Seller acting suspicious

Pet

The story: I won a Canon camera (new) via Buy-it-now from a German seller for €276 - a good price for this camera, which usually goes for about €310ish. I paid the seller by Paypal, including delivery charges which were agreed on via email beforehand. He then emails me to say he won't take Paypal, because "there's an extra charge when payment comes from foreign countries" (this is how I understand it, my German is quite rusty), and sends me his IBAN number and such. This sounds a bit like dodgy bull**** to me, and he never mentioned anything like that in the description, so I tell him that I'm only going to pay with Paypal, but I'll pay the fees too (it's only an extra tenner or so).

He sends me what looks like a screenshot of a reversed Paypal payment, and tells me to send him the price of the camera again (€276) plus €9.73 charge - ie €285.73, and then he will send the goods. But when I go to my Paypal account, there's no record of any reversals taking place..

Another weird thing is that this guy's name and the name that my payment went to are completely different..

So, is there something fishy going on here? Is there any way I can just cancel the entire thing and buy from another seller?

Gone West

yes. report this to paypal immediately.
They have a great process for getting your money back and cancelling the transaction.
Can you link us to his user on ebay?

Pet

Here is his feedback profile..26, all good, a lot of similarily-priced items to mine, that's why I went with him. But the **** it seems he's pulling would make me think otherwise.

Do I have sufficient grounds to report him to Paypal?

Gone West

TBH. 26 is crap. Also, there were a lot of newbies who bought off him.
Including 2 people with 0 score. meaning that they had never bought anything at all.
Odd.
Stay clear of people with under 100 sales, is my opinion.

audfz

I work for PayPal, in the department that deals with this stuff.

Do not resend any payment unless it is reversed in your account first and you can see that. There is no extra charge for payment coming from different countries. If you changed it to euros first, then you pay conversion, he will just pay the 3.4% + 20p receiving fee like everyone else.

If you don't want to go ahead with the transaction, file a buyer complaint for 'Non-receipt' of item, you can do that through the 'Security Center' or 'Resolution Center'. PayPal will investigate it all for you and try get your money back. How much you get back is dependant on the Protection Policy which covers you but they will always try get all of it back.

If you give me more details I can tell you exactly what to do but basically if you want to talk to someone in PayPal about it directly call 08707307191.

But basically the main thing to do is not send anymore money. If te payment says 'Completed' it your History Log, then whoever you sent it to (him or someone else) has that money. To get it back, file the claim.


Hope that helps!

Pet

That's excellent, thank you. I sent him an email saying 'You forgot to click on "reverse payment"', so we'll soon see if he's a scammer or a genuine seller with some strange, forgetful habits.

audfz

He need to click 'Refund' to give it back to you if he has already claimed it. That'll reverse eveything. The fact that he told you there is charges for receiving payments from different countries is a bit suspicious, case there are none. If you sent the amount in pounds then he'll have to convert it to euros and there is just the conversion fee on that but someone either you or him is going to have to do that at some point.

I just realised you are Irish. I'm used to dishing out advise to the UK market all day and associate evey PayPal transaction as pounds.

So to correct myself: He is just paying the standard 3.4% + 30c (i think, it is 20p for defo) fee on receiving the payment. Which is standard.

Gone West

would I be correct in saying that youre the controversal poster, "island" from www.paypalsucks.com
?

Sponge Bob

I think paypal is great, the world would be a different place (IE Worse) without it. It makes a simple procedure simple and thats what technology is supposed to do.

Having said that , I would not bother using their 'resolution' process but would simply charge back my Visa Card if it came to it.

audfz

FuzzyLogic wrote:

would I be correct in saying that youre the controversal poster, "island" from www.paypalsucks.com
?

Who me? Nope, only looked at that site once before when I started working at PayPal. Just wanted to offer some advice, seen as I work in the department that deals with this stuff and I know how people can get ripped off.

Gone West

Oh, sorry.
Its just that I googled that phone number (to make sure its in the public domain)
And the only other instance of it on google is on a message board.
User was irish and works in paypal too.

audfz

FuzzyLogic wrote:

Oh, sorry.
Its just that I googled that phone number (to make sure its in the public domain)
And the only other instance of it on google is on a message board.
User was irish and works in paypal too.

European headquarters is based in Dublin, anyone who deals with the English market is Irish (well majority anyway).

billstraighten

good to have a paypal worker on the site ^^^

to clear things up

parsi

FuzzyLogic wrote:

TBH. 26 is crap. Also, there were a lot of newbies who bought off him.
Including 2 people with 0 score. meaning that they had never bought anything at all.
Odd.
Stay clear of people with under 100 sales, is my opinion.

I disagree - my first batch of sales were when I had around 50 feedback and I did well and people were happy. It all depends on what is being sold.

Someone selling high value goods always needs to be treated carefully especially if they have low feedback and are new. Other people selling bits and bobs are often clearing the attic or whatever and may have a low feedback but have been registered for a long time.

At the end of the day on ebay - if it looks to good to be true then it is, no matter what the feedback is.

A Dub in Glasgo

I would second what parsi says. I would not do a blanket 'do not buy' from X or Y because they do not have enough sales or feedback. I would look into each transaction on its merits.