I sold a watch on eBay today. The buyer paid by PayPal and I had some spare time so I shipped it early afternoon. When I got home I had a message from an eBay member asking me to ship to a different address. Something seemed strange so I looked more closely. The eBay name wasn’t the same as the buyer, and the message had a little broken English. I phoned eBay and got pretty much straight through and explained what had happened. The lady I spoke to was concerned and looked into the situation. To cut a long story short she said that eBay had already identified a problem and blocked the scammer. Asked how they had emailed me she said they use the contact seller off the listing and not my email address.
Sorry for the long post but thought people ought to know what goes on.

 

Yes thanks this happened to me as well. Just be sure you ship to the buyer, not some guy who says he is acting as agent for the buyer!

 

So were you able to get the watch back? Thanks for letting us know about this!

 

^^ Sounds like the buyer was legit, but a scammer tried to jump in fast and get the watch shipped to them instead.

 

Ten more posts and you can sell here. That should certainly help.

 

That’s exactly what happens .. I’d never seen it before. Luckily I never ship except to the confirmed pay pal address.

 

as long as you use ebay to ship, you will never have a problem. I have never shipped an ebay sale to any address other than the one ebay gives me...for that matter I use Ebay to ship...so there is no typing addresses even involved. I just push a button labeled "ship". Its like magic, and you dont even have to worry about scammers.

 

I had two watches last year that were purchased within 12 hours of each other - one buy it now, another best offer. Both got paid for and I even transferred the money out of PayPal to my account.

Ebay then froze one transaction because someone’s account had been supposedly hacked. I messaged the buyer, who said that it hadnt been hacked and I should ship the watch. I let them know I wouldn’t ship until there was some resolution from eBay. An hour later a different person (sentence structure was much different) said please don’t ship the watch. I don’t know who messaged you but it wasn’t me, my account got hacked. Most bizarre conversation, she was reading through the messages on her account between me and the scammer.

To make the matter that much weirder, the second watch that was sold also was canceled by eBay. Different buyer, same issue. Supposedly the account got reported compromised. Made me think that maybe I was the one being hacked... been on eBay for 13 years and never had one, yet alone two compromised accounts.

 

Wow, scary stuff. Haven't even hears about these issues.

 

Hate these scammers

 

I had already sent it to the legit buyer luckily.

 

Yes exactly right

 

I thought it would be expensive by eBay. How does it compare to couriers?

 

hope it works out

 

it's cheaper...you get a discount based on volume. It also matches the price calculated by Ebay in the listing, so you are always charging exactly what you are paying.

 

One should always be careful with eBay
Cheers

 

Best way to buy or sell on Ebay is to NOT buy or sell on Ebay.

 

That's a little harsh, seeing that there have been millions of transactions without any problems.

 

I've personally been scammed twice selling fairly expensive electronics (around $500 total) besides that I've had other issues with people buying items only to return them for zero reason and Ebay backs them up so they get away with it. Obviously there are good deals where both parties are happy but I avoid the Bay like it's the plague.

 

There are some miscreants on Ebay, but I've found them to be in the distinct minority. Feedback tends to weed out the worst...but you are right that Ebay backs buyers, not sellers.