'Taken' for the first time on eBay

[johnoverall]

Click me! (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-1751-2978-71/1?AID=5463217&PID=582776&mpre=http%3A//cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D140048463205)

After six years on eBay I got 'taken' for the first time in the build-up to Christmas. When I bid on this item, the seller had feedback @ virtually 100% but things went sour and people began to withdraw payment and started leaving neg's by the score. As it was just a few pounds I decided to roll with it as I had regular contact with the seller stating that the item was 'on its way' and then latterly 'sent'. Item never showed and comm's abruptly stopped. His feedback went private at this stage. I went through the dispute process to no avail. Case closed, no refund as his account was emptied. His account is no longer registered and he doesn't respond to messages. How could I have handled this better, and how did other buyers manage to withdraw payment before the seller imploded? Don't want this to happen again with a larger sum of money involved, it's put me off a bit to be honest.

[Tob]

I had a similar thing happen to me a while ago for about £50, they unregistered and I paypal couldn't get me a penny back. He was a US user, so I reported him to his local police force via the web. They got back to me saying I was about the 4th complaint and they would be paying him a little visit.

EDIT - Forgot to say that in an attempt to prevent it happening again, I registered my credit card with Paypal. If it happens again, I will try and get my credit card to do a chargeback against ebay/paypal. Dunno if that will work, but worth a try I guess.

[Just]

This is what jips me about Paypal (among a whole load of other things). Why on earth don't they refund you for goods not received, just because the ebay account has gone should have no impact on the paypal account or the seller details and fraud committed.

[Burned_Alive]

The problem is that paypal let people get away with it so easily. If paypal followed up the problems with the banks and whatnot, withdrawing the owed amounts from the bank account, etc then buyers might not suffer. But they would need to sort out their policy on refunds first otherwise it could be used to ill effect by dodgy buyers.

[KennyVader]

This is what jips me about Paypal (among a whole load of other things). Why on earth don't they refund you for goods not received, just because the ebay account has gone should have no impact on the paypal account or the seller details and fraud committed.

If that happened to me I would just hit Paypal with a www.moneyclaim.gov.uk small claim and see what they do, and include costs on it too. Very very very high chance that they will settle out of court by giving a full refund, simply to avoid their dodgy T&Cs being legally tested (and then all hell breaking out for them).

[wigsey]

It's £3.99 for goodness sake. Write it off to experience and don't waste your time.

[johnoverall]

It's £3.99 for goodness sake. Write it off to experience and don't waste your time.

Fair comment, and I have all but written it off but think of all the £3.99s that have gone to people like this. I also had to go elsewhere and buy the item, additional expsense through no fault of my own. I certainly wouldn't go through HMCS for something so trivial but it would nice for PayPal to perhaps hold the money in suspense until all parties are happy that the deal is done and goods received. Purpose of my post was primarily to review if I could do things differently in future.

EDIT - Forgot to say that in an attempt to prevent it happening again, I registered my credit card with Paypal. If it happens again, I will try and get my credit card to do a chargeback against ebay/paypal. Dunno if that will work, but worth a try I guess.

This is a good call, as my card is registered, but I used existing funds from my PayPal account so I have little recourse with my credit card provider.