Hey guys,
On Sun 18th November I purchased a piece of DJ equipment for my husband from a new seller in Canada, and paid instantly for it (Paypal instant bank transfer).
All seemed well, however, the next day I received the following message from the seller:
"Deer Customer. im very sorry to inform you I had the wrong pay pal account set up to my ebay... i forgot to type in a few numbers at the end of my paypal login. the write pay pal is ******@gmail.com."
I immediately went into a panic when I realised that my $190 had been claimed on the other end by someone named 'Sarah D'. I spent the morning on the phone to both Ebay and Paypal, who instructed me to contact the person via their supplied email address and ask for the funds back - if there was no action taken on their part by the end of this week, then Paypal was prepared to force it out of their account and return it to me.
Anyway, I sent a polite but direct email to this Sarah person, and prepared to wait for a hopeful response.
That afternoon, I get another message via Ebay from the seller:
"Hey sorry about the mix up on the mixtrack pro. I've got it all figured out. I isued a refund to your paypal account if you would like to complete the purchase please send payment of 190.00 USD to my bank verifed paypal account: *****(at)gmail(dot)com. Thanks for your patience for I am new to eBay but not new to business or customer Service. Let me know iff you have any questions.
Sarah."
I also notice that my funds have now been refunded. Confusing, but obviously the seller WAS on the end of the original email/paypal account. The refund also had this message attached to it:
"send payment to ******@gmail.com to complete transaction. I will ship tuesday with tracking. Thanks".
Despite the initial problems, my husband is still keen to go ahead with the sale, so by his request, I re-forward the payment to the new email address supplied (directly via Paypal, since I was unsure whether they had updated their email address info on Ebay yet) along with all the item details in the payment description (item ID etc) just to be safe.
The payment was claimed the following morning.
Anyway, since then on 19th November (5 days ago) I have been unable to contact the seller at all. I have sent them 2 messages over Ebay, asking if they have posted the item as expected, asking for a tracking number (I paid an extra $10 for express post w/ tracking), any sort of update on what was going on.... no response whatsoever.
I don't know what to do. My husband says we should just wait and see if the parcel arrives next week ("maybe they haven't been checking their email?" is his justification) and assume they posted it on Tuesday as they said they would. On the other hand, I have a bad gut feeling over this sale, from the initial payment account problems to no communications, and am really starting to reconsider it.
I also admit I had bad feelings to begin with over purchasing from a new seller (0 feedback, member for 1 day) however hubby reassured me that the buyer protection program would save us from any issues, so we should chance it - this is the cheapest price he has been able to get this particular piece of DJ equipment for, so he thought it was worth the risk ๐ I'm really regretting this whole thing.
I would really appreciate some advice on what to do now.
Cheers,
Nikki.
Not sure if anyone has suggested that the next time such a thing happens after they have refunded ask for and don't pay until you receive a invoice via ebay for the item.
I can see the seller is attempting to stop you from claiming item not received because the paypal account isn't linked to the seller and ebay in any way.
Cheers for the advice. Yeah I've got little doubt now that it was all a deliberate attempt to try and scam me of my money. I hope they don't get away with it and I can still get it refunded, given that its a payment made outside of Ebay for an Ebay related item... I tried everything I could to make sure the description included with the payment had all the item details - ID number etc. and made it clear it was payment for that item.
I mean I know I still have the option of chargeback, but given (have since read up on it) there can be long delays with processing them, I'm hoping I won't be waiting weeks/months - if not longer - to get it back.
Can only blame myself for going through with it all in the first place despite my initial feelings of uncertainty, I guess. Feel VERY stupid now for not pulling out when I had the chance (ie. when they refunded me from the first paypal account) ๐
Good news!!!! The deadline for the seller to respond to Paypal was yesterday. They didn't. So, got this email today from Paypal, concluding the claim, along with my Paypal balance being adjusted with a full refund... ๐
Dear Nikki,
We have concluded our investigation into your case and have decided in your favour.
We were able to recover $190.00 USD, and this amount has been credited to you. Please allow 5 business days for this adjustment to be posted.
If you are due any additional funds, we will make our best effort to recover the balance from the seller.
If the seller's account has insufficient funds to complete the refund owed to you, please be assured that we will take appropriate action against the seller's account, which may include limitation of the seller's account privileges.
Can anyone tell me, with the "we were able to recover $190.00 USD" part - does that mean that the full funds were still sitting in the seller's Paypal account at the time? Or does Paypal automatically cover the full amount these days, regardless of how much is in the seller's account (ie. if they have already withdrawn it), and therefore the seller's now has a debt with Paypal?
Just curious about whether the seller did actually try to scam me or not...
You always get a full refund, sometimes they manage to recover it from the seller's account especially if a dispute is raised before they can withdraw it, if they can't then it may take a few days longer for you to get your money back but you will still get it all.
Many, many years ago buyer protection wasn't as good and you did indeed only get your money back if Paypal could get it from the seller and much of their wording in standard emails hasn't changed.
So pleased you acted when you did and got your money back without too much fuss.
Thanks Phorum_Junkie!!! I probably couldn't have done it so smoothly without all the help I have received on this forum from both yourself and others ๐
Thank you so much to those here who gave me advice and support during this ordeal, I really, REALLY appreciate it :-x And needless to say, I will be a lot more careful in future when buying from new sellers!!
