Has anyone here ever been conned? In real life, eBay, the internet, in general?
Today for the first time I think I have been. Where I work we needed to order some new track for one of our dolly's, we looked around and came across something we thought would be ideal on eBay. We missed the listing and there were no bids and asked if it would be re-listed, they said yes or we could send the reserve via PayPal which we did.
Long story short the track was nothing but drainage pipe and even after returning the item they refuse to return payment. We've started a dispute via PayPal but I can't see us winning so we've already resigned to the fact we've lost out. I'm just really annoyed at falling for it, I usually always go though eBay and I suspect because it was works account I let my guard down just enough...
Grr.
General Grrr - Being Con'ed
Correct me if I'm wrong but you can take the dispute to eBay, and there's a form you can fill in, and one of the options is "Item not as described". If the item's shit don't pay for shit produce.
I did that and got my £40 back thanks to some knobjockey who thought he could sell me a bogus suit. It had more holes in it than Jordan's had a dick in.
I did that and got my £40 back thanks to some knobjockey who thought he could sell me a bogus suit. It had more holes in it than Jordan's had a dick in.
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
near got conned quite recently on ebay.
put a camera up for sale, with a buy it now.
somebody clicked the buy it now. asked me loads of questions about it and a little while later, got all the emails from ebay/palpal saying the invoice had been paid and i should post it etc etc. except, it hadn't.
these emails weren't your usual forgeries with the wrong fonts/broken layout, they looked EXACTLY the same as the genuine emails. they even included my real email address and name. Not sure how they got that information as it wasn't in the listing and my ebay username is nothing like my real name - i only ever replied to their queries through the ebay system, which i don't think reveals your real name.
i *nearly* put the camera in the post. i only logged in to paypal to see how much the fees were and noticed that the money wasn't there. i was very lucky. i always check the balance in paypal before posting an item now, i used to rely on the emails. i did report him and he was banned, but i'm sure he'll just sign up again.
put a camera up for sale, with a buy it now.
somebody clicked the buy it now. asked me loads of questions about it and a little while later, got all the emails from ebay/palpal saying the invoice had been paid and i should post it etc etc. except, it hadn't.
these emails weren't your usual forgeries with the wrong fonts/broken layout, they looked EXACTLY the same as the genuine emails. they even included my real email address and name. Not sure how they got that information as it wasn't in the listing and my ebay username is nothing like my real name - i only ever replied to their queries through the ebay system, which i don't think reveals your real name.
i *nearly* put the camera in the post. i only logged in to paypal to see how much the fees were and noticed that the money wasn't there. i was very lucky. i always check the balance in paypal before posting an item now, i used to rely on the emails. i did report him and he was banned, but i'm sure he'll just sign up again.
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Not sure who was conned in this tale, but I sold an ipod Touch a month ago. Guy had no feedback on ebay (naturally I failed to check) but had a verified address in Paypal. After I posted, like HOURS after, I got an email from Paypal saying the payment was on hold and being investigated and I had to provide proof of postage. After a week they let it through. After two weeks they put it on hold again saying it was reported as unauthorised. Again I put in the proof of postage and they let the payment through, but it's very tricky.
I also put in a much wishy-washier "item not as described" for a dell laptop that was way worse than the guy had said it was, and which failed after a week. He agreed he'd try to repair it within 3 days but after 3 weeks of having it back he stopped replying. This was all done in the resolution centre, and a day after I elevated the claim to customer services I got my money back in full. I suspect, Bail, that if the guy agreed to take it back and you have proof of postage then you'll be able to get your money back.
In conclusion, I suspect it's all more geared to favour the buyer. After all, they said "no money has been retrieved from your account" after the suspicion of a fraudulent transaction, as though it was my fault!
I also put in a much wishy-washier "item not as described" for a dell laptop that was way worse than the guy had said it was, and which failed after a week. He agreed he'd try to repair it within 3 days but after 3 weeks of having it back he stopped replying. This was all done in the resolution centre, and a day after I elevated the claim to customer services I got my money back in full. I suspect, Bail, that if the guy agreed to take it back and you have proof of postage then you'll be able to get your money back.
