Seller Fraud

[30kittykins30]

I purchased autographs from an ebay seller selling fake autographs. He has been suspended from ebay for selling fake autographs. I filed disputes to get refunds for the items I purchased from him. He swears they are real however they failed third party authentication. He obtained my email address from the paypal transaction page and has been sending me abusive emails, calling me names, demanding I return the items (I can't return them until paypal tells me to and why should I have to pay for return postage when items are fake), making threats (says he is going to come to my country and get the photos back), and using highly offensive language. I think he is simply trying to intimidate me trying to get me to close the disputes so he can keep my money. He has sent multiple emails (I have replied to none of them). I have reported him to paypal and ebay but they can do nothing. Items have to be returned at my expense otherwise I don’t get a refund. This seller then gets his fakes back at my expense and is then free scam others either by selling them privately or on another shopping website or he can probably sign up for a new ebay account. I am so frustrated. I have really lost my faith in both paypal and ebay. I am also rambling my question is this why do I have to pay the return postage when even ebay admits the items I purchased are fake?

[leader-of-the-band]

most email accounts let you have 'filters' for incoming emails (sometimes found under the 'options' menu).  This will let you filter the emails from this bad seller rather than blocking emails from them.  Take a look at the emails coming from the seller.   Don't open them, just note who they are 'from'.  Set a filter to put emails from them into your trash/deleted folder.  The email I use has filters that include terms like "From name contains: XXXXX" and you put the name into the box.  You won't get to see them unless you look at your trash/deleted folder contents, and most email accounts empty trash/deleted folders every two weeks or so.'

[skippypom]

I would prefer to report his emails to his ISP before blocking.  They can then cancel his email address.  You must forward the abusive emails to abuse@yahoo or hotmail or aol etc.  Forward each email unedited.  They will stop.

[patchoo78]

Why don't you just direct any e-mails from the sellers address into your spam/trash folder? That way they won't even make it into your inbox

[phorum_junkie*]

forward any threatening emails to their isp using the address abuse@insert their isp here. whatever if you want to do anything with them, personally I couldn't care less what some random scammer said to me in an email.

If you really want to cause them maximum hassle and they are in the US you can report any threatening emails to the federal police, I used to have the link but can't find it, a google search will probably lead you to it.

[30kittykins30]

Tonight I can leave a positive report. On the good news side of things my visit with my internet provider today has allowed me to block this seller from sending emails to my personal account. I had already reported this seller and his nasty emails to paypal and ebay but I didn't report him to his email carrier because I was concerned he would just sign up for another email account through someone else and then the emails woild start again. This way hopefully he won't know he's blocked and will just think I'm ignoring him.

On the really good news side of things I was able to contact paypal today I asked why paypal required me to return the fake autographs to this seller before I could get a refund as it is against paypal policy and against the law to post such items and aparently for some reason there had been an error and my dispute had been sent to the wrong department for review paypal aggrees that this seller is a fraud so they reversed this transaction and I get my money back (3 of my disputes against this seller are still being reviewed hopefully with the same outcome).

I still have to hold onto the other items from this seller until the remaining 3 disputes are resolved but I was told as long as I don't sell the 4 autographs in my refunded dispute I can keep them if I want to. Paypal doesn't require me to provide proof of disposing of these 4 items but may proof may be required for the other disputes when paypal makes their decision. I don't want to own fake autographs I think that might be illegal so I shredded them I must admit I felt rather gleeful whilst destroying them. 🙂 After all the stress and abuse this seller has caused me it was fun. I only hope I can soon destroy the remaining fakes.

By the way thanks to everyone that has provided advice and support on this discussion page. It has been very helpful.:-D

[thecatspjs]

Thank you for updating. You have been busy today !!

Delighted for you that some paypal justice has prevailed 🙂

... and that you suitably enjoyed the moment of shredding B-)

[papermoon.lady]

I am glad you sorted it out, Helena!

[30kittykins30]

I have received emails from paypal today that for my remaining disputes against this seller they require me to destroy the remaining items:^O and fax a signed declaration form to paypal to prove I have destroyed them. After paypal reviews the forms I should get the rest of my money back.:-D I have to admit it was just as fun today to shred the remaining items as it was when I shredded the other items a few days ago.:^O

I also wanted to clarify something, quite a few comments ago someone posted a comment saying that paypal wouldn't refund simply because a seller has been derigistered because this can happen to sellers for other reasons unrelated to the dispute claims like not updating a phone number.  In this particular case ebay had already suspended this seller before I filed my disputes. I had become suspicious of this seller so I was already in the process of third party authentication when I received emails from ebay to say that they had serious concerns regarding the authenticity of the autographs sold by this seller and have taken the action of indefinately suspending his account.

[phorum_junkie*]

This is how Paypal should, and usually does, work.

The seller being suspended on it's own would not have had any impact on the Paypal decision, usualy ebay do not give any reason, but if they stated the seller was suspended for selling forgeries then that would count in a big way.

I made the point because some posters offer the advice that a Paypal case will allways be won if the seller is suspended and that just isn't so.

[30kittykins30]

I'm sorry if I caused offense I wasn't intending to sound critical of anyone's comments I really appreciate all the opinions, advice and support everyone has given me, without it I might have made the mistake of sending the items back to this seller. I just wanted clarify the information ebay provided me as I know ebayers can be suspended for actions other than what this seller did and there are dishonest buyers out there as well. It's not always the buyer that gets scammed.

Due to privacy concerns I don't think ebay often provides information about other ebayers like that, I suppose they really wanted to stress their concern about this sellers activities. I had kept the emails ebay had sent me and was able to submit them as evidence against this seller when I first filed the disputes. I was really lucky to have them. I agree I think this evidence formed a big part of why paypal is siding with me.