Community Newsletter: Q&A: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now?
- 9/28/07 3:22 PM
Small Claims Court
by dswaggoner - 9/21/07 10:27 PM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you have the persons name, receipt that you paid. Small claims court could be the answer.
This is the best way to purchase
by gerb2000 - 9/21/07 11:26 PM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
PAYPAL IS A RIPOFF!!! I have filed 2 disputes with paypal and both of them were closed without even allowing me to give them a second response. I ordered an American program for ps2 and I was shipped a Japanese version that wasn't compatable. After contacting the seller by email 3 times to get return authorization with no response, I resorted to filing a dispute. Well Paypal contacted the seller, they proved that they shipped item and I received it. OK, yeah i did, it was not what I ordered. They closed the case and I could say no more. I contacted my CC company as well and after filling out tons of paperwork I did not get it fully straightened out either. I ended up giving the selling nearly $200.00 and this program was only $30.00 and I ended up just going out and buying another one.
Second incident was a subscription service that I thought I had cancelled. [Darkstar Communications] Well, behold, I did not cancel it correctly. I tryed to cancel the service and get a refund through the company on the VERY FIRST day of the new billing cycle. Too late the contract stated that the subscription would run its full cycle (1 whole year) and I could not cancel. Retailer no help, Paypal absolutely no help, contacted the CC company and they said they could get it fixed. After spending an hour talking to them they said they would fedex me paperwork to fill out, and I would miss a full days pay at work waiting for it to arrive.... I just said its not worth it and gave in. Yay!!!
I rarely use Paypal anymore since they DO NOT CARE about the customer at all.
If you are brave enough to purchase something get the sellers address. Ship a POSTAL MONEY ORDER to them certified and ask them to ship the item the exact same way. You have a lot more legal recourse with Federal shipping and a Federal money order than you do with Paypal.
You are destined to get screwed by Ebay and Paypal both. Its just a matter of time. Spend the extra 5%-10% and buy it from a reputable business locally or some place like amazon or buy.com. In the long run its less of a hassle, trust me.
I feel this is a little unfair
by gbswales1 - 9/22/07 4:42 AM In reply to: This is the best way to purchase by gerb2000PayPal handle millions of transactions and it is a rough and ready service that does not offer 100% protection - neither do some banks however. The truth is no matter how you get ripped off you are likely either to lose most of your money or have to pursue lengthy arguments with your bank. I have to say however that I have only ever filed three disputes and all three reached some kind of resolution - they even managed to recover about 80% of what I paid to a company in China.
Ebay in the main is fine but the golden rule is "if it looks too good to be true then it probably is" - If you are looking for an IPOD for $20 then you are either going to get a broken one, a fake one or more likely nothing at all.
Sorry About That BUT Here's How I Do It
by prince_valiant1 - 9/21/07 11:48 PM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Sorry about your luck. That is really too bad. You shouldn't have waited so long. You should have been on the seller and E-Bay once a week. He should have told you when he sent it, where he sent it from, and he should be concerned that you didn't receive it. If he wasn't concerned, then he was wrong.
I haven't bought of E-Bay for a long time now because of funds, but I used to buy all the time. I paid with a money order and got burned. After that, I had no problem at all. Here is what I do.
1) see an item that I want.
2) read the seller's feedback. If there is more than one or two bad feedbacks, then I think twice before I buy.
3) I email the seller through E-Bay and ask questions.
4) I bid on it.
5) If I win the auction, then I contact the seller immediately through e-mail through E-Bay.
6) I send the seller a money order and pay extra for confirmation (the little green card that goes with the letter, seller has to sign, and then that card comes back to you). That way, I know that the seller received it, when they received it, and who signed for it.
7) I always use Post Office money orders
8) I ALWAYS keep the money order receipt and the little white receipt that you get when you pay for confirmation together in a place in view at all times.
