Pretty pi$$ed off right now.

I sold some forks in great shape on eBay

Three weeks after reciept the buyer put in a claim for damaged stantions, ebay sided with the buyer and didnt allow me any imput. I get an email from ebay saying I have to refund and they are coming back to me on a courier

Was expecting forks back with damage that wasnt by me, but what did I get back, not forks:

Ebay are looking into this as are now a fraud dept within the police, what a mare, no forks and possibly their value to be paid back to the buyer = at total of £600 out of pocket in total

Anyone else had a similar experience?

🙁

So if you get offered some Marzocchi 55’s cheap in Bexley, Kent, they could have a history…..

Ouch! Not good. Hope you get it sorted.

I truely hope that they pursued by the law.

Thats poop name n shame

Not good 🙁

There’s a piece today on the BBC about such scams – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30079063

Not good at all. I think Ebay are going to have to look at their dispute model a bit more carefully or else they will lose all credence with the general public as an auction site. This sort of fraud seems to becoming more common. I guess that the private side of their business is such small fry these days they could probably shut it down altogether. Anyway, good luck with chasing this up. Lesson for us all there, thanks for the post.

Given that it’s with the Police it seems unlikely they’d push you to refund until that’s resolved. Then again, it’s ebay…

Name….

£600?

How far are you from Bexley, Kent? I’m no internet/real life tough guy, but that would probably be enough for me to pay a visit if I was in your shoes.

I’d probably end up getting battered with some Marzocchi forks, but it’s the principle.

There’s a piece today on the BBC about such scams – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30079063

Rory Cellan-Jones seems worryingly naive for the BBC’s main tech correspondent.

I’ve never had a problem selling on eBay, but there’s way too many of these stories – with PayPal all the risk is on the seller, and there are some right arseholes out there happy to rip people off. Only ever use it for buying nowadays.

there is so much wrong with this…

but for starters, how can they possibly put is a claim 3 weeks after receipt? They could have been absolutely hammered in that time….

I sold them for £295 + 10 for carraige, so if they get the refund, they have the dollar and the forks, hence the £600 loss

The younger me would have taken a visit, the grown up me with a wife and kids cant as I have their address as much as they have mine

Pretty sh1t though

but for starters, how can they possibly put is a claim 3 weeks after receipt? They could have been absolutely hammered in that time….

45 days to lodge a claim. Although, I think that may have dropped to 30 recently.

Why anyone sells on there, is beyond me.*

*That’s not intended to kick the OP while he’s down. Just speaking generally.

Nightmare mate. 🙁 That’s why I know it as Evil Bay. Hope all goes well with trying to get some recompense.

I sold them for £295 + 10 for carraige, so if they get the refund, they have the dollar and the forks, hence the £600 loss

er um, what about the £295 they paid you in the first place. You know, the £295 that you’re refunding?

I sold them for £295 + 10 for carraige, so if they get the refund, they have the dollar and the forks, hence the £600 loss

Yes but the £295 + £10 was the buyers (unless you were paying him to take the forks)

You’ve lost a fork worth c.£300 so you’ve lost c.£300 not £600

Still thoroughly shit though.

If you have his address then presumably its pretty easy for plod to knock on the door.

If you have no joy can you take him to small claims court?

I don’t understand people that do this, surely its a pretty dumb way of performing theft / fraud you leave a huge electronic trail

I sold them for £295 + 10 for carraige, so if they get the refund, they have the dollar and the forks, hence the £600 loss

I get your logic, but that’s just not the case. You’d either have £300, or the forks. Not both, so you’ve not lost £600 at all.

Quite a common one this, really can’t think of a way around it frankly.

Its an auto refund to the buyer once they can prove a parcel was sent and recieved. Hopefully ebay will stop the refund :pray:

All I’m trying to do here is create some awareness.

Make sure you take lots of pics of product/packaging etc when selling

Ive had many 100’s of transactions so far without issue (mainly buying though) there is always a scumbag out there who is willing to try it on though

I wonder what the police can do about this. The scumbag has obviously replaced the exact weight with that scrap wood and I imagine was careful not to leave fingerprints. I wonder how they could prove this either way short of actually catching the person with them. Despite my cynissism I hope that things work out in your favour.

I’m local to bexley,riding there tonight. Worth checking gumtree etc…

I imagine was careful not to leave fingerprints

Bet he wasn’t, but I also bet (one pair of £300 forks) that they won’t even try to get prints off the scraps of wood! I imagine it’s a bad surface for dusting for prints anyway.

Bet he wasn’t

Its a she 👿

no, I think TINA101010lolololol is mostly just a scammer’s way of saying, I’m “just” a burd so you can trust me

Im really sorry to hea about this. But if my experience of the police is anything to go buy you wont hear anything from them. I got taken for a set of £400 forks by a known and convicted scammer who scammed me and others whilst und electronic tag for the same reason. I had to go to my local police station and gie a statement. I chased 3 times and never got a reply. I have lost all faith in the system. But you can bet your B***s to a barn dance if I so much as tried anything dodgy they would through the book at me.

