Howdy all, I thought this guide might help someone the next time they’re in the middle of getting scammed on eBay and aren’t quite sure what to do. Most of the advice in this guide is for AFTER a purchase has been made - i.e., this guide is not how to avoid buying an item listed by a scammer, but what to do when you’ve fallen victim to one.
I recently had a scammer pull just about every trick in the book and could only imagine how overwhelming and intimidating it would be to have hit any one of the many roadblocks this guy threw at me if you didn’t know exactly what to do. I have a wealth of experience of being scammed on eBay and have not lost a single dollar to them, although they have wasted a countless number of my life hours. The single most important things to take away from this guide is have patience, stick within eBay’s guidelines for resolving disputes, and don’t engage with the scammer.
Scams targeting buyers
Before Receiving the Item
SCAM ATTEMPT #1 - Ultra-long Shipping and Handling Times
Scam Setup: You haven’t heard anything from the seller even after multiple contact attempts, the price seemed too good to be true, or maybe even you realized the picture in your listing was stolen from some other legit listing. When you look back at your scam listing, you see an ungodly long shipping time - 20, 30, or even 50 business days to ship a card!? Doh! What do you do?
Solution: You wait! This is one of the most pernicious types of scams on eBay because you have no option to get your money back or file a claim until AFTER your delivery window is over. Which could mean months of this thing staring you in the face when you go to look at My eBay. To avoid this issue altogether, skip out on listings that have incredibly long shipping times.
After Receiving the Item
SCAM ATTEMPT #2 - Seller sent a different item
Scam Setup: You bought a PSA 10 Charizard off eBay but the seller sent you a base set Charmander. What do you do?
Solution: You’ll open a return request with the “Item is not as described” option. Jump to the “Navigating the Return Request” section for common ways a scammer will thwart your return/refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #3 - You bought a fake/proxy card by mistake, and the seller points out that “proxy/fake/inauthentic” is in the description
Scam Setup: You bought a card thinking it was the real deal, but buried in the description the seller does mention that the card is proxy/fake/inauthentic/actually just a piece of printer paper. Since technically the seller DID mention the fact that it’s a reproduction, are you stuck with it since it’s technically exactly as the seller described?
Solution: No, you’re not, in fact, it’s against eBay’s policy to sell ANY inauthentic items. Yes, that means all those crap proxy listings should not be there in the first place, but eBay doesn’t seem too concerned about policing them. Here’s what you do to get your money back: start a return quest with the “Item does not seem authentic” option. Jump to the “Navigating the Return Request” section for common ways a scammer will thwart your return/refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #4 - (Lot Listings) Seller has pictures of some really nice cards but when your item arrives it’s a bunch of crappy commons
Scam Setup: The seller showcases a ton of really nice cards in their listing pictures and their description includes wording that boils down to “There is a CHANCE that you will get one or more of the cards in the pictures, but no guarantee.” Many of these types of listings will say things like “GUARANTEED 5 Holos, 15 Rares, 1 GX, 1 Hyper GX”, but when the item gets to you it’s not the cards that you saw in the listing pictures.
Solution: This is what’s called a “chance listing” and is against eBay policy. The amount of these on eBay is actually ridiculous, but again, eBay doesn’t seem too concerned about stopping them in the first place. It doesn’t matter what’s in the description - if the cards in the pictures are not the cards you receive, then the seller did not send you what was described. In order to get your money back, you’ll open a return request with the “Item is not as described” option. Jump to the “Navigating the Return Request” section for common ways a scammer will thwart your return/refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #5 - Seller sent you an empty package
Scam Setup: …The seller sent you an empty package.
Solution: A common mistake here is to start a case with eBay that you didn’t receive an item. Not true! You did in fact receive a package full of air, which does in fact count as receiving something according to eBay. In order to get your money back, you’ll open a return request with the “Item is not as described” option. Jump to the “Navigating the Return Request” section for common ways a scammer will thwart your return/refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #6 - Seller sent the package to themselves / someone that’s not you
Scam Setup: In my experience this is usually a mistake on behalf of the seller or an issue with the shipping service. Yes, I’ve actually had a seller that did not know the correct location on a package for the “ship to” and “ship from” addresses and ended up sending themselves the card. However, there are times where a scammer tries to ship the item to themselves / a neighbor/ whatever in order for the tracking to appear as “delivered”.