In conclusion, I suspect it's all more geared to favour the buyer. After all, they said "no money has been retrieved from your account" after the suspicion of a fraudulent transaction, as though it was my fault!
Knight knight
Ah but I was an idiot and brought outside of eBay in paying him direct so I assume there's nothing eBay can do as they have no proof of transaction?James H wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but you can take the dispute to eBay, and there's a form you can fill in, and one of the options is "Item not as described". If the item's shit don't pay for shit produce.
I did that and got my £40 back thanks to some knobjockey who thought he could sell me a bogus suit. It had more holes in it than Jordan's had a dick in.
Oh. Well then - did you send payment through Paypal - oh yes you did, you say so in your OP.
You can still try eBay's customer service centre (you should still have the eBay receipts and he should have proof of postage). Failing that, nail the bastard in a civic suit.
You can still try eBay's customer service centre (you should still have the eBay receipts and he should have proof of postage). Failing that, nail the bastard in a civic suit.
Four years ago, I sold an Orange SPV M5000 device on eBay to a buyer in the US.
I listed the device with an extraordinary level of detail and plenty of photos. In the description, I mentioned that the device was based on the HTC "Universal" design, and was thus technically identical to other devices such as the O2 XDA Exec and T-Mobile MDA Pro; the main reason for doing this was, of course, to ensure that as many searches as possible would find my listing. However, I explicitly stated in the description that the device was sim-locked to Orange, and under the specific listing category of "Simlock", I said "Orange".
The device was purchased for just under £400, and the buyer paid using PayPal; I posted it the day after payment was received, and the buyer received it four days later.
Three days after that, the buyer wrote an angry message to me stating that I had misrepresented the product, and that he had purchased it believing it he could simply slip his SIM card in and use it on the American T-Mobile network. I swiftly replied to the buyer, and pointed out that the item listing clearly stated in two different places that the device was locked to the European Orange network, and the only mention of T-Mobile was in stating that the device was technically identical to other devices that HTC also manufactured for other networks. I also explained that he could probably get the device unlocked over in the US for a low fee, but that ultimately it was my belief that my listing had made it pretty clear - in explicit and certain terms - that the device was SIM-locked to a specific carrier, and that I couldn't therefore honour his request for a full refund.
A week later, I received a message from PayPal telling me that the buyer had initiated a chargeback demand through his credit card, and that his credit card company had already honoured the chargeback and issued a full refund to him. PayPal was contacting me, they said, because they wanted their money back. Of course, by that point, I’d already withdrawn the money from my PayPal account and spent in on bills and good times, so that wasn’t an option, but I wasn’t prepared to give up so easily anyway, so I contacted PayPal to explain the situation.
PayPal got back to me two weeks later to explain that, in a nutshell, there was nothing they could do; the credit card company had already issued the refund, so there was no possibility of reversing the process, and as things now stood, I owed PayPal £390-odd pounds. I contacted the buyer numerous times to insist that he return the device to me since he hadn’t paid for it, but of course the buyer ignored me. I contacted eBay to ask for their help, but they said there was nothing they could do, because from their side of things, the transaction had been completed successfully, the buyer had paid for the product, the seller had provided the product, and that was the end of their involvement in the process. The chargeback process and any disputes surrounding it, I was told, were not directly related to eBay, and under their terms and conditions, they could not therefore legitimately contact the buyer regarding any transaction disputes that had arisen outside of the narrow framework of their part of the transaction.
It fell on deaf ears, of course, that eBay happens to own PayPal; I was told that I had to deal directly with the PayPal side of things rather than approaching anyone through the eBay-branded side of things.
PayPal, for their part, said that there was nothing that they could do as their hands were tied; the payment had been reversed by Chase Manhattan without consultation, and now PayPal just wanted their money back from someone, and that someone happened to be me.
