bid for a Lego Star Wars set - it was the Battle of Endor thing - Lego.com has sold out, it's hard to come by and we got it for a pretty reasonable amount. What happened is:

DH paid by paypal the next morning.
Later that day the seller emails to say it's been dispatched by Royal Mail and here is the tracking number.
A few days later I try the tracking number and find it's invalid/wrong format. I try ParcelForce as well just in case.
DH emails seller and gets no reply.
DH then realises that the money actually went back into his paypal account the same day that he paid.
Seller has now vanished from Ebay.

So one the one hand we have the money, on the other hand we have no Christmas present for DS3. And it's baffling - what went on? Does this happen often? Is it some elaborate scam?

It sounds as though they refunded your transaction.
Can you get their phone number, and give them a call - you have to put in a request to ebay, and they then email you the sellers contact details. However, if they're no longer a registered user, I don't know if this will work.
You could post your query on the ebay message boards...people there know a scary amount about ebay!

Thanks - I might try the ebay boards. As long as we have our money back, which we do, it's not too big a deal - just really odd. Why would she tell us she'd despatched the thing and then refund the money and disappear?

I think there are very odd people on ebay.

You or I wouldnt do something like this, but in the ebay world I think it is fairly common.

I had a similar thing a while back with a DS game. I paid, and the woman said she sent it. It didnt arrive after a week so I contacted her, (she had 20 odd other items on auction at that moment) She said she posted it then ... bumf... deregistered !

Why ? I know not.

I got my money back from PP, but the game never turned up.d

maybe someone else offered her more?
v strange

I agree with Imisssleeping, someone has probably emailed her after the auction was over and offered her more than your winning bid and cash in hand or something so a) she gets more money in the first place, b) doesn't have to pay final value fees and c)doesnt have to pay paypal fees. Hard to resist....

yes but disapearing for it? That's odd!!