Sold to an hacked account without knowing and got charged back/lost the item

gabtap08
Community Member
Hi,

I've been selling on ebay for a couple of months and buying for a couple years now. Without being an expert of the platform, I'm pretty used to it and informed about it.

What happened with a sale I made back in May was really unexpected and has me really shook.
It was a pair of shoes I sold, like I already did a couple times without any issues.
The buyer contacted me asking to ship it asap and telling me he's in MTL and would like to meet up.
Since it was directly in the peak of Covid and I'm not in the same town I prefered to ship the item.
Though, I saw that the buyer's address was not in MTL, so I asked if it was the right address.
He told me he was currently in MTL and gave me the right address.

Since it was the first time I had this occuring. I consulted Ebay's seller help center to see if it was legit to change the buyer's address. The documents were saying I could change the address of the buyer manually or cancel the order and ask him to do it again with the right address.

Since the buyer gave me the address, I changed it manually and shipped the item later in the week.

Fast forward to late July,
I receive an email from Paypal saying the payment from this transaction was disputed and they wanted me to provide some infos about the order and shipping.
I sent the DMs with the buyer and the tracking #.

Now fast forward to early September, I receive another email from Paypal saying the decision was made in favor of the buyer and that the payment was charged back.

I'm guessing the buyer's account was hacked and when the real owner of the credit card saw the payment, he disputed it, which is totally fine.
But now, I'm not getting the payment and won't have the item back...

I contacted Ebay's support, they told me to talk to Paypal since the transaction was with them.
Then I contacted Paypal's support and they told me they can't do anything since the card owner disputed the payment to it's financial institution (not to Paypal). So they told me I would have to contact the person directly (they gave me the email) to ask them to give me the name of their financial institution so I can get them in a 3-way call to figure this out...

It has now been over a week since I emailed the person and as I was expecting, I have'nt got any answer.

I really don't know what to do and can't comprehend why I would be the one paying for all of this when it seems like everything I did was right.
I'm presently thinking of never selling on ebay again to avoid these kinds of nightmare...
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Sold to an hacked account without knowing and got charged back/lost the item

yes, unfortunately, you have to ship to the address provided to you,  for seller protection to work. Once you agree to ship it elsewhere you have no protection. You needed to refund the buyer/ cancel the transaction, and have them update their shipping info. Then re purchase.

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Sold to an hacked account without knowing and got charged back/lost the item

Customer service only told you half the story.

Yes, you can change the address.

What was not said was that you then lost your Paypal protection. Which technically..... urgh.... technically is not eBay's business since they are different companies.

Which is why you won't find many members here saying nice things about Customer Service.

 

@pjcdn2005   Do you have some advice about this sort of late Dispute?  Is there a PP appeal mechanism with the tracking to an address?

It really does sound like an outright scam, not just a forgotten purchase.

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Sold to an hacked account without knowing and got charged back/lost the item

Well if this kind of info was specified I would have done it that way. Since it sounded like either options were good, I went with the easiest one.

Also Ebay's support didn't tell me this when chatting with them after the dispute. They told me I had to talk to paypal since the problem was about the transaction.

 

I really feel like I'm left alone in all of this...

 

Thanks for the info though

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