on 10-01-2017 01:43 PM
Hello all,
To keep a long story short. I've sold 2 similar sets of cutleries on ebay to a fraudulent buyer in the US (2 feedbacks, I should have noticed). They filed a non-authentic claim on my items, and the usual story goes, ebay sided with the buyer (despite the items being bought by me personally from the brand store - unfortunately this was years ago and from overseas so I don't have the receipt).
I managed to get ebay to reverse one case so I haven't lost everything. It's been a frustrating and stressful period dealing with ebay on this, and I'm giving up, both happy and sad and I only lost slightly over 1/2 of the money originally.
However, the ebay paying option is convoluted to say the least. Paypal have frozen the funds for the item that I need to refund (so I'm on a negative balance) and ebay is asking me to Pay Now via an ebay page. Obviously my preferred option is to go through Paypal as that means I get the Paypal fees of that transaction back as consolation. However, if I zero out my balance by depositing money into eBay, will eBay know to take money from there?
So the item is $1400, and Paypal withheld $1349 from me (the balance is Paypal fees), so if I can go through Paypal, I pay $51 less.
Could I please ask for some advice how I could go about doing it via Paypal? Saving $51 would help reduce my loss - every little bit counts when you're burned by a scammer.
Thanks so much!
on 15-01-2017 06:04 PM
You can post the buyer's reply but just remove their ID.
on 15-01-2017 06:06 PM
What was he referring to about the USPS shipping label?
15-01-2017 06:09 PM - edited 15-01-2017 06:11 PM
The buyer left positive comments - then has gone and done a flip with a bs follow up comment, probably all part of the scam!
100% confidence in this seller, goes above and beyond. Cant be more happy!
on 15-01-2017 08:00 PM
Thanks so much justkidzbiz!
eBay's policy does mention that if escalated, and they do end up finding in the buyers favour, they may not instruct them to return the item. I'm not sure if that's legal or not, but they may argue that you agree to their terms and conditions if you ask for an escalation.
Unfortunately, corporates always know how to word their terms and conditions to cover their own a****. 😞
15-01-2017 08:07 PM - edited 15-01-2017 08:08 PM
This is what the buyer wrote (there's no ID mentioned, apart from mine):
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The fact that you even believe that the items still exist shows your incompetence. eBay demands that all items found to be counterfeit to be destroyed, which is what they had me do. I honestly find this entire situation laughable. I have spent far too much time comparing the items you sent me to ones that I directly purchased through Hermès, and that others have purchased through Hermès, I even had their authenticity checked through a third party. ALL of them blatantly show that the items you sold me are fakes. If you think you are even coming close to fooling me with your fake story about buying these while on a trip to Paris with your husband, or that you are making me feel at all guilty for getting my refund and having your fake items destroyed, you are sadly mistaken. What is sad is that there are honest people out there that people like you have scammed with some backstory and a few kind words that hand over their hard earned money for what in turn ends up being a lie.
The most ironic part of this entire situation is that after I felt like the items were fake, I even gave you the benefit of the doubt and actually tried to return them to you. Instead, you claimed that there was "a problem with buying the shipping label with a 'non-US' credit card" which undoubtedly was a ploy in order to have me pay for the return shipping (let's be honest, you were never going to pay me back for that). Instead of paying for the shipping and actually getting the items back, YOU escalated the case to eBay yourself, which in turn forced me to have them authenticated and led to eBay demanding me to destroy them. You have got to be the worst scam artist in all of eBay, because of your own doing, you lost your money AND your fake product. Furthermore, the hypocrisy of your anger to my follow-up comment while you yourself were the first to do so, has served to only continually humor me and those I have shared it with. Goodbye moto288, I wish you all the success in the world 🙂
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What he referred to about the USPS label is that I've tried to order shipping label for the return initially, but USPS' web site refused payment because neither my credit card nor Paypal account are domiciled in the US. I've got screenshots to prove this. So I asked him to send it to me and I'll reimburse him and he totally ignored my request - so I wasn't getting anywhere with him (I couldn't get the photographic evidence from him, nor could I make any progress with getting him send the parcel, hence I asked eBay to escalate the case - which in hindsight, is probably his whole plan!)
Thanks for letting me vent somewhere and get this off my chest! I could even feel my blood pressure go up just reading how he would even have the guts to call me a hypocrite and scam artist!
on 15-01-2017 08:16 PM
A little bit of a distraction - what I observed to be rather bizzare from his replies though (if you look at the above), is that he is always spell Hermès correctly, even with the accented è. That's really strange. Even I don't spell Hermes with the accented e and I'm a long-time Hermes fan/customer. Just a random, irrelevant but strange observation that's all.
on 15-01-2017 09:29 PM
As soon as you get your documentation from Hermes I would suggest you hit them with everything you can.....contact the FBI.
They are responsible for cyber crime in the USA just as ACORN handle it in Australia.
When cyber crime was handled by the Queensland Police there was a section on their site giving contacts in other countries....the USA contact was the FBI.
You have the buyer's full name and address and I would suggest getting their phone number from ebay. Failing that, look it up online.
Then find the nearest FBI office and give them the details of the whole scam....implicate ebay as much as you can by stressing their refusal to tell you who has authenticated the cutlery.
on 16-01-2017 10:07 AM
Thanks Lyndal, I agree. I will report them (both buyer and ebay) to relevant authorities (ACORN, FBI) as soon as I could get some documentation from Hermes.
I've got the buyer's full contact details (if providing they put in the correct details in ebay) - at the very least, the address must be correct as the parcel was delivered there.
on 16-01-2017 02:08 PM
You can check the phone number for yourself.....they have an online directory just as we do. Just be aware that some of the directories are very localised....rather than by State they can be city or town or rural area.
I would also Google your buyer.....the USA has so much information online about their citizens that it is obscene. I found out things about my brother in law and his family that even my husband did not know.
on 16-01-2017 02:29 PM