Ebay Scammer (Buyer)

[austriak]

I sold my iPhone 4 via ebay recently after ordering the 5 and had a huge scare. I shipped it priority with delivery confirmation but no insurance. The delivery confirmation showed that it was delivered to the wrong city but it was the city next to the correct city. The buyer asked about it and said they didn't get it. I fought with USPS for two weeks and they finally said they had no clue where it is. I had a feeling that the buyer was not completely truthful so I emailed him and said that USPS said that it was delivered to the correct address. The buyer then admitted that they had received the phone.

I learned two things. If you ship via USPS, get insurance because apparently paying for postage and delivery confirmation is not enough to ensure correct delivery. Second, the next time I sell an iPhone, I'm selling via Craigslist. I was trying to maximize what I got but after eBay and PayPal fees, it was about the same as Craigslist.

 

[rak007]

I saw a listing of some phone on ebay few months back and the seller mentioned that he will be locking the phone with a passcode / password (not sure if it was an iPhone or not) and the buyer will have to contact him after he receives the phone for the password. This was to ensure that such cases don't happen where the buyer "claims" to have not received anything in the box.

 

[Edge1978]

I saw a listing of some phone on ebay few months back and the seller mentioned that he will be locking the phone with a passcode / password (not sure if it was an iPhone or not) and the buyer will have to contact him after he receives the phone for the password. This was to ensure that such cases don't happen where the buyer "claims" to have not received anything in the box.

Yea but can't they just restore as new and the lock/unlock is gone?

 

[travo112]

Go to your local store and see if/when the IMEI/MEID is/was activated. (get it written if you can) Then present that information to paypal.

 

[pooleman]

This is the first time I've had to deal with this. Sold my 4s on Ebay. Packaged everything up and sealed in a USPS Priority Mail box. The package was received today and the buyer is claiming the phone wasn't in the box which I know is bullsh.

Has anybody dealt with this before and how did you proceed? The package was insured so I'm thinking I can go that route...

I had this happen to me last year. I sold an iPod touch and the guy said he only received an empty box. It is possible that some dope at the post office stole it. But I told him to open a case and when eBay contacted me I insisted that I mailed it and they decided to not charge me but returned the money from their own pockets to the buyer. It did not affect my standing with eBay or PayPal.

Stand your ground. Do not close your accounts.

 

[dqpassat]

Dear buyer,

It is very unfortunate that you received a package that did not contain the item. I shipped the item in the box and have proof of it. Clearly one of two things happened, either someone in your household has the phone, or it was stolen when it was in the mail.

I will be taking the following steps to fix the issue:

1. I will be reporting the phone IMEI as stolen which will result in it turning into a brick and never being able to be activated again.

2. I will be using Apple's iPhone tracking service (find my iPhone), as well as a seperate service I installed on the phone in case of theft to locate the current location of the phone.

3. I will be contacting the local police department and postal inspectors. The police and postal inspectors will be notified that the felony crime of grand theft (theft over $200) has taken place, and the federal felony of mail tampering has taken place. They take these crimes very seriously and they will find the person who has the phone and the theif will serve signficant jail time of at least two years.

Well said!

 

[michaelmac3]

Sucks man.. I've had an attempted scam on ebay before too. A month or so after the iPhone 4 came out.. had it listen on ebay and someone bought it for $700. Got an email from "paypal" saying I had received payment and OK to ship. It was not from @paypal.com nor was the money in my account, just basically a HTML designed email to replicate a paypal email.

You gotta watch that stuff. It's everywhere.

 

[fubaracing7374]

Sucks man.. I've had an attempted scam on ebay before too. A month or so after the iPhone 4 came out.. had it listen on ebay and someone bought it for $700. Got an email from "paypal" saying I had received payment and OK to ship. It was not from @paypal.com nor was the money in my account, just basically a HTML designed email to replicate a paypal email.

You gotta watch that stuff. It's everywhere.

It sucks that there are people out there that try to take advantage of people... but I guess things will never change.