As you can see the actual seller or business is so far removed from the initial action that caused the chain of events they haven’t got close to a fighting chance to say “Oi!, thats not how it happened, the money is rightfully mine.”

By all means buy and sell on eBay, but most certainly consider the methods of payments you accept. In future for anything much more than £50 I intend to demand cash if they intend to collect, or a cleared cheque if they want it posting. That was my contact with the buyer is direct and I have a fair chance with getting my money or compensation should anything go wrong.

Unfortunately it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The frustrating this is, the credit card companies do seem to be willing to help when this happens, I know plenty of people caught up in the card fraud thing and the card guys seem to be on the ball, ring up if they think something suspicious is going on, credit the money back to you etc…Its a shame paypal dont take the same stance but thats probably getting into legal stuff I know nothing about…but surely they cant just leave you high and dry. If the money wasn’t in your account, you would not have given the laptop to him.

Will make me think twice before I sell something else on ebay, thats for sure.

I’m sorry to hear you got done in the past. The more people talk to me about this incident the more I realise that being defrauded isn’t something that only happens to a few people - it happens a lot.

eBay, PayPal, the whole family, stink of just doing the bare minimum and towing the crap policy line. Its a miracle they are as successful as they are; you would think they could afford to assist fraud victims better seeings as how many good transactions they must have to have such a high user base.

I know I’d most certainly take a few mates round there, you are probably correct, he’s given an incorrect addr as he did give a duff tel no but for the sake of knowing I take a trip out there to be sure!

I got done years ago when buying my first house and it sure leaves a nasty in your mouth.

It is disappointing that ebay aren’t prepared to assist you, closing his account, well that wouldn’t work as he’ll just sign up under a different name but surely there is something they can do to protect future purchasers?

I’m not going to be more wary of buying and selling, I’m just going to be wary of PayPal and how they offer sellers no protection. In future I’m going to demand payment by cash for collection and cheque for posted items, waiting for the latter to clear of course. Because unlike a “cleared” PayPal payment, a cleared cheque truly means you have the money safe. Cash, well, that speaks for its self.

Being wary of buying and selling in a community environment after such an incident would be letting the cretins win and we just can’t be doing that.

I can’t see a way round the form filling. If you are going to report them to West Yorkshire Police, start by giving them a ring on 0845 6060606. I had to go and give a statement and provide a couple of bits of paper (bank statements in my case). They should let you know over the telephone what the procedure is, so if its too long winded then I guess you could knock it on the head then.

Norm

Sorry to hear you have fallen victim to fraud in the past too - it seems like its happening to more and more people these days. Whatever happened to good old fashioned trust *sigh*

It is a really nasty thing for anyone to go through - I have been the victim of fraud myself. I hope you get something back, even if it is only the sight of him behind bars.

As commented before, at least file a complaint of theft.

Norm

What did PayPal say to gip you our of their seller protection or whatever it’s called?

The way they got out of it was because the buyer collected the item. They require that the item is posted to a “confirmed” address and is trackable using an online tracking number such as royal mail track and trace.

Essentially the majority of eBay transactions are not covered in one way or another. They are as good as frauds themselves