Forum

buyer sent back an empty box
 

The item was worth $90.00 USD
He claimed it was not as described and decided to return it. When it was delivered back to my place the box was empty.
He swears he sent the item back.

What are my options here?

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

File a police report and contact Paypal to appeal the case. All packages have their shipping weight recorded upon acceptance, so it's easy to tell if the buyer is full of it.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Yeah, do that, and do everything else people will suggest here, but the sad, simple fact is most people have no real practical recourse in this matter, your money and item are likely gone forever.

I mean, for $90 exactly how far can you pursue it, unless it's simply a matter of principle, and even then you have to PROVE to a judge or jury the buyer didn't 'put it in the box, who knows what happened to it on the way?'. And if you got a judgment you still have to collect.

In most cases it costs more than $90 just to get a case in small claims court.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

I've been sent back the WRONG item before, which showed accurate weight, and PP still sided with me.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

The police report will hold more weight than just counter claiming it.
But it's still not a guarantee you'll win it.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

i lost this very battle . got a empty box back as a return i esculated case buyer won lost about 100 bucks i reported buyer about a week later he was gone .. but i am sure it took more than just me to report him to get them to do anything .. he had like 500 fb so i am sure it was not his first go at it

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Call ebay and they have a very simple process that requires you filing a police report and/or reporting the buyer to a Federal Fraud Bureau and you can get your money back.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Be sure to tell us how it all worked out. :)

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

100% inaccurate and bad advice.

In these cases like anything else on ebay, follow the ebay polices. Call them, report the issues, follow their instructions and stop being a victim.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

was this file with eBay or PayPal? If its eBay and you have pictures. eBay will reimburse you if you have solid selling track record. You would need to call them and tell them you need to talk to appeals. a police report is a must after you don't get reimburse by eBay.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

The internet is littered stories of people who got back an empty box and lost their money and product both.

Google search brought back 579,000 hits about this exact search. It's very common.

Just a few weeks ago there was a thread about this, all the cheerleaders here piled on, dancing and singing the broadway show tune titled: "complain, complain, call the police, call the BBB in San Jose, call EB, call the ICC, file postal fraud claims, file a lawsuit, it'll work out, people win these all the time and YOU can TOO!!!".

Guess what? The OP in that thread lost their money and their item and it was a lot more than $90.

Matter of fact, if you look back at the threads on just this site, something less than 5% won these cases.

Not saying to not try. Just saying EB enables this kind of theft and for $90 how far can you afford to pursue it? You can spend 10 hours and far more than $90 pursuing it to get back $90, or you can sell 10 more items in the same time and make $900.

And this is a part of the thief's calculus when they cheat you.

I sell multi pack items, lots of different items in a single bag as a set, people pick out what they want, take out the expensive or desirable items, and send the rest back claiming SNAD. Not a damn thing I can do about it, just mark everything up a percentage to cover this statistical anticipated theft.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

^^Very nice rebuttal.

I do agree with following eB/PP policy and pursuing a refund from them to an extent. Taking the problem off of eB/PP (filing police reports, going to court, etc) has always seemed overboard to me. Sometimes it's better to put good money before bad money and eat the loss.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Fling the police report costs nothing and you do nothing with it other than hand it to ebay.

$100-500-2000 items always should use the ebay system. $20.00 of course it is not worth the time to go to the police station.

Sue? whoever thought anyone was talking about that I guess has never called ebay and reported this event.... who would ever sue someone over an ebay transaction? lol

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Same thing happened to me last week except with a $300 item. Filed a police report, called up ebay/paypal and they sided with me. POS scammers

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Get a load of this article about an online fraud: ( off site link )

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...r-sales-fraud/

Just to be brief, a guy stole $870,000 on EB. They finally caught him, and he will serve..... wait for it.... wait for it.... a grand total of 2 years and 5 months.

This is why the scammers love online sales. Even when they're caught stealing almost a million dollars, they only get a little over two years.

If they ever get caught at all.

They didn't recover the money. Of course.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

They did. Read the court papers linked in that article.

Also, this is not just "one person" and the crime committed here is a lot more than just defrauding buyers. It's believed that a whole operation ring was involved dedicated to scamming Americans from Romania, and they used several bank accounts opened in the US with falsified identities.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

Given that the money was transferred to a bank account in Romania and withdrawn in small increments from ATM's, I can't believe they actually recovered any of it.

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

The DOJ got involved and went through all the effort to extradite someone from Romania for fraud, that's what I found the most amazing

Re: buyer sent back an empty box
 

There used to be a forum that was specifically designed to teach how to steal retail and online. It is now toast. But I was a frequent visitor to learn every new method that was being stickied and taught to be cautious of scammers. You would be amazed at the lengths people will go through. Many of us have all been victim of the exact types of fraud. This thread is an example of one such way they did it.