Need advice on a possible ebay scammer

I've been using ebay for 20+ years as both a buyer and seller and had my fair share of packages not get to me or end up completely broken, etc, but I've always had 100% good feedback.

Just in the past 2 months, I've sold various games on ebay and have had 3 people complain that the games didn't work although I tested them all myself before shipping and ebay has always sided with them, leaving me screwed over.

In July, I sold a pretty expensive gaming collector's item for about $400+ and 2 months later which is today, I get an email from paypal and not ebay saying that the buyer says "item not as described". I dunno why he didn't send the complaint 2 months ago after he got the item, but I find it strange he sent the complaint through paypal and not ebay.

He says that the item was all bent and banged up, so I reply asking for pictures for proof and why he didn't file the complaint 2 months ago since he only lives 20 minutes from me and literally got the package a day after I sent it. I packaged the item normally with the standard bubble wrap and correct size box like I do with every package and the majority of people I've sold to haven't complained. As much as I would think my post office banged up the package, how do I know he didn't take a sledgehammer and bang up the item himself in 2 months?

Now my paypal account is in negative balance and I can't use it right now. This is the 4th time I've been scammed in the 20+ years I've been on ebay. Like, have the scammers been increasing just recently?

I replied to the complaint asking why he didn't tell me when he got the product 2 months ago and for picture proof. Since I lost the past 3 complaints, I don't know if I will be able to win this one, but now I can't use my paypal account for the time being.

I have until Oct 11 for him to resolve things on his side by withdrawing his complaint or just not responding to me at all.

Has anyone else dealt with people like this on ebay and got any advice for me?

Thanks.

I just dug into his ebay profile and he's scalping an SNES Mini pre-order.

Now I'm certain he's trying to scam me, so I'm calling his bluff.

rmolina88 said:

I just dug into his ebay profile and he's scalping an SNES Mini pre-order.

Now I'm certain he's trying to scam me, so I'm calling his bluff.

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If he said item not described, you not going to win that I don't think. I was always told if you can't afford to take the loss on an item, don't bother selling it on eBay/Amazon. See it you can get it returned. Video tape you opening the box with the tracking in plain sight. If you get a rock star least you have video proof that you didn't receive item that you sold and not refund the money back till you receive your item back.

Going to be a tough one but it's worth a shot. Maybe the buyer is having buyers remorse. You may get your item back to sell again.

Best of luck.

Always take a lot of pictures of the item before you ship it. What it looks like wrapped in the box, then the sealed box. With bigger items or something that is hard to tell the size off. But a tape measure/ruler out for size reference.

But with that case Ebay has a 30 day rule from when the item gets delivered to initiate a complaint/return/problem. He is doing it thru paypal which has the same 30 days unless he used a credit card then its 4 or 5 months I think. But buyers remorse is not something he can use. So he has to say its broken. You need to show when it was delivered (tracking number) and pictures of the items. The buyer will have to do the same thing. Also mention you live close by the buyer so he/she should be able to return the item (if you want that) and that they had it for x number of days before complaining.

Look up ebay's buying/selling rules. People are always looking around ways to scam on ebay. That's why ebay changes there buyer/seller rules all the time. The information is really useful/helpful.

Thanks for the advice everyone. He still hasn't responded to me yet and hasn't sent me any pictures for proof that the item was bent.

I'll keep everyone updated as things progress.

Another thing.

Make sure you showed paypal that it was from an auction/sale from ebay. And note the sale date, ship date, delivery date. The people that do this get paid garbage so treat them like gods and you can help your case. Raising hell and bitching gets you know where with customer service.

And the other auctions that you said you got scammed on. Take multiple pictures at different angles to show any scratches damage (zoomed in as close as possible to see the whole disc. That's also one of the reasons I rarely sell disc games on ebay. I just trade them in to gamestop or best buy. I miss the good old days of goozex and trading games to other members and actually getting a decent amount of points which I could then use on games or movies. Before the owners got greedy and started selling points. That was there downfall.

SchmidtA99 said:

Always take a lot of pictures of the item before you ship it. What it looks like wrapped in the box, then the sealed box. With bigger items or something that is hard to tell the size off. But a tape measure/ruler out for size reference.