Solution: You’ll likely need to call into eBay customer support to resolve this issue. This way, they’ll be able to review the shipping information and see that the item was indeed delivered, but to the wrong zip code.
SCAM ATTEMPT #7 - Seller never shipped the item, no tracking number, seller doesn’t respond to messages
Scam setup: Seller was spirited away immediately after listing the item. This is usually less about someone trying to scam and more about sellers being incredibly lazy / forgetful / indifferent.
Solution: You’ll have to wait out your delivery window, but once you’re passed that, choose the “I didn’t receive this item” option. This will open up a case between you and the seller and you’ll have to wait several more days until you can ask eBay to step in and help. However, you’ll get your refund pretty quickly after eBay decides in your favor.
SCAM ATTEMPT #8 - Seller sends a package containing ANYTHING OTHER THAN EXACTLY WHAT YOU EXPECTED/WAS DESCRIBED IN THE LISTING
Scam Setup: As unimaginative as scammers can be, they will try a bunch of BS in order to try and get your money. If ANYTHING is off about your order, and you’re buying from somebody that doesn’t have a rock solid reputation as a seller on eBay, immediately put your ScamBuster face on when contacting/interacting with the seller.
For example: You buy a $350 set of cards because you noticed a big sexy Charizard that was easily worth that amount. But when the cards arrive everything’s there except the Charizard. You contact the seller, and doh! they totally forgot, and they found the Charizard. No worries, they’ll send it off to you ASAP, just give them a little time to get everything in order. It turns out, their grandma got cancer a couple weeks ago and they were a little scatterbrained when they sent out the cards. Things have been hectic, so they’re not sure when they’ll be able to send the Charizard because they’re taking Grandma in for chemo 10 times a day, but when they have a moment between working their 3 jobs and raising their disabled child, they will get that Charizard to you.
The above may sound like an exaggeration, but give an inch to scammers and they’ll take a light year. Again, legit sellers can and do make mistakes, so you’ll have to use your judgment when trying to resolve the issue. If the seller has many recent, positive feedback sales, it’s much more likely that they made a simple mistake. If the opposite is true, don’t feel bad about dialing your suspicion meter to 11 when interacting with them.
Solution: Don’t hesitate to start a return request with the option of “Item does not match description” and let the seller do their explaining there if the seller does not have recent sales and their answers are less than satisfactory.
Navigating the Return Request
What should you put in your return request?
State your case simply and directly.
“Seller did not send me the card described in the listing.”
“Seller sent me a card that is not authentic.”
“Seller sent me an empty package.”
“Seller did not include all items described in the listing and displayed in the pictures.”
A return request DOES NOT REQUIRE YOU TO PROVE ANYTHING! If the seller sent you a package full of live beetles instead of a 1st Edition Heracross, you do not need video of you opening up the package and getting attacked by beetles. You do not need pictures of the beetles. You do not need to figure out the genus or species of the beetle that was sent. The pictures that you can attach to a return request are for the seller’s benefit - in this case, the scammer already knows what they sent you. Now, if the scammer sends you something really stupid, like a handwritten letter explaining he ACTUALLY sent it via a different shipping service, and includes an incorrectly formatted tracking code (this has happened to me), then by all means attach it so the customer rep can laugh at them as well.
The return request is simply the beginning of the formal process to get your money back. However, even at this stage, a scammer can try to pull some fast ones. They are described below.
SCAM ATTEMPT #9 - Scammer wants to fight the return request from any of the above reasons.
They call you a liar, a thief, they say you’ve switched out their cards, you’re racist, you murdered their wife of 20 years, etc.
Solution: If it’s clear the seller is not looking to accept the return, there’s no reason to engage them in discussion. After a certain number of days, you will be presented with the option to “Ask eBay to step in” and have them make a decision on whether a return is warranted or not. 100% of the time the return will be granted if they’re trying to pull an obvious scam.
Sometimes the system glitches out and you’re never presented with an option for eBay to step in; you will need to contact customer support if that happens.
