Scammers Be Scamming – My Experience With A PayPal Chargeback

Hi, I just received another chargeback notification email from Paypal recently. I sold small religious items on ebay for a couple of years. The first time happened to me during last year. After the first chargeback, I started to look out suspicious areas like what you mentioned above, eg. new account (the join date is the same as the purchase day), funny account name, low scoring rate, like to order 2-3 items at a time. I did cancelled a few orders because of those suspicious points. After losing once, hopefully by cancelling orders can prevent me from having another misfortunes. So far so good, however, until the one I received recently, it didn’t look suspicious to me, because the ebay account name is normal, with 10 scoring rate, paid through Paypal with paypal account instead of instant payment as a guest. I looked up the tracking a few days later and it shows delivered successfully. I have no clue this time why having a chargeback again. I feel so frustrated and lost, why and how to prevent those scammers, they are so annoying, trying to get money and no one can stop them even those big institutions. How the buyers proof it is an unauthorised transaction, what if they purchased something but saying it is not authorised? On contrary, if not because someone placed an order, with quantity, delivery address, payment, and a valid ebay account (in my case), why would I ship out my items. These seems sellers are more at risk than the buyers. Anyhow, I provided only a screenshot of the order placed on ebay and a proof of delivery address (the same on Paypal) with tracking reference on it, don’t know is sufficient enough. Now is the waiting time for the result. Lucky that I saw your website, and will start to consider giving feedback after the buyers leave theirs first. Apart from that, I don’t think I can do much to avoid such misfortune. (And I believe I am targeted by those scammers because as I mentioned before, the items I’m selling are not trendy, valuable, popular items like goods out there, just religious items, only those who know and feel interested may have the genuine intention to purchase, otherwise, more likely is by scammers). Anyway, thanks and good luck for all those who facing similar matters.

We have a graphic design company. We had a customer file a claim against us through his CC company then they notified pay pal which pay pal notified us of a claim. Psy pal hasnt charged us back, they are investigating the claim and we have provided our proof. He had given us a 50%deposit which is required to start the jobs and get the process started. We had installed 3 out of 4 signs to a customer and the customer was suppose to drop off a trailer to put a wrap on it, wrap us printed and ready to e installed. The customer has delayed for weeks dropping it off and the last sign the customer had agreed he would pay the balance in cash along with the final balance of the trailer. He never showed up to drop off the trailer and he said there was a change of plan. Meanwhile he has already put the claim in but we didnt have the trailer to wrap. He’s claiming he didnt receive his merchandise. He has in the meantime received a credit back from American Express and he has called us since then wanting to know if he is getting the wrap installed and he wants his sign. Pay pal has the claim still and we have sent all the proof we have on what’s happened between us and the buyer. So he got a provisional credit, we told him to cancel/stop the claim. He said he would and he hasn’t but he still wants to know where his sign is. We dont want to move forward until the claim is dropped because he has a credit, pay pal is investigating whether or not they’ll charge us back, and he wants the last sign and wrap but if we do then well be out the money he gave us for the deposit.

Too bad that the scammer still wins, he got the money and the item, only PayPal’s insurance company loss by paying up the seller protection.

If you have an ebay store, you get reduced fees for selling. (For example, computers and tablets are only 4% final value fee instead of 10%) However, if you cancel auctions after they have already been paid for, then you get a 4% penalty tacked onto your final value fees for the next few months. So the cancelling purchases with 0 feedback is not really an option for people who have an ebay store.

I’ve sold exactly 2 items on eBay. One I met was a scammer, the other a avid eBay user who was willing to use scammer tactics to get an discount after the fact. Electronics… really not wanting to sell them on here anymore. The first item was an Alienware Laptop. Which worked great and was in used condition as described. I sold it to make up for the visual flaws at 300 USD. (Computer originally was purchased for 1499 USD) huge markdown as it was. Anyhow, the guy comes at me saying it wasn’t as described opens a case and the money is taken from my PayPal. We chat and he claims the computer is missing the hard drive and all of the memory. Which I know for a fact was present when I shipped it. I explained that I bought the insurance from the post office and would return the item for him, but he responded with…knock the price down to 200 and I’ll be happy and leave good feedback. I did so because at this point it would be the least pain in the butt. And suddenly he was completely happy:

Second item was an Apple Watch. I included original packaging and the watch was on great condition when so shipped it to an address on Florida. It was delivered to the address over a week ago and today the customer sends a message saying the watch doesn’t work. Also says that he just received the watch in the Dominican Republic where there are apparently no genius bars to confirm the serial number of the watch.