Long story short, they’re still chasing me for the debt, and each time they’ve contacted me, I’ve sent a copy of the fifteen page document that I put together explaining precisely what happened, and related my actions to the terms and conditions of both eBay and PayPal to demonstrate how my actions were above reproach, and how the buyer was a crook whose fraud they were complicit in, since the buyer kept the device without paying for it.
Had I given into PayPal’s bullying demands, I’d have been out of pocket to the tune of the original £400, plus a further £76 charge that PayPal demanded for their “costs” in having to deal with processing the fall-out from the chargeback (I was told this was ‘standard’ practice when they had to deal with a credit card chargeback process), plus the cost of the handset itself (or whatever I would have made on it had the buyer returned it, and enabled me to re-list and re-sell it) – so, somewhere in the region of £800-£900.
PayPal harassed me on an almost daily basis for nearly a year to pay up the £470ish that they claimed I owed them; then they sent it off to debt collection agencies – over 40 different agencies have contacted me about the debt over the years! – but they’re sure as shit not getting that money from me, and I’m quite confident that it’s cost them many times more than the original debt to keep chasing me for it, so that’s a small if somewhat empty victory for me to hold on to.
It sucks when that kind of thing happens – especially when you’ve acted in good faith throughout – but we learn these lessons, move on, and find new and exciting mistakes to make.
I listed the device with an extraordinary level of detail and plenty of photos. In the description, I mentioned that the device was based on the HTC "Universal" design, and was thus technically identical to other devices such as the O2 XDA Exec and T-Mobile MDA Pro; the main reason for doing this was, of course, to ensure that as many searches as possible would find my listing. However, I explicitly stated in the description that the device was sim-locked to Orange, and under the specific listing category of "Simlock", I said "Orange".
The device was purchased for just under £400, and the buyer paid using PayPal; I posted it the day after payment was received, and the buyer received it four days later.
Three days after that, the buyer wrote an angry message to me stating that I had misrepresented the product, and that he had purchased it believing it he could simply slip his SIM card in and use it on the American T-Mobile network. I swiftly replied to the buyer, and pointed out that the item listing clearly stated in two different places that the device was locked to the European Orange network, and the only mention of T-Mobile was in stating that the device was technically identical to other devices that HTC also manufactured for other networks. I also explained that he could probably get the device unlocked over in the US for a low fee, but that ultimately it was my belief that my listing had made it pretty clear - in explicit and certain terms - that the device was SIM-locked to a specific carrier, and that I couldn't therefore honour his request for a full refund.
A week later, I received a message from PayPal telling me that the buyer had initiated a chargeback demand through his credit card, and that his credit card company had already honoured the chargeback and issued a full refund to him. PayPal was contacting me, they said, because they wanted their money back. Of course, by that point, I’d already withdrawn the money from my PayPal account and spent in on bills and good times, so that wasn’t an option, but I wasn’t prepared to give up so easily anyway, so I contacted PayPal to explain the situation.
PayPal got back to me two weeks later to explain that, in a nutshell, there was nothing they could do; the credit card company had already issued the refund, so there was no possibility of reversing the process, and as things now stood, I owed PayPal £390-odd pounds. I contacted the buyer numerous times to insist that he return the device to me since he hadn’t paid for it, but of course the buyer ignored me. I contacted eBay to ask for their help, but they said there was nothing they could do, because from their side of things, the transaction had been completed successfully, the buyer had paid for the product, the seller had provided the product, and that was the end of their involvement in the process. The chargeback process and any disputes surrounding it, I was told, were not directly related to eBay, and under their terms and conditions, they could not therefore legitimately contact the buyer regarding any transaction disputes that had arisen outside of the narrow framework of their part of the transaction.
It fell on deaf ears, of course, that eBay happens to own PayPal; I was told that I had to deal directly with the PayPal side of things rather than approaching anyone through the eBay-branded side of things.
