I'd sue the **** outta her....

I bid on and "won" an Xbox bundle on eBay last week. I'd never bought anything on eBay before and all my friends I'd spoken to had nothing but good experiences with eBay. Lucky me. After sending payment on Friday I find out today that the entire auction was a scam. No Xbox bundles. Apparently this kid had his eBay ID AND his Paypal account hacked and used for this scam. BS.

I sent payment though PayPal. Will they be able to get all of my money back? I filed a claim for it this morning. Another thing too, eGay will not allow me to file a claim on an item until 30-days AFTER the auction has closed. WTF?

What other options do I have left (outside of contacting my credit card company to refute the charge)??

eGay
-BT

"I'm mad as hell! And I'm not gonna take it any more!!!"

Good luck. Getting ripped off on ebay is a fairly common thing, I got ripped off myself a few times. Never successfully recovered money though.

Contact PayPal first and try and get them to freeze the person's account. I know it's hard to get a response from them at all, but if you call the CC company, they'll say it's between you and PayPal, and not the seller, so they wont usually intercede. If PayPal offers no response, then go to the CC company.

Absolutely. You'll have no problem getting your $$$$ back from Paypal. Once you file the claim, Paypal will contact the seller for proof of shipping. If the seller is unable to provide this proof (which would be the case here), Paypal will immediately deduct the money from the seller's account and put it in yours. You're totally covered.

I would contact the post office and inquire how long it takes a 'return to sender' package it takes because you can be sure it is going to be the slowest form of mail possible (irregardless of form of postage sent). Also what's a PayPal e-check and how does it bounce? I would think that that is not possible.

irregardless isn't a word...

I thought ebay had a policy to cover this sort of stuff. I thought Paypal had one too. Isn't it true that if the buyer doesn't pay you, your transaction is insured and you get money from the insurance?

Disputing the charge with your credit card company is the FIRST thing you should do, as PayPal and eBay's insurance doesn't kick in until after you provide them with proof that your credit card company won't reimburse you for it.

I wrote a long dissertation about what you need to do and in what order, and I'll post it from home later tonight if I remember. But basically, the first thing you should do IMMEDIATELY is dispute it with your credit card company. There are numerous time constraints on a lot of these protection measures, and the sooner you get the ball rolling, the better chance you have of recovering most or all of your money from one or more of these sources (credit card, eBay, and PayPal).

If you wait too long and miss deadlines, you might get nothing back.

If you dispute a Paypal charge with your credit card company, Paypal will cancel your account immediately. I have experienced this myself.

I would contact Paypal to get my money back. They have a Buyer Complaint Form on their website.
If the seller is unable to provide evidence of shipping, you will get a refund (they don't guarantee recovery of the funds, but if they have the seller's credit card on file, this shouldn't be an issue).

I don't know ebay's insurance policies however.

http://www.m-w.com

One entry found for irregardless.


Main Entry: ir·re·gard·less
Pronunciation: "ir-i-'gärd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
Date: circa 1912
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Wow, I guess I stand corrected. Sorry. i can't wait until the next time I talk to my Mom she yelled at me once for this and Ill have to tell her she's wrong.

Here's what I wrote previously. I hope PayPal wouldn't close your account, since their insurance is supplemental to eBay's insurance, and eBay's insurance requires you to dispute the charge with your credit card company.

Anyway, these are the steps I took last time my money was taken, and I was able to recover all of it (part from PayPal, part from my credit card company).

-------------------

For those of you getting ripped off on eBay auctions, you have some recourses. If your item is a fake bootleg, and the seller represented it as a genuine sealed Criterion Collection DVD in the item description, then that is FRAUD! Whether they described it as such purposefully or accidentally, it is the seller's responsibility to represent the product accurately.

eBay has procedures in place to protect buyers against fraud. Here's what you need to do.

1. If you paid for the bootleg via credit card, you need to contact your credit card issuer and dispute the charge immediately!! This is important to initiate as soon as possible because credit card investigations can sometimes take a while. There is a 90 day time limit on when you can file an eBay insurance claim for fraud, but it requires you to have gotten a resolution from your credit card company one way or the other.