9) As soon as I send out the money order in this way, I e-mail the seller again. That way, they know I am interested with the first e-mail, know that I bought 'it' with the second e-mail, know that I sent out the money order and when with the third e-mail and I ask them to let me know as soon as THEY send 'it' to me.
10) As soon as I receive it, I e-mail them again telling them that I received it and asking them for a good feedback as a buyer. THAT is when, and NOT before, that I leave them good feedback as a sller.
That is how I do it. There are 10 little steps. It has never let me down. If anything goes wrong, I contact the seller right away. If he wants the money, he has to sign for it. If he tries to rip me off, I can inform him (or her) that "SO & SO" signed for it on a certain date and that you used a Postal money order. If you do not receive your 'it', then you will be forced to turn him in. They would be committing fraud with the Post Office involved. That is a felony. They don't really want to go to prison. AND if the seller doesn't do anything about it, contact E-Bay and tell them everything that you know. Also, since you kept the money order receipt in plain view, take it to the Post Office. You WILL get your 'it', money back, OR the seller WILL be in jail.
One time a seller was going to rip me off. I contacted him with the items of fact: signed green card, report to E-Bay, And Post Office money order = felony. The seller got shook up and I had my 'it' by the end of the week.
I don't like, nor do I trust PayPal. I tried them once. For some reason their computer had me in an endless loop. I tried to sign up. They said I was already a member. I tried to log in and they said that I was NOT a member and I needed to sign up. When I tried to sign up ... you get the idea. They also kept me from getting my item. I don't trust them and don't like them. I DO stay away from them like the plague.
Just follow my 10 steps: find it, check out the seller, e-mail the seller and ask questions, bid on it, win it, e-mail again, send the Postal money order with confirmation card, e-mail again asking for an e-mail when they send your item, receive it, e-mail again, THEN and ONLY then leave feedback. Always be nice, pleasant, and cheery -- until you just can't be. Use a postal money order with confirmation card and the power is in your hands. Never use PayPal. DO all that and you'll be ok.
About your current situation, I am really sorry about that but you will probably have to suck it up and mark it up as a learning experience; and probably a pretty costly one at that.
Scammed on Ebay...
by darrenforster99 - 9/22/07 1:05 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'm quite fortunate as up to now I have not been scammed on eBay as a buyer, however twice have been scammed as a seller now resulting in two lots of negative feedback, including slanderous comments left (after approaching a solicitor regarding this I found out it would be too expensive for me to even consider taking the people to court for libel, and so have just left it as everyone can see from my other feedback that tbese people are obviously scammers).
However I did once get scammed a few years ago when buying a CD Writer from a computer fair. Computer fairs are probably a little bit more dodgy than eBay to buy from, 'cos at least with eBay you have the PayPal protection there, but here are few solutions I found out...
1. If you bought the item with a Mastercard contact them to report the fraud and file a claim against them for reversal of the money. In the UK Mastercard offer a guarantee against fraudulent transactions where they will immediatly refund you the money and then they do the chasing up from the third party for the money, they have a lot more power against PayPal than you! PayPal will have a way of tracking where that money went to quite easily, however if an individual complains to them there more than likely to just ignore it in the hope that you don't realise all your options so they can get away with it, however if Mastercard's fraud squad start banging on their door they are more likely to wake up and smell the coffee. Even if Mastercard don't get their money back (highly unlikely) they are covered by insurance for this. I think there are similar schemes run by other credit card companies like Visa and American Express too. If however you've purchased this with a debit card you are highly unlikely to be able to follow this route.