PayPal, for their part, said that there was nothing that they could do as their hands were tied; the payment had been reversed by Chase Manhattan without consultation, and now PayPal just wanted their money back from someone, and that someone happened to be me.
Long story short, they’re still chasing me for the debt, and each time they’ve contacted me, I’ve sent a copy of the fifteen page document that I put together explaining precisely what happened, and related my actions to the terms and conditions of both eBay and PayPal to demonstrate how my actions were above reproach, and how the buyer was a crook whose fraud they were complicit in, since the buyer kept the device without paying for it.
Had I given into PayPal’s bullying demands, I’d have been out of pocket to the tune of the original £400, plus a further £76 charge that PayPal demanded for their “costs” in having to deal with processing the fall-out from the chargeback (I was told this was ‘standard’ practice when they had to deal with a credit card chargeback process), plus the cost of the handset itself (or whatever I would have made on it had the buyer returned it, and enabled me to re-list and re-sell it) – so, somewhere in the region of £800-£900.
PayPal harassed me on an almost daily basis for nearly a year to pay up the £470ish that they claimed I owed them; then they sent it off to debt collection agencies – over 40 different agencies have contacted me about the debt over the years! – but they’re sure as shit not getting that money from me, and I’m quite confident that it’s cost them many times more than the original debt to keep chasing me for it, so that’s a small if somewhat empty victory for me to hold on to.
It sucks when that kind of thing happens – especially when you’ve acted in good faith throughout – but we learn these lessons, move on, and find new and exciting mistakes to make.
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
BBC LDN - quite an interesting story. i'm making sure i withdraw the funds from my paypal as soon as possible from now on.
reading your story, it would seem that if they decided to take you to court, you'd probably win the day.
i've had dealings with paypal withholding payment. i sold a monitor a few years ago and the person i sold it too didn't leave any feedback. i did get my money in the end, but i was anxious that he might leave a negative and i'd be without a monitor or money. there was nothing wrong with the monitor, i didn't need it any more.
it's rather a shame that the competition commission don't investigate the relationship between ebay and paypal. it would be much better if ebay were forced to allow other online payment methods.
it really fecks me off that they are judge and jury and there is no independent appeal process.
on another note, i sold a kit lens on ebay a few months ago and the original recipient said that it didn't work. i knew it worked when i sent it because i tested it. of course a knock in the post is not beyond the realm of possibility. anyway, he sent it back and amazingly the lens worked. i guess he had got another somewhere cheaper.
i did sell that again on ebay for slightly more than the first attempt so i wasn't out of pocket, but there really is nothing you can do when somebody hundreds of miles away claims something you sold them does not work.
the more i read this thread, the more i realise that this is perhaps why so many shops make it as difficult as possible to get refunds - they get so many people who simply either change their minds or just don't know how to make something work and just return it, leaving them substantially out of pocket.
reading your story, it would seem that if they decided to take you to court, you'd probably win the day.
i've had dealings with paypal withholding payment. i sold a monitor a few years ago and the person i sold it too didn't leave any feedback. i did get my money in the end, but i was anxious that he might leave a negative and i'd be without a monitor or money. there was nothing wrong with the monitor, i didn't need it any more.
it's rather a shame that the competition commission don't investigate the relationship between ebay and paypal. it would be much better if ebay were forced to allow other online payment methods.
it really fecks me off that they are judge and jury and there is no independent appeal process.
on another note, i sold a kit lens on ebay a few months ago and the original recipient said that it didn't work. i knew it worked when i sent it because i tested it. of course a knock in the post is not beyond the realm of possibility. anyway, he sent it back and amazingly the lens worked. i guess he had got another somewhere cheaper.
i did sell that again on ebay for slightly more than the first attempt so i wasn't out of pocket, but there really is nothing you can do when somebody hundreds of miles away claims something you sold them does not work.
the more i read this thread, the more i realise that this is perhaps why so many shops make it as difficult as possible to get refunds - they get so many people who simply either change their minds or just don't know how to make something work and just return it, leaving them substantially out of pocket.
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