I fear this is the item swap scam that’s been on the rise. What do I do? The watch worked fine. His arguments make it sound like he’s really trying to make it work and I’m almost sympathetic even though I know it was workin and even took pictures of it working before I sent the watch.

Unauthorized transaction generally mean the CC was stolen. I typically check using spokeo for high dollar amounts to see if the seller really lives at the address. Common tip-off is that their is a difference between the payer name and where it’s going (though both are authorized)

Doesn’t really matter because PayPal will generally cover it if u followed their rules, usually it’s an Apple product that’s being ripped off though I did have a dewalt drill and a Samsung tablet in the past.

I’m unclear as to what the buyers stated issue was? Item not received?

I had a guy reshrink wrap a MacBook Air and return it to me filled with clay. Fortunately he was a college student and I tracked his dad down who intervened (I found solid proof of what he was doing) and it worked out.

i’ve been selling on ebay for a long time. in all my listings i say ‘after you get your item, please let me know that you are happy with it by leaving me positive feedback and i will do the same for you’. i never give feedback first.

I’m dealing with a headache from a GoPro I sold a few weeks ago. New eBay account, but I had already cancelled one order the day before for a zero feedback account and was told by eBay I can’t do that. So this one went through. Received an email from eBay saying the buyer had paid and to ship the item. I did. Turns out the payment was pending (PayPal did not have the funds, only showed it as pending). I’ve been communicating with eBay and PayPal as far as what to do. Neither seems inclined to help since they think it’s really my fault for shipping before the funds were actually confirmed. Buyer obviously has no incentive to pay now because they already have the camera. So I’m pretty much out of luck.

I have sold over 7,000 items on eBay over the last 20 years and I have definitely noticed an increase in scammers. Not exactly like your experience described above, but this year I have had four people tell me that they never received the package even though tracking showed it was delivered in mailbox. They all wanted a refund. I tell the person that I will gladly provide a refund once I have a Postal Inspector investigate the “theft” of their item. Miraculously three of the four items showed up the next day.

Why was this worth your time and brain power? Is this what god put you on this earth to do?

I had a similar experience selling a GoPro camera. Same outcome as you. I had verified the shipping address through ebay messages and all i had was the tracking info. Seems like if you ship using ebay label you stand a pretty good chance.

I had something weird happen to me this week on ebay that I am still trying to make sense of. I am selling a few LOL Surprise Big Surprise toy (if you have a young daughter, you know what I am talking about). I sold one of them to a buyer from UK with 0 rating. The short story is that she (he?) never paid in the two days allotted before I could file a claim (ebay already charged me the sold fee). I sent her a reminder after 24 hours first. After two days, I filed the claim and now the buyer has another 4 days to pay or get the ax and for me to get a credit for the fee charged. Now, what was the purpose of this person’s actions? Anyone knows? Besides just bothering I mean… The only thing I can think of if that there was a buyer from the UK a day before that sent me a “best” offer that was lower than the retail price and of course I rejected it and explained that it was below retail, would she be so mad as to go through the work of doing all that and risking ebay linking her with her real account? Crazy people….

You are a GOOD GUY Mark. Wonderful strategy! Very impressive. So glad that you were brought on the team. What a great education you just provided all of us. Again Thanks so much. Lastly, who had phone #’s for EBay and PayPal???? Care to share for our records?

Glad it worked in your favor!

It’s been a while since I’ve sold on eBay, but I do believe you can set up a listing to block buyers with a 0 feedback score. I always made my listings so that you had to have at least a 5, sometimes a 10 if it was a bigger item like a laptop.

Yeah there should be a list of scammers with their full names and addresses. If you’re going to do something douche like that you deserve to get the public shaming

Wish there could be a system where some sort of “punishment” is meted out on the scammer e.g. credit card company closing his account and confiscating his points. I hate scammers. Never been burnt but then again I’ve rarely sold stuff on ebay.