Hello!
I am not sure if it’s allowed to share any names here, please let me know and I will update.
I had a buyer that bought from me earlier this year on eBay for a mid-tier value item (around 50usd).
The whole situation and his contact with me gave me a really bad gut-feeling. But since he was from within the EU I decided I would ship the item without tracking.
Later the buyer claimed he did not receive the item, and “threathened” with negative feedback:
*Hi,I waited again,but the item is not yet arrived.In my account is reported “Remember to leave feedback! If there were problems, go to the Solution Center no later than 19/04/18.” and the pack has been shipped more than a month ago.I will wait a couple of days and then I will open a controversy on eBay,**block the payment send a claim to PayPal and finally leave you all the negative feedbacks.***The situation ended with that I had to refund the buyer and after that I blocked him because I was certain I had been scammed.
Fast forward a couple of months and I got another purchase on my ebay, this time for an item that did not have tracked shipping in the listing (Keep in mind tracked shipping from Sweden is really expensive and it’s hard to keep the prices on lower value items competetive because of that)
I recognized the name of the buyer and looked through my history, it was the same person but on a new ebay account.
I gave him another chance, since I could not “prove” he had not gotten my first package. But this time I decided to film both the packaging and when I sent the letter if he would try to do the same thing again.
Today I got a message from the buyer claiming that he has not gotten the item:
40 days has passed and my card is not arrived,my patience is over. I am waiting for your answer. Regards
What should I do and how can I proceed? I do not want to refund him again because I feel sure that I am getting scammed. But if I do not send a refund he will certainly give me negative feedback.
Any advice is appreciated.
What really bugs me is that simply blocking does not do much overall. Because the buyer can keep on abusing this on multiple people without any backlash
I have reported both accounts, but I am not sure if ebay will really do anything about it.
Tell the user you have video of both the packaging and the shipping of the item. It won’t do much for you in an eBay case but it might scare them enough that they stop. I agree with @acebren though, if you have a problem with a buyer once that should be your last time dealing with them.
Sadly with Ebay and Paypal they are double protected and they generally always side with the buyer. Even with proper documentation you can still easily lose if the scammer is experienced and knows how to manipulate the system. It’s a tough world out there for sellers and this is not just for cardboard but for anything you sell.
I thought that if a blocked buyer used a secondary account to circumvent the block, that it was against ebay’s user policy and they would be blocked from using the site all together? I would start by bringing this to the buyers attention, as well as bluffing that you have proof it was delivered… see if you can get them to back down?
Thats why I just dont ship anything untracked. I know most buyers are honest, but I rather sell low value items to a store for 50% value than deal with this BS.
yeah alphainvestments drilled that lesson into me a year or so ago with videos repeatedly saying to never send cards without tracking, and that you are asking to get scammed otherwise.
I have a hundred people I’d ship to without tracking (including everyone on this page, except the ops subject lol). I just don’t want visitors here to take that too literally:)
Ah, so it mainly would just depend on different specific circumstances, like if the Ebayers account seems a bit too fishy with certain negative reviews, or previous issues similar to how OP describes.
The fact that you recognized the name and still chose to send the package is the crux of the issue here. Even if you couldn’t prove he scammed you, you still should’ve avoided sending to that name/location because there might’ve been issue with the mail route or delivery person in that area. Personally, if I send a package to someone and it doesn’t get there, I don’t deal with that address again, even if it’s a different name on the order.
Also, there seems to be this belief that if you film yourself doing something that it’s going to count as evidence in a dispute. Filming yourself packaging the item is totally pointless: it’s still your word against the buyer and a scammer will be more than happy to claim that you faked the video.
Thanks for all of the replies.
I decided to just refund the person now.
From now on I will never give a buyer a second chance in order to protect myself.
I understand that always using tracking is very important to avoid scammers. But here in Sweden the absolute cheapest tracking (up to 50grams) is 11usd.
This makes it impossible to compete with the larger US sellers when I am selling internationally and that’s why I have to ship untracked on many smaller items.
Usually it’s not a problem. Most buyers and collectors are genuine people which I am really grateful for. But it’s such a shame with people like this. Like I said it really bothers me that I am most likely not the first or last one he does this to.
Blocked them too…really sorry that you have to refund this guy. I actually ordered a MTG card from Italy 2 months ago and it didn´t arrive yet, let´s see where this is going.
