Have you spoken to eBay? That would be my first port of call. I'm not sure how chargebacks work with their new managed payments, but suspect you may see them trying to reverse the credit to your bank account.
Need a bit of advice please.
I sold a watch to a US buyer through ebay for £2500 last Saturday. He paid promptly and sale amount has already been transferred into my bank account by Ebay.
I shipped the watch on Tuesday by UPS and used Secursus insurance for full amount.
Today I received an email from Ebay basically saying that the buyers account had been hacked, attached screenshot of the email.
Where do stand in this situation? I already have the funds in my account, can Ebay take it back? Will ebay bill me for the sale amount? None of this is my fault and I've gone through all the correct procedures?
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Have you spoken to eBay? That would be my first port of call. I'm not sure how chargebacks work with their new managed payments, but suspect you may see them trying to reverse the credit to your bank account.
Not come across that before but reading that it seems you as the seller needs to raise the issue with the relevant police in your area or where it was sent but I am not sure how that would help you in seeking a claim. Have they taken the money back from your account?
Definitely speak to eBay. Only they know what is happening or what they might want to do.
Also try sending a message to the buyer (well, the buyer's account at any rate). See what they say about whether or not your transaction was genuine.
I might be reading more than is really there into eBay's wording but it does seem that they might think you could have carried out an off-eBay sale to the (possibly fraudulent) buyer. This might be a silly question but did you definitely sell the watch on eBay using their procedures? Is the sale definitely recorded in the Sold page of the Selling section on eBay?
A basic check, but have you certified that the true account (not the display name, but the actual address) that you've received the email from is a legit eBay one and not one like "ebayfraudteam@e.b.ay.com" or the like?
Did you sell it via an active auction/buy it now or did you have contact through EBay and arranged the sale separately?
As far as I can see it won't help at all to get his money back. In fact, as of yet, zen123 doesn't even have definitive proof that he has been defrauded (although it does seem likely).
On past performance the UK police will only accept a report like this via the Action Fraud website. However, if this results in a crime reference being generated then this may assist in potentially raising an insurance claim for a stolen watch. But I see no point in going down that route unless and until it is certain that zen123 has been defrauded.
I should probably add that it is important to make absolutely sure that the message quoted from eBay is in fact genuine in itself (i.e. that it appears in the eBay 'Messages' area). It would be a clever exploit to craft an email that looks like a real fraud alert but is actually a phishing attack.
Contacting eBay is definitely the way forward to find out what happens next.
And that it definitely comes from eBay.
As a comparison point, some high profile Youtube channel owners have recently been fraudulently dispossessed of their channels by criminals who were able to convincingly appear as if they were from Youtube/Google support. That's why contacting eBay directly is so important so as to ensure that this is a genuine communication from eBay and that something similar is not being attempted here.
By the way, I am NOT saying that the eBay message quoted above is necessarily fake but look closely: It does have some odd typos in it. At least one missing word and spurious dots in URLs. It is also USA-centric when the eBay system should (probably, hopefully!) understand that much of the advice is not necessarily relevant to a UK seller.
If I had received the message as it is presented here then it would cause me to be mildly suspicious until I had checked its veracity directly with eBay (and perhaps looked at its source to see what its routing was and what the real embedded destination URLs were).
I keep getting e-mails that look like they are from e-bay, but clearly they are not.
I always go to the messages on my e-bay and if it ain’t there I ignore it.
This is scary as under the post PayPal arrangements a seller is instructed to ship by e-bay even if the money hasn’t been transferred to the sellers account at that point. Surely e-bay must share the blame if that instruction to ship is because of a hacked account.
Well, as far as I know eBay still claim that as long as sellers precisely follow the procedures laid out for them then seller protection will apply.
It could be that the OP is soon going to be putting this claim to the test.
But it seems to me that there's no need to jump the gun. The OP has emailed eBay so hopefully he'll be able to find out what they say and whether or not he really is a victim of fraud/theft as far as they know.
To add to the above, I've looked at the URLs listed in the message and it does seem rather out of date.
I note that the links as written are all "http:" links whereas if the text is going to bother to include the protocol part at all then you'd rather expect links to be written as "https:" nowadays. Of course, without checking the actual source code of the message one cannot be sure where the links really go to. "Http:" links usually redirect to "https:" nowadays but, even so, I'd still expect them to be written in text as "https:". And I'd certainly expect them all to be kept up to date.
Also:
(1) www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect just redirects to USPS's website main page.
(2) www.usacops.com (with spurious dot removed) goes to a 403 error page. As far as I know this site was genuine but it seems to be offline now.
(3) pages.ebay.com/help/buy/transactions-outside-eBay.html redirects to a generic eBay page about accounts, nothing specific to the matter at hand.
None of these things absolutely proves that the email is a phishing attempt, it could just be slipshod management by eBay, but it's curious.
Last edited by markrlondon; 16th September 2021 at 22:55.
Question - why should OP be doing anything at all right now?
The email doesn't tell him to do anything. Nobody has taken his money. It's not even been confirmed his buyer was fraudulent. Regardless of if the email is real or fake, there's no action required.
