Last week I bought an expensive card on ebay buy it now. The seller had 175ish feedback and I just thought maybe they were a noob and didnt realize the price since it had just been listed. A few days after I figured I should check them out more, they have an account in France with a ship from location in florida and have been stealing pictures from other peoples listings on foreign ebay accounts that I cant see since I am in the USA.
I called ebay and filed a preemptive return based on “item does not seem authentic” as suggested and included the link to the stolen listing. They said I have to wait until it arrives to return it so I thought that was fine. Today its marked delivered but there is nothing in my mailbox (I live in an apt complex so its a locked mailbox). It also does not say “dropped off in mailbox” as all of my other packages do.
I believe it was a tracking bot that caused this. I now can’t return the item because nothing arrived and when it checks my tracking in the claim it says “delivered” so I may be screwed. I have not called ebay yet today because I don’t know what to do here. Thoughts?
You aren’t screwed. You have foolproof buyer protection.
Give us the tracking link. It should have clear holes in it. You will be able to call ebay and explain exactly what happened, and they will cover you. You have nothing to be concerned about, I assure you. There is clear evidence, and they don’t mess around with buyers getting scammed.
Call or chat with ebay. Its a common scam although they are getting better with timing the tracking more properly. They should be able to file it or refund you on their end even though it doesnt give you the option.
I’m not trying to hi-jack your thread, but I had the same thing happen to me back in June.
A PSA 9 Victreebel came up on BIN for 20 bucks. I figured it was too good to be true but I could always get my money back if the seller didn’t deliver. Seller did have a few reviews but were all positive.
A couple days later, I check the tracking status. “We tried to deliver to the business, but it was closed. A second attempt will be made the next business day.” I live in an apartment complex so I was confused. Also, I noticed the seller was from UK but the origin scan was from Cali.
Next day, tracking says it was delivered to some random business I never heard of and someone signed for it. I check my mailbox anyways, maybe there was a mistake? Nothing in my mailbox. I message the seller, no response.
After a few days I open a claim with eBay saying I never received the item. eBay sides with the seller because of the tracking and it was signed for, despite it not actually being sent to my address.
If you simply go with the standard “item not received” claim, it is automated and will side with seller. That is useless, and is also no cause for concern. You must get in contact with ebay since it isn’t a simple case. The tracking is fraudulent. It is nuanced scam.
I’ve had a standard envelope not get delivered, but delivered to local office, which shows as “delivered” before it actually is. Many here know about this process. Clearly, the seller had incorrect postage or dimensions, and it was tossed or returned. After calling ebay and talking about it, they refunded. That was with real tracking, let alone fraudulent.
You should be able to contact USPS, or whichever other carrier. They should be able to confirm whether or not a parcel was delivered to a specific zipcode – get this in writing, and you should be fine.
I actually spoke to ebay, turns out they changed the high value claims dept into a trading card department just as soon as the new policies switched over. He just looked at it and said since the item was over 750$ and the buyer stupidly didnt require signature delivery, its on him.
So I just have to wait until 3 business days pass and I should be set. Nice to see the new policies in place working
Why aren’t you able to search other ebay sites? Ebay.de for germany
Ebay.nl for the netherlands. Ebay.fr for France
Ebay.es for Spain
Ebay. so many extensions and you can use them all, just like I can.
I misspoke I can look at the ebay UK listings, the original listing was in ebay uk and set to ship to europe only so it did not pop up during my original check
Good luck with your case - you should be fine on getting your money back due to ebay’s signature rules for seller protection as you’ve mentioned. It can get tricky now with some carriers waiving signature receipts due to COVID, but if the seller didn’t send as signature-required at all then it shouldn’t be an issue.
For others that may be seeing this thread and are unaware about spotting these things - aside from being a very popular item listed way below market price, there are some major red flags on the seller. These scams are usually sold through stolen accounts, and here you can see that it’s an old account, no other active listings, no feedback in the last year, seller location different than the listing location, and most previous feedback received/left in French while the listing is in English.
Yes that’s correct you need to go to those specific “sites” to see the local offers. Sometimes they do ship international if you ask them.
Language could be a problem, but google translate helps.
Thanks, will be adding to my blacklist. Glad eBay seems to have resolved this for you. If for some reason they do not issue a refund I would dispute with PayPal or if you used a Credit/Debit card you can always open a dispute with them.
scammer called me today posing as an ebay rep and asked me to close the case. Was a very convincing argument too and came from an ebay phone number (reported to ebay and they said an unauthorized call was made from their line somehow), but I am not that stupid to close an open case.
The only reason I meant that they sounded convincing was that it was an ebay phone number, they opened with the same “thanks for being a valuable member of ebay for xx years blah blah” and seemed to have knowledge on my open case. He had an irish accent. So likely a french account with shipping bot in FL controller from somewhere in the UK
