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Does this look like a scam or am I just paranoid?
 

I won an auction from someone who had 5 feedback and registered for 3 weeks on ebay. I sent the payment after auction to the address on the invoice.

The payment remained uncliamed for three days, and I never heard anything from the seller.

So I wrote and said either claim the money , send me my item or I cancel the payment... No response...

So today I get this email from the seller :

Please no worries, you have to provide to seller a space, this is called handling time, I mention this on the listing description.
ebay is my part time job, I am not 100% pending about internet commerce, this is not company or corp, I am regular or eventually seller.
thank you for cooperate.

I see that I got a payment from you in paypal and is pending for accepting. Now my paypal account require to be update to handle credit cards payments.
could you please give a little time to call paypal and ask for this upgrade? thank you!


So I wrote back , explained how to accept the payment and upgrade to a premier account etc...

Then I get this email From a TOTALLY different email address than the sellers original : (NOT from Paypal)

Hello ********,

Your Payment was Returned
This email is to let you know that ******* has returned your payment of
$1033.84 USD. This means that the transaction is not complete and the funds have
not been transferred to the recipient.

There are many reasons why your recipient may have chosen not to accept your
payment. For example, if you paid with a credit card, they may have declined the
payment because their account can only accept funds from PayPal balances or bank
accounts.

Your funds will be returned to their original source. We encourage you to
contact the recipient directly to find out what type of PayPal payment would be
acceptable.


Sincerely,
PayPal

I went to my Paypal account and the seller had in fact denied the payment, but I then got another email from the seller on her original email:




I talked to PayPal and they explained me that my account do not hold or support Credit Card Payments becuase is Personal Account and I declined your payment.
But please send your paypal payment again to: ***********@gmail.com(use paypal "Send Money" Tab) that account will accept CC payments, thank you.
Please apologize the inconvenience caused, if is difficult to you to follow the instruction above I will send you a PayPal Request Payment to make easier your payment, just let me know. Thank you very much again!



So I sent it ... And Still I have heard nothing ..after three days.

what really threw me is that I never used a CC, it was paid with my Paypal balance

Possible its just that her account got limited and she made a new one?

Stinks to me. Speak to paypal & check with them. Three days is too l9ong for no result with that amount of money. :ranger:

:noidea: Why use paypal if you have these repeated problems? Have you money to burn?

Check the seller completed items. If they sold a lot then maybe it is a scam. What are his 5 feedbacks that he have? Are they from other buyers? or from just other sellers? If the feedback is from other sellers then it may be some new scam method. From the way they respond with broken English I would worry. I also never pay for high priced items with a paypal balance. I always use credit crad for extra protection just in case paypal don't.

BooMer

BooMer

you would think I had learned by now never to use Paypal , especially with that large amount.

There is a scam doing the rounds like this at the moment. The broken English emails, delays with repsonses & sweet words to stop a buyer worrying :tears:

No feedback as a seller ... all the feedbacks were recieved as a buyer..AND every item they have purchased was for less than .20 out of hong kong

Research your seller and the item more thoroughly before entering into a transaction like this.

That whole thing with changing email origin and telling you to resend payment to another PP acct could simply mean they screwed up their first attempt at stealth. But it could also indicate somebody trying to get your ebay item payment redone as a non-ebay item so they can avoid a hold on the funds, avoid snad claim, or otherwise avoid any recourse you might try through the paypal dispute system. That also explains why they don't want you using a credit card. No CC, no chargeback from your issuer - no ebay payment, very little chance that PP can get your money back later.

What? ffs, there is NO ITEM on ebay that is worth giving your money to a seller like that. Please :rolleyes:

That's exactly what I was saying. You just do it in less words than I do.

I know ... I know ... I didnt even look at anything , just grabbed the item bc it was the only one on eBay and only had 35 seconds left.. Normally I do look at things like that...

I guessI should go ahead and file a claim and see what happens... I jsut hate to do that if she is truly honest... but I cant kow for sure...

From what you've said it sounds like it's a scam. Possibly what they have done, is convinced you to give them money outside of E-Bay, maybe for "services" or something along those lines.
I would try and get my money back as soon as possible if I were you.

(Just my opinion, but it just has all the ingredients of a scam)

When u sent money to the 2nd paypal u sent it as a Send Money" Tab meaning its non ebay so i dont think ebay will help you if anything gos bad and also he used a different paypal then one registerd on ebay. You might be able to get funds back through paypal if the guy hasnt alrdy w/d the money out his 2nd paypal then if u file a dispute and cant get money back paypal will send u a email and say there unable to reclaim funds because the seller has insuffecent funds in his paypal.

i had this happen to me in the past i paid for a item and he never sent i looked at his feedback and he had like 200 or 300 then the last 30 feedbacks where all negs where he ripped people off just like me so i never got my $100 back.

If you paid by credit card u will have the opition to file a chargeback if u did get screwed.

Definitely sounds fishy- I'd suggest calling paypal and getting your money back asap.

But also look at the emails that were sent to you and check the ip address from where they were sent and check and verify the locations. If they were the same location and in the place where they are located, it MAY be legit