Community Newsletter: Q&A: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now?

Remember: eBay and PayPal protect sellers over buyers

In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

Hi Jim, to answer your question: I'm afraid you've almost certainly seen the last of your money. It's a lesson I learned the hard way myself and I'll outline it here, as well as how easy it is for high volume sellers to hide behind eBay and PayPal's protection policies.

Some time ago, I was in the process of making a final upgrade to my PC and I was in the market for an Athlon XP 3200+ CPU. I found several on eBay but one was slightly cheaper than the others, even counting the cost of shipping from the US to Europe. The seller, who's name I won't mention here, had well over 32,000 positive feedback and I'd actually bought some RAM from them previously so I had no qualms about buying the processor and sent my payment immediately, via PayPal.

I received an email fairly promptly from the seller, saying thanks for paying and that "sometimes our items can be held up in customs, so please allow 28 working days for delivery". So I waited and after a few weeks I sent them an email enquiring about it and was reassured that "even if the item is lost, it is insured so don't worry". 28 days came and went and then I started emailing them for the insurance form and no reply came. After a few days of increasingly strongly worded emails I phoned PayPal who said that the seller had probably said to wait 28 working days so that my right to make a PayPal claim and retrieve my payment would have expired. I tried to make a claim through eBay's buyer protection scheme and after faxing dozens of pages of correspondence and proof of payment was completely ignored. I'll say it plainly here: eBay's own payment protection is worse than useless.

So, finally giving up hope of getting my $160 back I submitted some scathing negative feedback, only for the seller to leave me negative feedback in kind and comment on my feedback "The item is insured, we can work it out so why the neg!?" This a full three months after my payment and all correspondence regarding insurance, replacement or reimbursement completely ignored! Interestingly, I was contacted by several other people who'd been stiffed in the same manner by this seller, or weren't sure whether they should make their claims early or trust the seller. Looking deeper into the seller's feedback profile, it was obvious that although they processed 3-4000 positive transations every month, there were about 1-200 buyers in that time whose items went missing and were hung out to dry. Because eBay favour the protection of sellers over buyers, it's all too easy for sellers to cover their tracks by taking advantage of the feedback system in this way.

My confidence in eBay was badly shaken and I now use it far, far less frequently than before. I won't buy items for more than about $60 and I avoid sellers with huge feedback numbers like the plague, because I now know that a very high feedback rating can hide a multidude of sins.

My advice to all eBay buyers is this: shoot first, ask questions later. If you put in a PayPal claim, you have the power to withold your money from the seller and you can always drop the claim if the item turns up. If you leave it too late, the seller is free to laugh all the way to the bank.