But with that case Ebay has a 30 day rule from when the item gets delivered to initiate a complaint/return/problem. He is doing it thru paypal which has the same 30 days unless he used a credit card then its 4 or 5 months I think. But buyers remorse is not something he can use. So he has to say its broken. You need to show when it was delivered (tracking number) and pictures of the items. The buyer will have to do the same thing. Also mention you live close by the buyer so he/she should be able to return the item (if you want that) and that they had it for x number of days before complaining.

Look up ebay's buying/selling rules. People are always looking around ways to scam on ebay. That's why ebay changes there buyer/seller rules all the time. The information is really useful/helpful.

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I'm looking through his transaction and I can't tell if he used a credit card with paypal or not. Since it's way over 60 days, I have no idea how he was able to even dispute this sale in the first place, so maybe he used a credit card.

If he doesn't respond to me by Oct 11 like paypal says, will they drop this entire dispute or rule in his favor? It sucks having my paypal account limited like this. As of this post, I still have no response from him.

If he doesn't respond and you have they will drop the case (in your favor). At least that is what happened to me.

I don't think you can see if he used a credit card, but since its over 60 days day he probably did. Since its against paypal's policy to try and get refunds after 30 days from delivery. 

SchmidtA99 said:

If he doesn't respond and you have they will drop the case (in your favor). At least that is what happened to me.

I don't think you can see if he used a credit card, but since its over 60 days day he probably did. Since its against paypal's policy to try and get refunds after 30 days from delivery.

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From Paypal's website: Purchase Protection covers all eligible purchases where PayPal is used, as well as payments made through our website. To take advantage of Purchase Protection, we require, among other things, that PayPal accounts be kept in good standing and ask that a dispute be filed within 180 days of your purchase or payment. Paypal made this change either earlier this year or last year.

“I was always told if you can't afford to take the loss on an item, don't bother selling it on eBay/Amazon.”

When I dealt with a scammer about a year ago, this was more or less what I was told by eBay, if I read between the lines. Basically, the buyer holds all the power and as long as they can return the item in “as received” condition, they can do so and get their money back. And, of course, you’re responsible for the item until the person gets it and it’s your word against theirs even then.

What saved me was one of the pictures of the console I sold that they claimed was damaged had the security screws removed and the pictures in the auction clearly showed them in. When I asked the person if they’d opened it, they said yes at which point I made a case that it couldn’t be returned as received and the ruling went with me almost immediately. Despite all the other signs screaming out scammer (every time I messaged, someone new responded, they never could get a straight story, they were abusive and accusatory from message one, the account had a repution for this kind of stuff that I found out about after the auction closed, etc.) I am pretty sure the only thing that tipped it to me was that one of the people admitted they opened the console.

Anyway, good luck. I started on eBay in 1998 and selling on there has become just not worth it to me. It’s barely worth buying as there’s just so much crap anyway.

Thanks everyone for the advice so far.

After spending over an hour on hold, I finally talked to paypal on the phone and told them my situation saying the scammer was abusing the return policy. They escalated it to a claim on my behalf and I hope it ends up in my favor where I at least get the negative balance removed and the scammer can keep the item and never bother me again.

I'll post more updates as they come.

Selling on eBay is such a crap shoot. Basically everyone has some horror story to tell with either ebay or Paypal. I switched to only selling locally because of the shitty situation there

Hope it somehow works out for you

Update: Despite all the evidence I sent to paypal, they unfortunately decided to side with the buyer, but will only give him a refund if he sends the item back to me by Oct 7.

If he doesn't send the item, will I get my paypal balance out of negative?

They'll need to send the item with tracking, yes, and if it doesnt arrive youll then keep the funds. However, all this scammer needs to do is send you a literal brick in the mail and theyll get the case decided in their favor. Its pretty ed up

edlin303 said:

They'll need to send the item with tracking, yes, and if it doesnt arrive youll then keep the funds. However, all this scammer needs to do is send you a literal brick in the mail and theyll get the case decided in their favor. Its pretty ed up

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I guess I can use that brick for something... heh.

You do have his address and he lives close by you. jk

I do feel like there are more scammers than before.  People are less honest these days.  

I honestly stopped selling on eBay after I got scammed hard last year, though a portion of it is my fault.

