Am I being Scammed on eBay?

[Resonance129]

Sheesh @ the OP...
I've been hesitant about buying OR selling on any of the main seller-based sites, although I've done both a few times (luckily, with no major hassles). It's definitely a risk to make a sale online, especially with expensive, fragile instruments, but big box stores will make you feel like an idiot for selling at their prices. Not too many alternatives.

Glad that worked out for everyone in the end. I'd imagine that sucked a whole lot. Especially the whole 'not knowing' part.

 

[Durham52]

Over 15 plus years I've used ebay to sell and buy and I've never been scammed (just like several other people who have posted so far) and have 100% record, so don't scam others either. I'm sure there are people who use ebay who do scam, just as there are people who shop at bricks and mortar stores, markets, other online sites and anywhere else where people buy sell or trade who scam, or try to. Some people are just dishonest. But claims like "everyone who uses ebay gets scammed", really?

I follow a few basic rules, never buy of someone who has a poor trading record, never buy from someone with no feedback history and never buy when the deal looks too good to be true, or the price looks good, but the description and or photos are sketchy.

No form of buying or selling is 100% guaranteed foolproof, just be smart and be prepared to walk away no matter how good a deal looks if there's any doubt in your mind at all. Otherwise roll the dice and cop whatever follows...

By the way, glad things worked out for the OP.

 

[fhm555]

Haven't contacted UPS. I have a local friend who is a police officer. Considering filing a report

Save your favor with the cop until you have a better idea of what happened. It would be a shame to ask for help if it’s a simple case of botched delivery. If it turns out there are grounds for official action, consult your friend the cop on what your best course of action is going forward.
Cops are always busy so don’t strain your relationship with them based on speculation or incomplete information. Make sure LE needs to be involved before you get them involved.

 

[Spupilup]

I think he said paypal automatically refunded the money to the buyer, before the buyer shipped the item back - at which point the buyer never shipped the item. I don’t believe the seller had any control of the process, the way I read it.

Lots of honest people use ebay and Reverb - but it’s the horror stories of the few bad apples that really make you reconsider. I’m going to list some stuff soon on Reverb, and I’ve been selling online since before ebay - back when you sent things COD - but the different scams I hear about make me weary. And again, that’s coming from someone who has bought or sold used gear online about 15x/yr for the last 25+ years!

My buddy would buy/sell 2-3 things per week - including high end gear - and once every 100 transactions or so, something would go wrong. One rare guitar was stolen mid shipment. He was refunded sales price but not the shipping. It was listed by someone a week later but ebay wouldn’t do anything - and my friend was a police officer!

PayPay nor eBay will simply “refund” a buyer unless the seller has failed to act, over time, to the buyers claim. It sounds like the seller simply refunded the money. At that point he lost the ability to require the return of the merchandise or the ability to pursue a satisfactory claim against the buyer. Frankly, it sounds less like the seller was scammed than a matter of the seller failing to require, up front, the return of the merchandise before a refund was issued.

I’ve been selling on eBay for 22 years with tens of thousands of transactions and I’ve never had the kind of nonsense I read about in these threads, ever.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Over 15 plus years I've used ebay to sell and buy and I've never been scammed (just like several other people who have posted so far) and have 100% record, so don't scam others either. I'm sure there are people who use ebay who do scam, just as there are people who shop at bricks and mortar stores, markets, other online sites and anywhere else where people buy sell or trade who scam, or try to. Some people are just dishonest. But claims like "everyone who uses ebay gets scammed", really?

In 20 years using eBay I've been scammed both as buyer and seller - in all those occasions eBay's protection guarantees were not honoured and eBay's customer support were worse than useless. Last time was as a seller and eBay took the part of a dishonest buyer, but I claimed against eBay in PayPal and won but I won't sell on eBay again. With all of these organisations the decision makers are kids in call centres doing underpaid jobs they probably hate and there's no appeal if you don't like what they decide. Reverb seems to be much better and I can't help thinking that's because feedback works in both directions there.

 

[lyonaudio]

I will never sell anything on Ebay again.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

All's well that ends well!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

I got scammed once on a 1969 EKO acoustic guitar. The varnish was checkered so I asked if it was OK and was told it was. Got it, and the back was coming away from the bracing, other parts of the bracing, the front was coming away, and the headstock had been broken off at some point along both lines of tuners. Amazingly it had strings on and held pitch, but it wasn't as described and wasn't going to last long. It's a shame as it's essentially the same guitar (from the same year) as used on "Ramble On" by Led Zep. I got a circa-1972 one instead for about £15 more that is absolutely spot on, although I've misplaced the truss rod cover in my parts box somewhere...

I did confuse a buyer once when I was selling many things by sending them an extra item by mistake. That one was my fault and I sorted it out.

