I just wanted to share an eBay scam that I hadn’t seen before.
I bought an item ~£500 from a private seller at the weekend. A decent price but not too good to be true. On Monday I received the tracking confirmation and it was posted using tracked 48 (not what I’d use for an item of that value). On Tuesday I receive a Royal Mail email from eBay (the label was purchased through eBay) notifying me that it will be delivered on Wednesday (I.e. today). So far nothing out of the ordinary.
However, last night I received a notification from eBay that the transaction had been refunded out of the blue. I didn’t think much of it, a bit annoying but not the end of the world. I sent the seller a polite message asking why it was cancelled and I was told they “didn’t think it would arrive in time so cancelled the transaction, however if I still wanted it they would relist for the original amount”. No thank you.
I then started to receive increasingly threatening emails stating that they refunded me accidentally, I have stolen the item and not paid for it and it will be arriving tomorrow. I’m given a Revolut link and told to pay them or return the item. I ignored the messages but they became more and more threatening, including threatening court action ().
I contacted eBay this morning and they are looking in to it. They suggest I raised it with the police due to it being a fraud/extortion.
It will be very interesting to see what arrives today. If I can speak to the postman I’ll suggest he returns it to sender and reject the delivery. That’s probably the easiest way to resolve the issue as they won’t have successfully delivered the item.
I bought an item ~£500 from a private seller at the weekend. A decent price but not too good to be true. On Monday I received the tracking confirmation and it was posted using tracked 48 (not what I’d use for an item of that value). On Tuesday I receive a Royal Mail email from eBay (the label was purchased through eBay) notifying me that it will be delivered on Wednesday (I.e. today). So far nothing out of the ordinary.
However, last night I received a notification from eBay that the transaction had been refunded out of the blue. I didn’t think much of it, a bit annoying but not the end of the world. I sent the seller a polite message asking why it was cancelled and I was told they “didn’t think it would arrive in time so cancelled the transaction, however if I still wanted it they would relist for the original amount”. No thank you.
I then started to receive increasingly threatening emails stating that they refunded me accidentally, I have stolen the item and not paid for it and it will be arriving tomorrow. I’m given a Revolut link and told to pay them or return the item. I ignored the messages but they became more and more threatening, including threatening court action ().
I contacted eBay this morning and they are looking in to it. They suggest I raised it with the police due to it being a fraud/extortion.
It will be very interesting to see what arrives today. If I can speak to the postman I’ll suggest he returns it to sender and reject the delivery. That’s probably the easiest way to resolve the issue as they won’t have successfully delivered the item.