2. See if PayPal have left you the persons address, normally in the details page when you made the payment it includes the persons address, also eBay sometimes sends you an email after the auction including the persons address. If you don't have the persons address you can try and request this information from eBay through the following form http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/AdvSearch?sofindtype=9 . Note: this will also send your contact details to the other person too. If you get the persons address in the UK you can start a small claims procedure to retrieve your money. All you need to do for this is to go to your local courts and ask for a small claims form (Form N1). You can also do this easily online at https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk . The person then has up to 28 days to make a response, failure to make a response means you win the case and they must pay up. Even if it does result in the case going to court, DON'T PANIC. The court you go into is not the same as a big court room with judges in big wigs etc. I took the guy to court with the CD writer I bought (and won), all it consisted of is a small room with a table, you and your witnesses on one side of the table and the defendant and their witnesses on the other side of the table. The judge is at the end of the table, he asks you your side of the story, then the defendents side and then makes his decision based on what he hears. It is a very informal court and is more like people sat round a table trying to work out their differences. In addition to this it is not necessary to hire a solicitor to sit through the case with you, you could have your solicitor there but it is entirely up to you.
Finally if with eBay you still haven't managed to obtain the persons address, all is not lost. If you've got the e-mail address of the scammer you should be able to retrieve his address from his ISP, look at the end of his e-mail address and contact the ISP to see if they are able to help you out, it will probably need a court order to retrieve the information. e.g. if their e-mail address is someone@aol.com contact AOL and try and get their address, or if their e-mail address is their own domain its even better (e.g. webmaster@my-online-shop.com) you can use a whois search on the domain name e.g. http://www.internic.net/whois.html (US) or http://www.nominet.org.uk/ (UK), this should provide some information, such as the company that registered the domain for the person (these people will hold the same information as the ISP but again will probably need a court order to release the information), or even the persons name and address.
Hope this helps people to get their money back from these scammers.
Time limit
by markmercer - 9/22/07 2:06 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I bought a UPS on e-bay. The money was taken but the item failed to appear. The supplier said it was a matter for the carrier. They would contact them. Over a period of a month or so I had a regular exchange of emails and made at least half a dozen phone calls. Eventually I realised I was not getting anywhere and asked Pay-pal for my money back. THEN I learned that because I had not started a dispute within twenty eight days of the transaction I had no claim(!) My being patient with the supplier's problems with their carrier negated Pay-pal's much hyped promise of security.
Eventually I threatened the supplier with legal action and did receive a UPS as advertised - except that it is faulty.
Check out the Feedback Ratings & use buyer protection!
by RoddP - 9/22/07 3:52 AM In reply to: Time limit by markmercerI agree with all of the folks here who say do your homework and check out a seller prior to committment. Overall most folks on EBay are honest people. I have bought quite a few items on there using my wifes and my own acct. My wife is a powerseller and always makes things right with the buyer. Overall except for 2 transactions it was all positive outcomes. The 2 negatives were similar to yours. One is a vendor out of Odessa who sell Auto Decals and has a habit of claiming nonpayments to cover his tracks against buyer complaints. His types of behaviors are similar to what you are experiencing as to not providing a shipping number to the buyer when he complains and then one magically shows up when you start the dispute process. Sad thing is the guy only does about 20 tranactions a month and can't keep accountability of those. He basically took my 100% rating down to 98.5 along with a few other folks who were in the same boat and complained about his p-poor customer service. Luckily EBay and Paypals saw the transaction numbers so he couldn't complain to them and Paypals was going to refund my money the next day if he hadn't provided a tracking number so one magically showed up and the item came 2 days later somehow at the post offices mishap as always with this guy. Episode 2 I bought a car from a guy in Fayetteville and drove up to retrieve it. Basically it was a rust bucket and hadmajor issues with brakes and a wheel wobble as well. Left it in the driveway and asked for my 1000 dollars back but he spent the money and sent me 800 as a song and dance that it cost him to relist which the actually cost was about 6 bucks to relist. Luckily I am retired military and went through the JAG office but they said file in civil court. Papers were filed in his county and I had contacted some of his other very sore buyers as well who had gotten ripped off but they were too far away to attend or lost interest in recovering their losses as well. The end result was the guy had to pay me $700 rather than the 200 due to travel from SC, wages, etc, etc,. Then he flees to Ark on a military move so I sent the court papers to his new duty stn since he fled jurisdiction before a property seizure could take place and then the military recovered the award due to it actually being an open legal issue and I was willing to drive out again and refile in the local jurisdiction. Luckily this time his chain of command did their job and made the guy pay up and settle the matter back in NC. After all was said and done this guy was doing fairly decent business up until 2 months before he left Ft Bragg and then went on a bad business streak and I talked to some of his other victims as well who drove from long distances to acquire junk as well as the others who received junk in the mail as false advertisements. Bottom line is do your homework and check folks ratings out and if it is a major purchase or something you can't afford to lose, then use EBays buyer protection!