 

[BassToGoGo]

I will say that between Covid and the recent weather that the U.S. has experienced has turn almost all mail/shipping services askew.

I recently returned two sets of strings that I purchased through amazon (crazy story, wrong strings with barcode on the outside of label for the correct strings... ordered twice wrong ones sent both times.), returned them thru UPS. They were shipped from a town maybe 60 miles away. The returns disappeared for almost a month with the only info stating that that the returns had been received but finally showed up.

Also shipping costs have skyrocketed, sending an instrument across country averages around $100 now.

Even the US Postal service has slowed to a crawl.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

This is exactly why insurance was invented.

Good luck with resolving it, sounds like you did everything right on your end.
And the fact the buyer is cooperating it sounds like they aren't in on it either.

With Covid, peoples brains are not working right and mistakes are happening everywhere.

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

Once I sold on eBay, and the package came back to me because the buyer's address was wrong. Sg is weird here..

 

[BassDad1964]

I will never understand why someone would willingly choose to ship something as expensive and fragile as a guitar through any mail delivery service. In a cardboard box with some Styrofoam. Where the exchange of cash/item is not done in person and simultaneously.
I'm sure there have been plenty of folks on TB who have done just that and had no issue but things do happen when you ship and sooner or later it's gonna happen to you.

And we get all mad, blame the shipping company for their negligence or accuse someone of outright thievery.

I buy stuff on Ebay but I don't do my high price item shopping there. So I have never been out that kind of cash.

Just my opinion, yours may be different.

 

[dangevans]

Good luck calling UPS. Their customer service, in my experience, has been very rude and crappy.

 

[bassliner50]

Sounds scammy to me. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[1958Bassman]

Good luck calling UPS. Their customer service, in my experience, has been very rude and crappy.

Do you talk to local support, or national/regional? I don't think I have had a bad experience with them, ever. They have allowed me to pick up at their distribution hub on several occasions and went onto trucks to retrieve something when I needed it sooner than if they were delivering (for AV jobs) and one driver told me that if he left a blank tag on the door, I should look for him in the nearby industrial park in case he had stopped by and couldn't leave the boxes.

 

[sleddogn]

I will never understand why someone would willingly choose to ship something as expensive and fragile as a guitar through any mail delivery service. In a cardboard box with some Styrofoam. Where the exchange of cash/item is not done in person and simultaneously.
I'm sure there have been plenty of folks on TB who have done just that and had no issue but things do happen when you ship and sooner or later it's gonna happen to you.

.

Yeah, but its called the real world. Great idea in theory, but not so great in the real world IF you are wanting to buy just about anything these days.... I like when others refuse to even think of buying online, more for me

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I will never understand why someone would willingly choose to ship something as expensive and fragile as a guitar through any mail delivery service. In a cardboard box with some Styrofoam. Where the exchange of cash/item is not done in person and simultaneously.
I'm sure there have been plenty of folks on TB who have done just that and had no issue but things do happen when you ship and sooner or later it's gonna happen to you.

And we get all mad, blame the shipping company for their negligence or accuse someone of outright thievery.

I buy stuff on Ebay but I don't do my high price item shopping there. So I have never been out that kind of cash.

Just my opinion, yours may be different.

But you usually get much higher selling prices by opening your market to the entirety of the United States versus a local sale. You'll get even better prices by shipping internationally, but you have to know what you're doing. A box that's an inch over dimension can end up costing another $300, and then there is always the crap shoot with customs.

 

[thetragichero]

the premise of this supposed "scam" doesn't really make any sense to begin with

 

[dangevans]

Do you talk to local support, or national/regional? I don't think I have had a bad experience with them, ever. They have allowed me to pick up at their distribution hub on several occasions and went onto trucks to retrieve something when I needed it sooner than if they were delivering (for AV jobs) and one driver told me that if he left a blank tag on the door, I should look for him in the nearby industrial park in case he had stopped by and couldn't leave the boxes.

To each their own- my experience with them, at least when it came to shipping/receiving instruments, has been poor.

 

[custombass]

I think I'm being scammed...... sold a bass on ebay last week. Shipped on Saturday. Delivery was scheduled for Wednesday but UPS said the address was incorrect and went back to warehouse. I reached out to the buyer to see if they contacted UPS to arrange for delivery, and they chose to pick it up at the UPS facility on Thursday. They were happy and claimed it was for the dad. Didn't open it until today - when they opened it they said they received an Ibanez acoustic (pictures provided)......... I shipped with UPS confirmation and insurance.

What BS is this? Are they scamming me? Did someone at UPS pull a switcheroo on Wednesday after the "address was wrong"?

What can I do?

Mod edit: Resolved. See post #22

I hate to sell on EBAY. EBAY don't backup seller.