Sold a digital game code that came with my New Xbox 360 (Forza Horizon 2)

Winner contacted me directly, asking me to just send him the code. I sent a scan of the card/code just as asked.

A couple weeks later, he reported the item never being received and that HE didn't make the purchase himself.

With the help of Microsoft, and my own meticulous record keeping, I was able to prove it was not only his account and emails, but he had claimed the code and was in fact using it.

Sadly because I only sent a digital copy of the code, PayPal & eBay had to side with him. So from then I, I make sure to not only send a digital, but a physical copy of everything I sell, to make sure this never happens again.

I've dealt with some scummy buyers and sellers before in the past 20+ years of using ebay, but 2017 has by far been the absolute worst.

Did they all finally crawl out of their hole this year or something?

Update: Looks like the scumbag waited 2 days before the dispute expires to actually ship back the product and now I have a tracking number for the return.

I can't wait to get my brick or bag of turds he's gonna send.

Sad to announce, despite my efforts, the scammer won. I never got the item shipped back to me, despite getting a tracking number and I've already put in a missing mail search with USPS, but still nothing.

It sucks that honest sellers have to deal with scammers who know how to work the system in order to get their money back and KEEP the item they bought. This couldn't have come at a worse time as I have 2 conventions I'm going to (Twitch-con and Playstation Experience), so I literally had to cut down my expenses for both down to the bare minimum if I want to even eat.

I could have cancelled my SNES Minis and my conventions, but I refuse to let this scumbag ruin my life any further. He may have won this battle, but I'm 100% sure karma is gonna bite him in the arse as he will most likely get another scammer who'll do the same thing to him when he sells stuff while I'm enjoying my SNES Mini and Super Mario Oddysey.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on how to deal with this. I'm glad I at least took a stand.

I'd still contact ebay/paypal and said you never received the item. Even though he showed he shipped it. If it doesn't say delivered to your place then you should win. I would contact them and complain up a storm.

SchmidtA99 said:

I'd still contact ebay/paypal and said you never received the item. Even though he showed he shipped it. If it doesn't say delivered to your place then you should win. I would contact them and complain up a storm.

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Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "sender is responsible for the package until it reaches the destination" rule would apply for a return. If you never receive anything, I would assume the buyer is still on the hook, tracking number or not. Given the value of the item, I'd still fight this, but YMMV on if it's worth it or not.

SchmidtA99 said:

I'd still contact ebay/paypal and said you never received the item. Even though he showed he shipped it. If it doesn't say delivered to your place then you should win. I would contact them and complain up a storm.

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Sadly, the tracking # says it arrived at my place, but I don't have it. I have no idea how the post office messed this up, but it already has a delivery confirmation. Paypal's already ruled the case in his favor over a week ago and gave him back his money which really sucks.

I just feel all of this happened at the worst time and had the worst possible outcome. I'm lucky I didn't sell the item for MORE or I would have been royally screwed to the point where I would need 2 jobs to pay it all off. lol.

But regardless, I appreciate all the advice and hope this scammer gets screwed over when he tries to scalp more expensive items in the future. I just checked his ebay page recently and he's having trouble getting rid of his SNES Mini.

If it says it has been delivered to your place contact the usps inspector general. The person could work for the usps and its on there delivery route and never delivered it. Or they went to your place and stole it if it was left out front.

A few years ago I had a buyer say an item I shipped them never arrived. I went to the usps site and filed a complaint about a package and got called by the inspector general a couple days later and he said it had been delivered. The buyer contacted me and "forgot" they had received it. Postal theft happens all the time and they will prosecute the people involved to the full extent of the law.

This is the exact reason why I quit selling on Ebay. I've been a member since 1998 and major scamming problems started happening to me and other friends in the past 5 years. I'm a buyer and seller on Ebay and I've been scammed both ways. Paypal always sides with the buyer. I'm only a buyer now days. 

If you haven't filed a usps complaint. You should do it, this is the only way for scammers to get the message. With fines and chances of imprisonment if they have done it before. Letting them get away with ripping people off will only cause them to do it more.

Postal theft punishment is up to 5 years and up to $250,000 in fines. And getting a scammer back feels amazing.