Me too:-(
by Klahansua - 9/22/07 4:36 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I bought a native american style flute from someone in US. I mailed him to ask about postage to UK as he had stated free postage. He wrote back saying, since he had put free postage, that was how it would be. I then bid and won the auction. He had a few feedbacks at the time and they were quite good. I actually added $5 to the price to help with postage. After a couple of weeks I mailed him to ask how he had sent the flute. If he sent it by the cheapest method, it would take up to 8 weeks. He didn't reply, I mailed twice more, again with no reply. By this time he had some very negative feedback.
I didn't want to put in a complaint too early in case it still arrived. I finally took out a complaint with Pay Pal, thinking I was within the 45 day limit. They have said that I wasn't so have not activated it. They have mailed him but I guess there is now no way of getting my money back. Only the second time in quite a few years that goods haven't arrived and I didn't get a refund.
I do have a solution - seriously, stay away from eBay
by jtruman8511 - 9/22/07 6:07 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Jim:
I'm sorry to hear that you were apparently taken advantage of on eBay. The problem is that lots of decent people like yourself are taken advantage of on eBay and you know what, eBay appears to have no liability for it. I don't even think they care. I had a friend get ripped off THOUSANDS using a so-called "eBay merchant" and I've read countless other stories of the same thing from other people.
It's incredible how you can have a good number of thieves using your service and bare absolutely no responsibility.
If Paypal isn't even coming to your rescue (sounds like a pretty lame loophole on their part), then I think you should just use this as one more reason to stay away from Paypal and eBay.
Other than that....
If, by chance, you setup your Paypal account using your credit card (fyi: I don't use Paypal, so I don't know), you might try contacting your credit card company.
I'd also see about filing a complaint against Paypal with the BBB of the state they're incorporated in, not that I think it'll do much good. You may also consider the same with the so-called merchant who sold you this stuff, and if you've got his address, contact the Attorney General in his/her home state and see if anybody else has had the same problem with them. If so, take that back to Paypal.
Good luck...
Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com
Scams
by donbrownzd - 9/22/07 6:39 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Quite simply, you should report the matter to the local police department for the # that you were given in the email, in addition to your local police department.
A little google research will yield the appropriate telephone #'s to call.
Technically, this is a larceny, the individual stole money from you under the false pretense that they were selling you a product, I believe you will be able to provide adequate documentation regarding payment, terms and conditions.
Let the local authorities handle it.
A couple of tips for Ebay purchasing
by skitzoidlady - 9/22/07 8:18 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I purchased a fairly old Ouija Board (don't ask, it was a gift for someone else) from a fellow on E-Bay and the item never arrived.
I've purchased a ton of stuff through E-Bay, and while not everything was exactly to my liking, everything was delivered.
This time, the product cost $300.00 and I paid for it with my credit card through Pay-Pal rather than directly from my bank.
Apparently there is a $1000 protection through Pay-Pal if you use a direct withdrawel from your bank.
I went through the resolution process through Pay-Pal and recoup about $200 of my $300 loss.
This is what I've started doing since I got burned.
1. I always check to see how many sales the seller has made previously. The guy who sold me the Ouija Board only had a few sales.
