My wife finally agreed to let me buy and iPad, the only condition was I had to sell the two first generation iPhones we had collecting dust on a shelf. So I logged on the Ebay and put them both up for sale. The first one sold but they buyer never responded. I invoiced her and sent a friendly little reminder the next day, both with no response. Maybe she had buyer’s remorse or bid on more than one auction and was stuck with multiple winning bids. I don’t know, I was honestly more annoyed that I never heard from her than the fact she didn’t buy the phone. But I will take a lack of common courtesy over what happen with the other auction.
I noticed the winning bid was from the UK and thought to myself I should have noted in the auction I would charge more for shipping on international sales. But I got a good price for the iPhone and was willing to chalk that up to lessons learned. So I sent the Ebay/PayPal invoice to the winner and wrote myself a sticky to take the phone to work so I could drop it at the Post Office at lunch. This morning I get the following email from the winner.
“Payment has just been sent and i am sure PayPal will have sent you a confirmation email. check all your folders i.e bulk,spam,junk for the confirmation email from PayPal.i want you to get my item posted out first thing this morning via USPS EXPRESS MAIL INTERNATIONAL. Please, do handle the item with care because i have had problems of scratches in the Past. i will leave a positive feedback for you as soon as Postage is Confirmed
This is the shipping address as given by PayPal. Many
Thanks”
Yes, I noticed how bad the grammar and spelling sucked, but if you are a regular reader you know why I try not to hold that against anyone.
Around the same time I get a spoofed email claiming to be from Paypal saying the transaction has been approved and all I had to do was send them the tracking number for the shipment and my money would be available in 5 hours. I was curious what this guys response would be if I called him on it, and also wanted to document to Ebay that I tried to confirm this was fraud before canceling/re-listing the auction. So I responded to his email and pointed out that his Ebay information claimed to have a UK shipping address, yet his PayPal shipping address was in Nigeria. More importantly I didn’t have any pending/complete PayPal transactions and the PayPal conformation email didn’t actually appear to be from PayPal.
This guys has the audacity to send me the following – “This is ridiculous. I have been using eBay for a while now and i have never had any problems whatsoever. Yes,my eBay says UK and i reside in the UK. Presently,i m in Nigeria on an official assignment to raise funds for the children living with cancer. As soon as you ship my item, send the Tracking Number to the PayPal customer care email on the payment invoice sent to you when i made payment for verification. This measure has just been taken to protect both parties from getting involved in fraudulent acts. As soon as u do this, your account will be credited. I will leave a positive feedback for you as soon as postage is confirmed. Kindly go to the post office right away and ship my phone via USPS EXPRESS MAIL INTERNATIONAL. Let me know when u have shipped it out. Thanks and best regards.”
The bit about the kids with cancer was a nice touch. He also completely glossed over the part about the spoofed PayPal email.
The thing I found really disturbing was Ebay. Not only were they impossible to reach via phone, when I contacted them through their live help (which was difficult to find), the representative seemed to have no interest in taking my information, only telling me how to offer the item to the next highest bidder. I get it, they are huge and this type of occurrence is probably all too common, by at least feign some interest in protecting your customers.
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