FRAUDULENT BUYER - PAID ONLY HALF FOR ITEM THEN LEFT BAD FEEDBACK

[baudrillard2013]

131993767541

I've been with ebay for 14 years but never experienced anything like this buyer. and very disappointed with ebay. 

What a debacle. 

Buyer wants to pick up item straight away and so I accommodate them by having Steve carry the table down to them because they couldn't lift it and I couldn't be there straight away. 

He said they came and were really besotted with the table but said "that was really weird, they asked to pay half "".  He said that he didn't agree to this and said if they weren't happy for any reason then (on my behalf) offered to them to leave the item and not buy it if they'd changed their mind for whatever reason. 

he said they agreed to pay the full amount but said ""ok, just thought we could work something out" and that you might be negotiable"". He once again said he was dumbstruck as it felt like he was at the markets!  He told me it was really weird and that the buyers had tried to get away with paying half instead of the full price. He gave me the money and he only handed me half of the listed price. I am sure I told him what the final bid price was. He said he thought I had said that it was the amount the item was won for too but that he must have been confused because the buyers said it was half of that and even had their mobile in their hand . He said when he saw them get out their mobile phone he felt silly questioning the price and embarrassed so didn't pursue it. 

I realised that they had basically pulled a swifty and this has never happened to me in 14 years on ebay. 

I rang ebay and told them what happened and that i had received many emails which the CSOs at ebay had seen in the system demanding I mark the item as paid. I told them what happened and asked them to take notes. I didn't mark the item as paid for obvious reasons. I received 18 messages from the buyers demanding that I mark the item as paid 

I simply ignored them and waited for ebay to deal with it.  Ebay's CSO seemed wishy washy. They noted there was one email asking to return the item as it wasn't as described about two weeks after taking delivery of it. 

The CSO seized on that and said if the buyer leaves negative feedback or tries to return the item or lodge a dispute then it is clear from the emails that there was no problem with the item description and that they only sent one email asking to return the item which was clearly retaliation for me to marking the item as paid. However they didn't really have any resolution to the problem of the fraud. I just figured that I had to wear the loss and that there was little I could do about it. 

Today I see that the buyer left negative feedback claiming I was a poor communicator and item descriptor was poor.  I contacted ebay and expected them to look at the messages and see that there were about 12 further emails from the buyer since I had contacted them asking for the item to be marked paid which I had simply ignored. 

the CSO , ""JD""  said ""madam we can only remove feedback if we can negate it and the buyer emailed you many times asking you to mark the item as paid and there was no response from you""

I explained why and that ebay had supported me in taking this course of action and that not marking something as paid which had not in fact been paid in full was not poor communication. 

I may as well have been talking to a robot. 

i finally replied and said to the buyer you know very well why i am not marking it as paid and told them it was highly unethical what they had done.. they then left a message

I pointed out to ebay that this message negated the fact that it was a poor item descriptor that was troubling the buyer especially in the context of a zillion email messages where the SOLE complaint was not having marked the item was paid. 

ebay claimed that they still couldn't negate the feedback left even though the only complaint in all the email contacts was about not marking the item as paid. 

HOPELESS

[baudrillard2013]

Thanks. Of course it isn't fair. 

I'll think about the UPI case. 

It doesn't seem right to accuse someone of not paying anything. 

I guess this is an unusual situation and maybe I just needed to talk about it the feedback part of it. Thanks for allowing me to! 

Of course I feel right about only getting half.  The money isn't really the issue. 

I guess I like to see some accountability otherwise people tend to profit from wrongdoing and then continue to do it with impunity. 

Some things remain a mystery to me too. How could someone say I''m the defrauder? what do I possibly stand to gain from not marking an item as paid?  Circumvention of fees? Hardly. I am sure ebay catches up with that and we're talking about hardly anything in fees? 

What struck me as odd was the level of conniving. I read about horrible things happening to people with goods that don't arrive but when someone comes to your place it takes the remoteness out of selling and you just don't contemplate this kind fo behaviour from someone who fronts up and loves what they get or appears to (from what I was told). 

[imastawka]

Of course they loved it - they got it for half price

[shacklestore]

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@phorum_junkie* wrote:

Because the buyer got away with a swifty that is not fraud,

---

Swiftie = slang, mainly Australian for a trick, ruse or deception.

Fraud = deceit or trickery: intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or an act of deceiving.

[springyzone]

I'd be angry too.

This is not FB or gumtree, it is ebay where you are paying fees on the sale price.

I'm having trouble with the comments of others who feel you should be 'happy' with what you got.

That's not the point. The point is it 'sold' for more and these people summed up the situation with Steve and lied about the price.

There is some fault on your side too, as you realise. You & Steve needed to get your act together. You should have written the sales price on a piece of paper for him.

Your lack of response to their messages though was unbelievable from my point of view.

Why on earth didn't you send a message to say you did not mark it as paid because it was not fully paid, and you will only mark it as such once you receive full payment.

Ebay can't be expected to sort it out. I would try opening an unpaid item dispute & if ebay question you, reply they took off with the table but only paid $40 (or whatever) to your proxy.

You may get nowhere & I am certain as can be you will never see another cent for the table. but I would try to make trouble for these buyers if you can. Why shouldn't you? This is why they have asked you to mark it as paid as they know very well what they did and are scared of your response.

They have got away with it but don't make it too easy for them.

[phorum_junkie*]

 Yes I did take a note of the time and details of that call

In that case use the call me back function and explain that at (insert time here) (insert name here) with employee number (insert number hers) agreed that you would be protected from getting negative feedback and you would like them to follow through with their promise.

[letscleanupmycupboards]

End of the day the money was handed over in exchange for the goods. If for whatever reason the amount was less than it should've been the goods should never have been handed over. All the buyer had to do is claim that you agreed to a lower price at the time of pickup. Your word against theirs. It's a hard lesson to learn but not a lot you can do. I don't feel it's fraud. You willingly handed the goods over for the price that was paid. If they'd given you a counterfeit note or a cheque that bounced then maybe, but not in this case.

[staypeachy]

They Got ripped off swifty fraud whatever they were ripped off

Ebay seems to always favour the buyer   

And you always seem to have to put in your 2cents in

As i am doing now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[imastawka]

They didn't get ripped off.

Good old Steve took their money and handed it over.

What if good old Steve was given double the money?

Miscommunication is what happened.

Ebay had nothing to do with it

[springyzone]

The seller did get ripped off in that the buyers fraudulently claimed to Steve that the final sale price on ebay was X amount, when in fact it had been double that.

It is obvious they weren't willing to pay the full amount at any point. It wasn't just miscommunication, these people outright lied.

Steve was downstairs and not able to double check with the actual seller-not unless he left the table and went upstairs.

Mind you,the sellers were not well organised, Steve should have been sure of the price.

The buyers actually have no proof on ebay that they paid anything.

[gewens]

Hello, all. Remember interpersonal dispute isn't allowed here.  Please read the board usage policy. Thanks.