Ebay compounds the problem. I wont be using them anymore.

Rubbish, sorry to hear that fella

This is why I stopped using eBay, Its sadly now a common scam and I knew too many people who’d got stung this way.

OP, I hope for your sake that you transferred the cash for the forks out of your Paypal account? If so, Paypal will simply create a negative balance on your account providing you don’t have any credit cards / bank accounts linked to it (delete these / unlink from your account if so).

If they hound you for payment, inform then that this has been reported to the police and is now an ongoing potential fraud case. Forward them all the details you can and wait and see what happens.

If you left the balance of the forks in your paypal account then I’m sorry but that money is as good as lost.

Also why I stopped using eBay. Well that and I got fed up of the hassles of listing things, packaging things up and having buyers mess me around, then have eBay and PayPal sting me for huge fees.

Biggest gripe is PayPal back the buyer and with no evidence at all if the buyer files a complaint they can charge back and your money is gone. Then it’s up to you to fight and in some cases they might even suspend your account and you’ve got a bigger fight on your hands and no PayPal account to use for other things. And on top PayPal will have taken the fees and you won’t see that back.

I calmed down and done the math, worst case £300 not £600, whoops

It’s crap. I’ve stopped using it personally but still do for the business.

Have a read of the new T&C’s they sent out the other day, namely the increase to 180 days for buyers to lodge a dispute and what seems to be a provision for buyers disputing items not as described to avoid having to return the goods at all.

for all users contracting with PayPal under the User Agreement, clarify at section 13.6 that, if PayPal has reason to believe that returning an item that the buyer claims is SNAD to the Payment Recipient would result in a violation of applicable law, such as laws related to handling counterfeit items, PayPal may report the item to a competent authority. This may result in the authority taking control of and/or possession of the item from the buyer and the Payment Recipient might not receive the item back.

To me, that reads as: Buyer buys £50 pair of oakleys from genuine seller, lodges them as fake, ebay report to police, police can’t be bothered, buyer keeps item and gets refund.

/cynic mode..

👿

If you have the buyers details could you not try the small claims court? Or would this transaction not be covered?

The address is a business address also, so I may become a real PITA if I get shafted

And small claims also

I refuse to use ebay for exactly this reason, and will only sell/buy to/from people that I personally know.

If ebay auto refund and steal it back from you, then I’d lodge small claims against ebay. Postal receipt is not proof of receipt of the goods by the buyer, and it’s not proof of return of the goods by the buyer either.

Collection/cash only for me on eBay…also I never sell anything that would indicate that I have high value bikes at home.

I sell on here and Pink Bike, PP Gift or cash on collection meeting at a neutral location.

I feel sorry for OP acting in good faith. All the best.

Sorry to hear about this. I’ve had problems as a seller and as a buyer, but luckily not like this case.
I sold something to someone in Thailand, then they claimed fraud to PayPal after two days, but not to eBay…luckily I got the email from PayPal an hour before it was going to be collected by courier. I didn’t want to refund the money until I was sure sure I’d get the postage fee back (£40) – I got no response from eBay or PayPal, but luckily the courier company refunded me after a few more days.
I paid over a grand for a MacBook on there as well. The seller never posted it, had created loads more MacBook ads over a few days and was receiving lots of negative feedback with folk saying he was a scammer! Ebay kept telling me I had to wait a few weeks to see if it turned up! So I had no choice to wait a fortnight to have my money refunded! Raging was an understatement.

ebay only works if there is trust

clearly the business model is stuffed for private sellers, and many commercial sellers as well

If you selling on ebay can you decline to accept bids from buyers you don’t like the look of?

This is fraud.
Has it got any posting price/weight on it?
I had a similar a few years ago – a parcel came to me without the main part – the seller said it must have been stolen in transit – the postage price was the lower end of a parcel price, so nowhere near the 5kg or so it should have been.
A Police Stn visit from me to report it,then, I got a letter from the Police a few weeks after, saying the case was closed, as they had spoken to the seller who would refund me – the refund had arrived before then.

I got a crime # ealier and will pursue if ebay dont

Whats the model name/exact steerer length? Give it a few weeks and they might pop up on pinkbike. I’d happily buy them via paypal then open a dispute. Longshot but thieves are greedy.

sherpa87 – Member

I wonder what the police can do about this. The scumbag has obviously replaced the exact weight with that scrap wood

Not even close, unless that’s lead painted as wood

I had a similar experience with a phone but I did end up getting my money back after a lot of hassle chasing eBay. Speak to ebay on the phone, they somehow put the refund amount on hold in paypal so basically neither of us had the money for a few weeks whilst they investigated.

The problem is ebay have no real way of knowing who is telling the truth, I think in my case it helped that I had along and perfect feedback whereas the guy claiming was quite new and already had some negative feedback, maybe they’d tried it before.