eBay

wedgin · ‎10-01-2013

I recently sold a BlackBerry Z10 on behalf of a friend to a buyer not too far away from me in Toronto. I'm not a regular seller, but have sold a few things since 1999 when I signed up. I looked at his profile, it said he had 100% feedback with over 300 transactions, so I figured I had a genuine bidder. The auction closed and I didn't receive payment for over 24 hours. While not major, I did find it odd as most people just get it over right away and you don't need to chase them.

So upon payment my friend packaged and sent the item out via Canada Post with tracking and signature upon receipt. It has now been sitting at the North York Canada Post depot since Friday awaiting pickup. I know if I were buying a brand new phone I'd usually be pretty pumped to pick it up, so I thought this was odd. Getting a bad feeling from this I decided to do a bit of online research on my buyer. I found his Facebook page which said he lived in Canada, but was originally from Nigeria which of course sets off warning bells for me. I then Googled his eBay username and discovered a few people complaining about him selling bum Flash drives. He did issue refunds on them, but either way it does leave me feeling very leery.

Now to this point he hasn't done anything to scam me. My money is still sitting in PayPal, pending for 21 days because I'm not a regular eBay seller which I see as BS given my spotless track record, but that's a whole other thing. Does anyone know what type of scam he's trying to pull? Or maybe I'm just over reacting and the transaction will clear and everything will be fine. I just found that as soon as I saw Nigerian my guard was up on the whole thing. I'm almost wondering that since we required him to sign for the package that we screwed him over in claiming he didn't receive the package, which would then have him try and chargeback my PayPal account. Can I pre-emptively report him based on suspicion, or do I just have to wait for the other shoe to drop?

rose-dee · ‎10-10-2013

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Email, however, is not a valid form of contact.

Anyone who buys and sells on eBay relies on email as the main form of contact. EBay has made it valid as a matter of policy. Not only is is non-invasive, so to speak, but it provides a record of communication.

I had a telephone conversation, last Friday, with someone who had sent me several emails. None of which I received.

There were a lot of huge glitches on the eBay site last week, including this one. It's pretty rare that eBay's email system doesn't function, but I had exactly the same problem with a seller on Thursday - his emails were getting through to me, but mine weren't reaching him. He had the good sense to finally email me his phone #, but I consider phone contact a last resort or alternative in situations where email breaks down. Many people would not appreciate a seller calling them at home or interrupting them in the middle of a business day if email could otherwise be used.

However, in the OP's case, the buyer has already emailed him at least once (i.e. the buyer has obviously received at least one of the OP's messages) so continuing to communicate by email makes sense. It also gives the OP a record of his attempts to contact the buyer. A phone call now might help, but it could make things worse.

To the OP: For what it's worth, if I were in this situation, I'd just wait a little longer for the phone to either be returned, or the buyer to respond, and go from there. If the phone comes back, a refund would be the right thing to do. If the buyer contacts you while the phone is in transit to you, you could let him know he'll get his money back as soon as it arrives.

wedgin · ‎10-18-2013

I've now had some movement on this. The seller has now contacted me asking me to leave feedback, to which I told him I would once he picked up his package. He responded back saying that he had in fact received the package. He has left positive feedback for me but the tracking notification tells me he still hasn't picked it up. Is this possible? Is there a delay in updating the Canada Post website if he did pick up the phone today? As the package had sign for delivery I should definitely be seeing some type of confirmation that he in fact received the package.

wedgin · ‎10-18-2013

@wedgin wrote:
I've now had some movement on this. The seller has now contacted me asking me to leave feedback, to which I told him I would once he picked up his package. He responded back saying that he had in fact received the package. He has left positive feedback for me but the tracking notification tells me he still hasn't picked it up. Is this possible? Is there a delay in updating the Canada Post website if he did pick up the phone today? As the package had sign for delivery I should definitely be seeing some type of confirmation that he in fact received the package.

I just phoned Canada Post and they have now told me that they should have sent it back 3 days ago, based on the 10 days notice he received on October 5th. They don't have any verification of him having picked it up at all. So I guess I now wait to see if it gets returned.

ricarmic · ‎10-18-2013

I have had packages showing not picked up yet which were infact picked up. It depends on the clerk in the receiving office to have followed the proper process. If they happened to just give it to him without scanning it it won't show as delivered. This has happened to me a few times in the last couple years. The risk you have of not giving him feedback is you don't know if he did the DSR yet and you don't want him zapping you on that. I'm not sure what negative thing could happen to you by giving him feedback, it wouldn't change the options you have if it comes back to you, especially since he left you feedback?

rose-dee · ‎10-18-2013

@wedgin wrote:
I've now had some movement on this. The seller has now contacted me asking me to leave feedback, to which I told him I would once he picked up his package. He responded back saying that he had in fact received the package. He has left positive feedback for me but the tracking notification tells me he still hasn't picked it up. Is this possible? Is there a delay in updating the Canada Post website if he did pick up the phone today? As the package had sign for delivery I should definitely be seeing some type of confirmation that he in fact received the package.

If the buyer says he's received the package and is happy (has left positive FB), then I'd be inclined to believe him that the transaction has concluded satisfactorily from his end. It is possible for the P.O. clerk to forget to scan in the pick-up or ask for a signature, so that might explain the missing tracking, especially if it's a drugstore-type postal counter - I've noticed many are staffed by youngsters who aren't terribly well trained and/or new on the job (there seems to be a lot of staff turnover in some of those places).

It does seem odd having a buyer specifically ask a seller for FB, but then I suppose it depends how many FB he has and how much he wants the positive input.

Concerning DSRs, is it even possible for a buyer to "separate" these from FB, in other words leave FB one day, then go back and leave DSRs? I'd never considered this -- perhaps someone else knows for certain.

Still, you can't agonize indefinitely over closing out this transaction based on gut feeling. Personally I'd take the plunge and leave him his positive FB.