The email talks about second chance offers (irrelevant to the OP) and what to do if an off-eBay sale has been made (irrelevant to the OP).
So I humbly suggest you do nothing at all.
Good question. Here are the reasons I see to take action now to find out more:
(1) There is a possibility that the OP has been defrauded or that a fraud is being attempted on him. As such, it is surely self-evidently prudent to be proactive and to find out more about what is or is not happening or is likely to happen.
(2) £2500 could be at stake. That is surely worth some timely and proactive fact-finding.
(3) The situation is uncertain. This is never a comfortable situation to be in and cautious proactiveness can mitigate it.
At this stage it is only a matter of finding out more, of confirming what the situation really is.
My (unfounded and unevidenced) concern is that this message is a form of 'grooming', preparing the OP to transfer funds, or expect a charge-back, and posing it to be official action from eBay as a result of a fraudulent purchaser.
Finding out more, as Mark suggests, is therefore positive! The OP need not take any action per se, but rather fact find, and that's what the OP's currently doing by asking on here.
That being said, the action I'd take would be to attempt to withdraw the funds into my bank account (it's unclear whether the OP's done so or not, as 'I already have the funds in my account' could mean PayPal, eBay or bank).
None of this will actually help though, before anything happens. It's just busywork.
Surely if the email is fraudulent as yourself and Mark fear, the best thing to do is to ignore it. If it's legitimate, it asks the seller to do precisely nothing.
Just my opinion.
You missed the context of that paragraph, it's only relevant if the item was sold outside of eBay. This doesn't apply to the OP, so the email asks him to do precisely nothing. If he had to take an action off the back of the email, I would agree calling up to verify it's authenticity would be a good move. But that's not the case here.
If he checks and the email is real - do nothing. If he checks and the email is fake - do nothing. An opportunity has emerged to remove a step from this process.
Yup, opinions will tend to do that
To be clear though, I have not faulted the OP for asking a question. I am querying (/disagreeing) with the guidance being given to the OP. He has the money and nobody has yet tried to take it. He has sold through eBay, followed the process and shipped to the provided address. He has seller protection, which will either cover him or it won't. Talking to the call centre about hypothetical 'what if' scenarios will go nowhere IMO.
No, it is making something happen; investigation is, in and of itself, something of value happening as it allows for time and mental space to prepare for what may happen next (whether that be nothing or something). It is always better to be proactive and making progress oneself: Knowing whether or not you have been defrauded or whether or not a fraud is being attempted is surely a self-evidently useful thing to know sooner rather than later. Remember that time may be relevant here in terms of altering outcomes. Sitting back and waiting when there could be £2500 at stake is not, in my view, a sensible strategy. That money could still be at stake in one way or another even if it is currently seemingly safe in the OP's account.
I have given my reasons why I think timely action to investigate the situation is warranted. If, in such a situation, you would rather sit back and wait and see then so be it.
Last edited by markrlondon; 17th September 2021 at 03:09.
I did feel safer with paypal payments via ebay as there were two places to check the address where to send the goods.
Saying that, if you posted to the address told to you by Ebay I would have thought the problem was theirs
First thing to do is delete the card or account details that eBay / PayPal hold for you.
You haven’t done anything wrong, and are covered by seller protection. You have been paid via eBay and sent item to the address you should have. Can understand it making you very twitchy given it’s a fair old chunk of money, but speak to eBay if unsure. It could be an automated email that doesn’t even necessarily relate to the transaction in question.
Call eBay
Ask for direction
The buyer should have done the same
See what they say
Smells a bit tbh
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It's not a right/wrong situation, we're just sharing different perspectives. OPs choice how he wants to deal with it and how much time he wants to invest at this stage. The eBay policy is the eBay policy, and it's not going to change based on a conversation with the call centre about a transaction that's not yet even in dispute (IMO).
I would be prepared for a chargeback situation too as if their ebay account was compromised presumably the method of payment was too.
A proof of postage receipt showing the correct address and proof of signature from the buyer (needed as the value is over £400) at delivery should be enough to stop any chargeback under ebay managed payment terms and conditions.
Selling a high value item overseas on ebay is risky as if a scam is successful pursing the scammer through local police or the courts is almost impossible and the scammers know this. I only say this from experience as a few years ago I was hit by a £900 chargeback a few months after a sale and I hadn't kept the postage receipt (as buyer had left positive feedback).
Did you not sell using eBay's GSP option?
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Gotcha. Didn't realise gsp was that new!
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A quick update...
I have been assigned a specific agent to handle the case which is still pending. She assured me that as I had followed their selling rules properly I would not be out of pocket due to seller protection.
Luckily I waited for the funds to appear in my bank account before I shipped the watch because now ebay can't freeze or get it back, but the agent did advise me not to spend the money until this is sorted.
I believe the 'buyer' had contacted UPS so right now the package is being held by UPS pending further instructions.
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Update
Received the watch back from UPS on Friday. It was opened and obviously taken out of the box and examined as they repacked it differently. Anyway everything is present and fine.
I now have to inform ebay and refund the money. Out of pocket re the shipping and insurance costs though.
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