eBay fraud - 9 iPhones gone?!

[needlz]

Hi there,

I'm right now in some trouble. Bought 9 iPhones + Shipping for about 5200$ on eBay, from a 100% feedback seller with a verified paypal account.
He promised me on saturday, that the package will go out on monday and that I will get a tracking number then. About 30minutes ago I have noticed, that all auctions had been deleted, the account has been removed - and, still no message from the seller.
I opened a Paypal claim and I'm hoping now that it's not too late. Does anyone have similar expiriences? Did you get the money back from paypal?
AFAIK, paypal will freeze the account if there is a claim..right?

Thanks for any hints/feedback!

Cheers from Switzerland

[jasonn]

I had an almost the similar situation.

I was buying one phone from a guy with 100% feedback etc. I allready made the bit and was just getting ready to make a payment when one of his previous buyers sent me an message that the guy was scamming and he and several others had not received their phones. I stopped the payment and made a claim to ebay. Couple of days later the sellers account and items were taken offline and he is now taking charges.

Hope you get some of your money back! :mad:

[NotFound]

100% feedback means nothing unless there are at least 5 postive feedbacks from iPhone buyers.

[desi112]

I can offer you an Iphone on ebay, I have 100% selling feedback and 69 Selling points, I have sold 5 iphones already on ebay, if you want one just PM me

[NotFound]

Plus, there are a lot of perfect feedback IDs got stolen.

[needlz]

Yeah, I noticed that 100% feedback doesn't mean much :)
But did anyone have similar expiriences?

@jasonn: Could you PM me the name of the eBay user who warned you? Maybe he can give me some hints

I've read that it'll take a few days until a payment has "really" arrived by the sellers account - so when I've paid on saturday and filled a claimed after 48h, there should be a chance that i can get a chargeback from paypal..right? :/

damnit, 5k$! :)

[ako0o_ba]

korek.. agree

[madrich]

Hopefully you paid for your purchase through PayPal using your credit card.

[needlz]

Yep I did pay trough my credit card (VISA)..

[madrich]

Good. You have the extra protection of the credit card. Let PayPal respond to you. They will probably reverse the credit card charge. You can let VISA know if you want to ahead of time, but they will wait on PayPal. It least you will be on record. You can search the ebay forums for more info.


http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=107

Good luck.

[NotFound]

never tp worry. His account has been banned as u said. Thats a good thing. The fraud has been acknowledged by the "officals".

[needlz]

Thanks for all the replies!

Finally, the seller sent me an email:
Hi i am replying in regards to the iphones I am sorry I am having trouble with my paypal and ebay accounts they put a block on them so I cant log in so i was unable to send the phones cause i could not pay for the shipping cause of the block on paypal they wouldnt let me use my card. I am sorry and I talked to them today so the block should be off by tomorrow and i will get them to you a.s.a.p I am very sorry for the inconvenience I have been working on it all weekend and thought it would be resolved by today.

Thank You,
XXX

Weird.. I guess I'll have to wait anyways, let's see what happens.

[the_gts]

Ok here goes:

1) it is correct that you shouldnt look at feedback, look at whats in the feedback and the dates. some accounts that have been un-used for a while will get hijacked and used for scamming.

2) ebay removing the listings is not a real measure, currently i have sold 140+iphones on ebay (stopped selling in September cause i went on a vacation and not only do bulk orders from previoouse customers). when i started ebay and paypal both attacked me and froze my accounts and asked for proof of shipment and proofs of purchase for the last 10 phones i sold, i sent them proof for the 50 i had onhand + proofs of shipment for the 10 sold on ebay and the other 25 sold direct through paypal since it was a special order. thing is the process took 72 hours to resolve then all my auctions were re-instated and my accounts were un-frozen. Main thing here is check his feedback, see when he last sold stuff and check out his current auctions if he was sellingcheap items then jumps in with 6 auctions for expensive items then watchout.

3) as for your paypal claim dont worry, just escelate it to a claim it will take a week to 10 days and if he does not send proof of shipment then your money will be returned (this is if you followed the guidlines and both ebay and paypal accounts were verified).

4) if he does send proof of shipment but you dont get your order then it is more tricky and you need to PM me for help with that.

I became a platinum power seller on ebay because of the iphone with over $25,000 in sales in a months period :)

if you are intrested in bulk orders please PM me but please realize i only do bulk orders and i am expensive but i give good service and only ship via fedex 3 days express to most countries.

[ako0o_ba]

thnx for the idea how the payment processing and claim works.

Cause i have already 5 experience on a delay and not shipped item. Then there's one seller give me a negative feedback cause i backout on his order. The thing is, after i win on bidding, i saw on his account that saying " he's not a ebay member anymore" . so i didn't send the payment.

ANyway off the topic, lolz

TY again the_gts