Buyer is scamming me!!

[chookie-95]

Hi,

I sold an item on Ebay buyer wanted to pay via bank transfer.

She said she had transfered the money into my account that was 11 days ago.

Have contacted her several times about payment not being in my account..

She told me that she had her bank do a trace on the money and told me it had hit my account and started telling me some legal rights.

Now she is basically accusing me of stealing her money and not having her item to show for it

I provided her with a bank statement for the last past 14 days to prove that the money was not in there.

My account details that i provided her where correct.

I dont want to deal with her anymore or sell the item to her.

What can i do?

Kind regards

[harley_babes_hoard]

the onus is on her to provide details of her payment. Not the other way around.Double check your accounts. Then suggest to her that she may have made a mistake with your bank account numbers tell her to check her account for a bounced back payment. Other than that there is nothing you need to do. Just make very sure you haven't received it first. Do not send anything without receiving payment.

You can block her buying from you again by adding her ID to your blocked bidders list. 

The messages you will just have to ignore.

[chookie-95]

Many thanks for your reply.

I know it should have been the other way round with providing proof.

But i got so frustrated and didnt like being accused of such a thing.

I will email the buyer to discuss payment further.

[digital*ghost]

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@chookie-95 wrote:

I will email the buyer to discuss payment further.

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I've had several buyers try this one on me, and I only ever gave them one chance to 'back up their story' so to speak. Not one of them ever did, and IMO being firm about what you require, and/or what will happen and when, shows that you can't be manipulated or hoodwinked into sending out free items.

Each time someone gave me the "I already paid" story, I responded by telling them that unfortunately, I haven't received it as yet but was more than happy to do everything possible to help get it sorted out ASAP, and requested additional details so that I may be able to make enquiries with my own bank to see what might be causing delay (additional details would be institution [i.e. name of bank], transaction date / time, and transaction ID - or branch and recipt number if an over the counter transaction, making sure to note that I don't require any personal or account details, so they can omit, or blank those out in scans or screen shots, if they prefer). 

Then I would also mention that despite the unusual circumstances, the item technically remained in unpaid status so I would not be able to hold off the process to cancel the transaction after X date (which is the date I would open an unpaid item dispute), and that the cancellation process would take 4 days, providing a decent amount of time (usually about a week) between sending my reply and the transaction being officially void. 

As I said, not one person ever replied with additional supporting information to show they were genuine. Once or twice they came back and said they'd made an error and would resend payment, but by and large I never heard from them again (also watch out for payments short of the full amount, plenty of people try that one, too). 

[krustyid]

put an unpaid dispute in immediately.

don't waste anymore of your time on this buyer.

when you do this, you will have a choice to have an automatic closing of your case.

this gives the buyer 4 days to the second, and if they don't pay, ebay will close the case for you, any fees you have paid will be refunded to you, and then you can relist the item. 

don't forget to ban this buyer from bidding on your site.

....k

[phorum_junkie*]

I have had this a couple of times. In one case I just replied asking for proof and when they didn't respond within 48 hours with any proof (I set the time limit) I opened the UID and closed it 4 days later. The other case I got the gut feeling the woman was telling the truth, don't know why but I resent my bank details and asked her to check she had used the correct numbers. Eventually as she seemed as if she really wanted the skirt and I was due to leave for the UK in a few days I rang her up. I asked her to read back the numbers she had used and there it was, she had transposed 2 of the numbers and no matter how often she looked at it she saw what she thought she should be seeing. She paid again straight away, payment cleared in 2 days, she got her skirt, I got glowing feedback and a repeat customer. Guess after you have been on ebay for a loooonnnnggggggggggggggg time your gut instinct is better tuned or something lol.

[clarry100]

We had a similar case to PJ.
Buyer said she had paid by bank deposit and even sent a screen shot of the transaction receipt from her bank.
Then came a message asking for their item to be sent immediately as they had sent proof and needed the item urgently My gut feel said no don't ship. Three days on still no money in our account. I had s close look at the receipt and found a single digit wrong in the account number I had not picked up on before.
So sent a message to the buyer explaining what had happened and asked them to resend to the correct account.
Never ever heard any more so opened/closed a upi case.
Scam attempt we thought.

[springyzone]

My sister & I used to sell a lot on ebay a few years back and I lost count of how often buyers said they paid-swore black and blue they had paid-but hadn't.

Buyers lie through their teeth, some of them.

My sister, having worked in a bank, never fell for this & was quick to reply that it was not in the account and suggest that they recheck the account numbers etc. To that, some would then reply they would definitely pay 'tomorrow' ie they hadn't paid in the first place and knew it.

BUT we never fell into the trap of sending anything till money had been received.

You've got more choices than we had back then. You can open an unpaid item dispute and I certainly would. I would contact this person, say the money is not in the account, they need to check they have sent it to the correct account, but unless payment is received within eg 3 days, you will have to proceed to close the case.

Then do it. No more listening to excuses or getting into word battles.