SCAM ATTEMPT #10 - The scammer accepts your return request, and tells you “don’t worry about sending it back”
What a relief! It’s finally over and the scammer didn’t even put up a fight! Yay me!
Solution: Oops, you’ve celebrated too early. Even if they sent you an empty package, a fake item, something not as described, you MUST send those things back in order for your refund to be processed! Until your return, which needs to have a tracking number, is marked as DELIVERED, eBay will not process your refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #11 - The scammer accepts your return request, and tells eBay that they’ll send you a shipping label
…and of course they never do.
Solution: You have to contact eBay for this one, as they’ll need to manually override the tracking number the scammer put in to their system. eBay will then email you a shipping label that you can use to complete the return.
SCAM ATTEMPT #12 - The scammer refuses delivery of the return
…which means the item ends up at their post office with the status of “Item Available for Pickup” instead of “Delivered”, which is needed for eBay’s automatic system to process your refund
Solution: You’ll have to again call in to eBay and have them manually review the status of the return tracking. Once they see that a delivery attempt was made or that the item is available for pick up, they’ll put your return on the fast track to a refund.
SCAM ATTEMPT #13 - The scammer is impersonating me via eBay customer support chat. Or, the scammer used eBay customer support chat to open and close an item not received case for my listing.
This is a pretty complicated scam that allows the scammer several different ways to be successful. Here’s how the scam works:
You (buyer) purchase a listing from scammer (seller). For the listing I purchased, the seller was located in the US.
Scammer marks the item as shipped, likely without including a tracking number.
Scammer uses eBay customer support chat to impersonate you. The warning sign that you may be affected by this scam: You will receive a chat transcript from eBay support even though you never contacted them. From your purchase, they have:
Your shipping name
Your zip code
Your phone number (I believe there’s an eBay tool that lets them get this info, or they can get it from eBay customer support)
They will not have all of the information to authenticate as you, so sometimes they are not able to work over the eBay customer support rep. For example, the eBay rep may try to authenticate your account by asking for the your birthdate, which the scammer does not have access to.
The scammer will give the first rep the tracking number that shows as delivered. The scammer probably did not include this tracking number when they marked your item as shipped, so this will probably be the first time you see this number. This tracking number has two issues: 1) the shipped and delivered date will be before the date you purchased the item on eBay and 2) The origin location will almost assuredly not match up with the seller’s PayPal address. You can use this info later in your discussions with eBay/PayPal. They will claim that the item shows as delivered, but that they haven’t received it, and would like to open a case.
Once the case is open, they will then contact a different eBay rep attempting to close the case. “Oops,” they’ll say, “I found the package, my bad. You can close this case.” If the eBay rep falls for it, the case will be closed.
At this point, your item has been marked as shipped (but not actually shipped of course), and an item not received case has already been open and closed for this listing. Fast forward however long you’re willing to generally wait for items, and the item never arrives. My guess is that, if the scammer is able to get to this point, you as a buyer will not be able to open a case through the website. You’d have to contact customer support and backtrack through all of the actions that have already taken place for this listing. There also may be some sort of “payment settlement” that happens when the case is open and resolved, such that the pending funds in PayPal are able to go through. I do not know 100% if that’s the case, however.
Here’s what you can do if this happens to you and you catch the issue soon after the impersonation attempt:
Immediately after you see the chat transcripts with the scammer impersonating you, contact eBay customer support by phone. Both the escalation team and PayPal rep were unfamiliar with this open-and-close-case scam, so you’ll need to do some work explaining that the seller is trying to impersonate you to open and close a case using chat and that this is an ongoing scam. If you’re able to communicate this fact to them, they should be able to add notes to your account and listing that will make it harder for the scammer to be successful via chat.
Next, file a dispute for the PayPal transaction. PayPal would really prefer that you keep eBay problems on eBay, but filing a dispute on PayPal accomplishes two things: first, the dispute will prevent the scammer from receiving the funds, and second, the PayPal dispute will be able to be solved and your money refunded quicker than waiting for the eBay estimated delivery date to pass, which is how long you’d have to wait in order to create a case via eBay. PayPal is very familiar with the tracking-number-that-has-already-been-delivered scam, which is all the scammer has left at this point (if they even respond to the dispute at all), so this dispute should be resolved in your favor pretty quickly, and your money will be refunded.