2. Always check feed back. I look for 99.5% or above satisfaction rate.
3. Don't be afraid to ask the seller questions.
4. If an item doesn't arrive or is unsatifactory, don't be afraid to use the resolution center at Pay-Pal. AND, don't let it rest.
5. Pay with automatic bank withdrawal through Pay-Pal to get the $1000 insurance coverage.
Only use credit card on PayPal
by midnightcry - 9/22/07 8:27 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had a similar thing happen a couple years ago. I started a resolution with PayPal only to be told that it could up to 30 days. After 35 days I was told to give them another 30 days. Meanwhile, I happen to be in the city where this merchant was supposed to be and found he had moved out in the middle of the night. After more than 60 days, PayPal wrote that they could credit me a total of 6.00 out of the more than $60 I was out.
Since I had used a credit card, I contacted the bank and they reversed the full charge to PayPal and credited me the full amount.
Lesson learned: use a credit card when purchasing through PayPal.
How can they really decide who is telling the truth?
by meldrewreborn - 9/22/07 9:18 AM In reply to: Only use credit card on PayPal by midnightcryI've got a dispute running at the moment. I bought a copy of Vista and when it arrived the COA was missing along with the DVD.. I got an expensive empty box. I've escalated this to a claim through paypal. I've had my say the seller the same. she says it was all there i know it wasn't but how are paypal really supposed to decide who is telling the truth. There is the additional complication that i'm in the Uk and the seller is in the USA. My local police force won't even take a complaint- "No investigatable crime" - i can see their point but given that paypal say unless i furnish them with a police report they'll close the dispute I find myself in between the devil and the deep blue sea. In UK law its for the seller to prove that the item arrived in good condition. But laws in relation to auctions are different. So given the difficulty of actually proving one's case i'm now resigned to the fact that a small %age of my trades will go bad. It gets factored into prices just as it does in the mainstream retail sector. Theft/fraud isn't unique to e-bay you know. I wish it wasn't that way but unless you can take your item to an ebay approved inspector, who then delivers it to the buyer who opens the item in the presence of another ebay inspector, you are never going to have a satisfactory nd totally safe delivery mechanism. any such mechanism would cost mega buck so it'll never happen. We don't live in utopia. So accept that you've been scammed, learn from it and move on. While the loss is no doubt significant to you now, in terms of your whole life its negligible. Life's a ***** eh!
FYI ebay and paypal
by little eagle - 9/22/07 10:18 AM In reply to: Only use credit card on PayPal by midnightcryPayPal is a online payment service owned by eBay.
So ebay and paypal get money, one for the sale and one for the service?
I see no reason for ebay or paypal to help out the buyer?
Except that people will soon find out they are talking to the same people.
Just my thoughts. Never use paypal on ebay. 
Scammed on Ebay/Help for JIM
by Dioctor_Death - 9/22/07 9:23 AM In reply to: I got scammed on eBay, what can I do now? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Jim
My name is Stan.I to got screwed over on ebay twice.You said you only have his Phone #. If you write to ebay and request the sellers info,they will provide it for you.They did this for me and it helped with getting a full name and address.PayPal helped.but not that much.I won the disputes but on one i only recieved $200 out of $375.I am now working with the Attorney Generals Office in Oklahoma where the seller lives,to try to get the last $175.Seeing as ebay & pay pal take in Billion's each yr,they can afford to screen buyers & sellers,but they refuse to. ebay is a great place,but if tjhey will not take the time to really help,then its just not worth it.WE the people that make tghem rich should do something to get them to either help more,or start screening. Jim,you need to email ebay with the item number,and ask for the sellers information.It might take them 2-3 days,but they will give it to you.Then you can contact the local police in his town.Thats what i did,I had him arrested for fraud.He was also banned from ebay.He sold me what was supposed to mbe a processor with fan & heatsink for $375.When the package came there was no processor,! just the fan & heatsink.I will noty stop untill i get my last $175,or he is in jail.Then once he gets out,ill start it al over again untill i get paid.
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