2. Contact the seller and try to get them to refund your money. Use this link to find out their Registered User information:
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...mberSearchShow

3. If the seller refuses to refund your money, you then need to file a Fraud Report with eBay. You cannot file a Fraud Report until 30 days after the end of the auction, but no later than 60 days.
Instructions: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/ins-guide.html
Form: http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crsstartpage

4. Print out several copies of the auction web page. Also, if you paid for the auction through PayPal or Billpoint or similar, print out copies of any transaction records.

5. eBay should finish its investigation within about 30 days. You can check the status at:
http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crsstartpage

6. If eBay determines that the seller committed fraud, on the status page you will then be given a link to the Insurance Claim Form. Make sure you follow the link and get the form right away, as you will not be given the link to the insurance form again or be able to return later.

7. Mail in the form, along with a printout of the auction page, proof of payment (PayPal receipt, cancelled check, money order receipt, etc.), and any other documentation. Also, if you paid by credit card, you must include documentation that your credit card company refused to reverse the charge. These must all be RECEIVED by them no later than 90 days after the end of the auction.

8. The insurance covers up to $200 loss, minus a $25 deductible.


If you paid by PayPal, they may be able to recover some funds for you from the seller's account, and possibly offer some supplemental insurance in excess of eBay's $200 limit. You have to file your complaint within 30 days of the payment.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...-buyer-outside
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...plaint-outside


Don't delay on initiating any of these investigations!! They can often take quite a while to process, yet limit you to relatively short response time periods.

FYI: An e-check is a form of payment where the purchase amount is being debited directly from your checking account (very similar to paying with a debit card). But unlike a debit card, which uses the Visa/Mastercard processing network for payment authorization and hence provides a guaranteed payment, there is no authorization at all with an e-check. So it can bounce as any check when the funds in the checking account are insufficient to cover the transaction amount. The payor can also have his bank bounce the transaction if he wishes, like stopping payment on a regular check.

Normally, an e-check should clear within 3 business days. If it takes longer, you can expect problems to occur.

Stopping payment on a check (or echeck), or having insufficient funds to cover a completed transaction, is a criminal offense in the state/county/city where the bank account originates. In most cases, $35 is a misdemeanor, but is still subject to criminal prosecution. You should contact the district attorny in the state/county/city where this woman lives and inquire what the local procedure is to file criminal charges in a case of this type. Then you should file criminal charges ASAP. The DA will issue a warrant, and the first time the woman is pulled over for a traffic ticket or license check she will go directly to jail. Also, most cities have crackdowns on this sort of thing periodically, and round up offenders. It may take a year or two before anything actually HAPPENS to this woman due to your complaint, but it WILL happen eventually. And it will ruin her day when it does.

As a frequent seller on Ebay, I have come across similar problems, but we never ship until the payment has cleared. However, I can honestly say Paypal is horrible at recovering money. I had to file a lawsuit to recover money. In situations regarding large amounts of money, over $1000, have an attorney write paypal a letter letting them know your intent to sue them (they really are libel). So, good luck on the $35, I would simply resort to 3AM wakeup calls for about 2-3 weeks.
Philip
Owner, DVDs4U

Michael:

Any updates?

Ron,

Not really, I'm afraid. I did track her down to at least one other name and address - not that it did me any good. I filed a complaint with the USPS, and contacted the local authorities in her neck of the woods as well.

Florida has a Bad Check Diversion Program that's set up to get your money back in cases like this - the only problem is that they require a physical copy of the check, which I obviously can't provide. I sent them an Email asking if a print-out from Paypal would be sufficient, and I'm waiting to hear back from them on that.

I've given up on getting the money back. My only goal now is to make life as difficult for her as humanly possible.

I just wanted to let everyone know that PayPal reversed the charge for the payment that I was almost defrauded out of for the Xbox. I am very relieved.

A big thank you to PayPal for guaranteeing my $$$. And thanks to everyone who responded to my earlier post.

Now I'm waiting for the charge to be reversed on my credit card. Any idea of how long that is supposed to take? It's been 3 days already...

[Edit: I just checked my credit card account online and the charge reversal hit my account the same date, but just showed up. So all my money is back where it should be... phew. ]

-BT

Yeah, a refund on your CC takes some 3-4 days, depends on your card issuer.

Usually you can count on Paypal in such cases. If they have a CC number on file, they can easily recover your funds. It's way better than disputing Paypal's charge on your card and get your account frozen/suspended.

I read about ebay's insurance also. It seems to be useless most times.