If you didn’t catch the scam until much later:
Unfortunately, if it’s been a significant amount of time since the listing, it’s likely the scammer has gotten away with the funds. However, you are still covered by eBay’s buyer protection, so you will just need to go through the painful task of peeling back the layers of the scam through eBay customer support (contact them by phone). There are probably several different ways that they’ll be able to identify that you were scammed, mostly due to the chat logs and the incorrect tracking number that was used to open and close the case for the listing.
But wait, there’s more?
My scammer tried something a little bit different than the above in an attempt to get the funds cleared in PayPal. When I first bought the scammer’s listing, the payment didn’t actually go through. eBay marked the listing as paid for, the “order successfully placed” screen showed, but behind the scenes in PayPal, the payment was cancelled and the payment amount was refunded. PayPal didn’t email me about either of those things happening, and I’d never seen that happen before. After messaging the seller a bit, he mentioned that he had contacted eBay and that there was an issue with his PayPal account that he was able to resolve. He’d just need to cancel the current listing, then relist the item again for me to purchase. However, there was an additional step he wanted me to take: To verify the cancellation, I had to confirm that I had received the refund. Since I verified in PayPal that I had indeed received the money back, I was fine with doing this. He relisted the item and I purchased again, and all looked correct in PayPal.
For some reason, my scammer stopped trying the open-and-close-case scam. From the customer support chat logs, it seems like he didn’t have the correct tracking number, which meant he wasn’t able to show the rep that it had been delivered but he couldn’t find it. He stopped speaking to the customer support rep shortly after the rep couldn’t get the tracking number to load.
Instead, he changed course with the scam. Soon after the unsuccessful chat, he cancelled the second listing. He sent me another message, saying that he had cancelled the listing and refunded my money, and wanted me to again verify that I had received the refund, as I had done for the first listing. However, I checked my PayPal account and confirmed that he did not actually refund me. If someone was being careless, they might confirm that refund and let the scammer get away with the money, so just a heads up.
Scams targeting sellers
SCAM ATTEMPT #1 - The card/PSA case was damaged in shipping, can I get a partial refund?
As a seller you’re going to be a bit sensitive to customer complaints as one or two defects can affect your seller rating and your bottom line if you don’t have crazy volume. There are a few sewer dwellers out there that will try to squeeze as much out of a sale as possible, and are willing to take pictures of a different damaged card/case in the hopes that you’ll acquiesce and give them a few bucks. Usually it’s not worth the time to try and get into a fight with them over $10, and a defect will likely cost more than $10 in the long run, but you’ll have to decide how much shit you’re willing to eat and keep smiling as a seller.
SCAM ATTEMPT #2 - The buyer is saying they received something different when they didn’t, and they send back something completely different with the return
This is the ultimate fuck you to a seller, and is reserved only for the most sociopathic scammers. Thankfully you’re not completely out of luck if this happens.
First, make sure you adhere to the shipping guidelines described in the eBay Seller Protection policy. Only send to the confirmed address you’re given. Make sure you purchase signature confirmation if the purchase is $750 or more.
When the buyer does a return, they are required to send back the item in the same condition they received it in. Meaning, they can’t open a box of cards and send you back the wrappers. They can’t take the PSA 10 card you sent them and send back a PSA 9. If this happens to you, you will need to contact eBay customer support in order to move forward.
This is where your history as a seller on eBay becomes very important. eBay knows what the incident rate for this kind of thing is, so if it’s happened to you twice in the past 5 sales, they’re going to be VERY suspicious of what you’re telling them. Don’t think there haven’t been scammer sellers that have gone to these lengths to make a few bucks. If you have very few sales, or this is happening to you way more often than an average seller, eBay may reject your Seller Protection request and could even ban you from selling on eBay. HOWEVER, if you have a good reputation as a seller and this hasn’t happened to you multiple times in a short window, eBay will likely take the loss and reimburse the cost of your item.
That’s all I can think of for now. Feel free to add any others you’ve seen and I’ll try to incorporate them into the main guide.
Sometimes my fantasy is a bit too lively, but when I read this I totally imagined opening a package and beetles (or bees, since I misread at first) coming out. 