Rotten start to the year sick to death of scammers

[mreuromarcus]

G'day just here to vent some anger and pass on some advise on two recent overseas sales that I have lost big on.

First was a 250 dollars camera I sold overseas to Italy posted it as usually at the post office I always ask for tracking on my parcels but Australia post screwed up just sent it economy with no tracking didn't realise until I got back home later that night to enter the tracking number into the system that it was just economy air to late for me to change anything sure enough the dodgy buyer took advantage of the situation opened a not received case and got himself a free camera at my expense eBay also kept the fvf for themselves for such a successful sale.

Today I woke up with 2 more not received cases, I sold 3 vintage tailights to a chap in the UK the 3 tailights worth about 200 each where sold separately that's how he chose to buy them I did give a large post discount on the third one before he paid.

Anyway the 3 tailights were packed in the one box with tracking and signature made sure no mistakes this time but when I went to enter the tracking number on 3 separate items going to the same buyer it won't let me so only one tailight had tracking on eBay's system the other two just marked as posted.

The parcel was confirmed delivered 17 days ago and today he decided it would be a good day to take advantage of this loop hole and get two out of 3 tailights for free.

So now my PayPal is minus 500 dollars I'm loving life at the moment I think my days of selling on a site full of theiving buyers who like to abuse the money back guarantee system are coming to a end.

EBay is no longer a safe place to trade

[springyzone]

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Hang on.... the OP said he gave a large postage discount ! So surely he was within his rights to send all three together.

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In an honest world, most buyers would be perfectly happy to get a discount and have their things posted together. I didn't mean to imply the seller actually did make a profit on postage, was just pointing out that some customers can be very stroppy about postage costs even when they are only charged the exact Aust post cost, let alone if they note the seller made a dollar profit. I have found this to be the case with some international buyers, some of whom seem to resent the postage charges and will do whatever they can to claw some of their money back, even in unscrupulous ways.

This sort of informal arrangement the OP had, where a couple of steps are left out, where a seller might think it is understood they have discounted postage overall so it will be okay to send the things together can backfire if you strike a dishonest buyer who exploits that loophole-that there is no tracking for each item.

A combined invoice could have put a stop to that. Or else sending each item separately.

I know the seller was just trying to be helpful & make the whole transaction cheaper for the buyer but sometimes a seller needs to put themselves first.

[davidc4430]

i have had buyers contact me wanting to buy several of my items

i dont have combined postage on anything i sell

so i do some maths and reply with the items grouped as one plus postage charge with the message to let me know if they want the deal and if yes i'll relist at the price with the items all in one. has worked fine so far.

if a buyer was to buy serveral items and THEN want to deal, well thats another matter.

id be saying i can cancel the sale(s) and then do a deal or he can just pay up. giving a deal price in the message.

but once a buyers pressed the buy it now i'm not obligated to do any deals, IMO.

[11johnm48]

melbourneclearance - would love to know how you got on with the "hacked account" item

[springyzone]

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id be saying i can cancel the sale(s) and then do a deal or he can just pay up. giving a deal price in the message.

but once a buyers pressed the buy it now i'm not obligated to do any deals, IMO.

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I agree. Once a person has committed to buy, that's the price & the seller is not obliged to change things.

On expensive items, it's best to go by the ebay book I think. It must really hurt to be scammed hundreds of dollars. 

[melbourneclearance]

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melbourneclearance - would love to know how you got on with the "hacked account" item

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I advised the buyer to contact the police as hacking was a federal crime, she opened a PayPal case right after that and never replied to me. PayPal then asked me for tracking details (which they already had) but I sent them a screenshot of AP's website saying the item was delivered along with a message that the buyer claimed hacked 10 mins AFTER receiving the item, she received an email from both ebay and PP when the item was purchased ad at least 1 more email from Australia Post when it was being delivered as I used ebay's printed label - plenty of warnings. I also called PP and they asured me that I had nothing to worry about under their Seller Protection.

But that was 2 days ago and the case is still showing Under Review by PayPal. I hope that means PP is asking the buyer for something that she can't provide and the case will slide through some time limit and the hold on my money gets released.