Thoughts on this Ebay transaction - suspicious???

apart from the fishy seller, it's a redial imho.

Hello All,

New member here and just getting started!

This is like the fire alarm going off, seeing smoke, and saying since you didn't see the fire you didn't know the house was burning down. Why anyone would use bank transfer instead of paypal on Ebay I do not understand.

Besides the sketchy seller, the dial does not look like it should. The font looks too thick, the line in the G in Omega looks to push too far inward. The 60 complication numbers are misaligned. On the same complication, the 2 is the incorrect font... ect.

It looks to have the wrong crown

There was another user on here that sold the same reference and it looks very different.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/omega-seamaster-deville-cal-321-chrono-145-005-67-serviced.70676/

Try and cancel if you can....

Never pay for any eBay transaction through any means other than checking out directly through the eBay system. If you do, you have zero protection from eBay/PayPal. Walk away from this one and don't look back.

It's an obvious scam. Sometimes, scammers actually have the watch in hand; that doesn't mean that watch is going to be in the box you receive from them; and the burden of proving to eBay/PayPal that the box contained a Timex (or a rock) is yours.

You can't accept bank transfers for eBay sales; so I wouldn't worry about the seller. The seller may or may not be a legit seller in general; but he's not a legit eBay seller. There's some idiot who's been listing two different Holy Grails on eBay about once a month. The listings always say BIN $4500 and to get around eBay's scan of descriptions for terms consistent with TOS violations in the text of listings, this idiot always puts his payment terms into a photo that he uploads as one of the item photos. It always says not to try to pay via PayPal because the only acceptable payment method is bank wire and that PayPal payments will be rejected.

That's not going to help you one bit if you get ripped off. You credit card won't even get involved. They won't tell you that in advance if you try to ask them, unless you go through the annoyance of interrupting all their evasive double-talk about "always investigating all disputed charges to protect our valued users" and demand that a supervisor answer your direct question "What will you do if I receive a different item from the one I purchased and eBay and PayPal rule in the seller's favor?" They'll try their best to repeat ad nauseum, that they "can't ever predict any outcome of any dispute that hasn't occurred yet...yada...yada..." but if you're (very) persistent and you explain to each person up the chain that you're not asking about a "transaction that hasn't yet occurred" and that you're only asking a hypothetical POLICY question to which they definitely do have a definitive answer that hasn't got Jack Shit to do with any specific "transaction," a supervisor's supervisor will eventually tell you the truth: namely, that anytime you pay with PayPal, the only "merchant" as far as your credit card is concerned, is PayPal, not the actual seller. You may even have to first change your question to ask them "OK, so let me ask you this: What will you do if I get mugged tomorrow and the mugger uses my card to go shopping?" So that when they answer "If you got mugged and your card was stolen, you would not be responsible for the charges and we would cancel the card," you can explain that they just answered by telling you their POLICY and it (also) had nothing to do with a "crime that hasn't yet occurred" and that's all you're asking for them to do with a different scenario.

You controlling agreement with eBay/PayPal says that their rulings are final; so your credit card won't do anything for you if PayPal rules against you. They won't even volunteer that info after you get ripped off and you do file an unsuccessful dispute. They'll simply respond with all the same processes as any other disputed charge; but they'll eventually just rule against you.You don't get any of the protection that the exact same card provides in a dispute directly against a seller when the seller is the "mechant" to whom you issued payment directly through that card.

Thanks. I stand corrected with respect to David's concern for the seller.

However, with respect to buyer protection, I think you still lose eBay buyer protection if you select a different (even eBay-authorized) payment method other than PayPal directly through the eBay checkout system. It's probably the same situation as paying a US seller through eBay but without using PayPal: in that case, I believe you only have protection for item not received but not for item not as described. If you pay by credit card (without PayPal) and you lose a dispute with eBay, I don't know whether your card will entertain a dispute, because you may or may not still be limited by your card agreement to whatever eBay decides. But I know that if you pay through PayPal, your credit card won't do Jack Shit after eBay/PayPal rule for the seller in any dispute.

You're saying that you executed a US purchase on eBay, you checked out through eBay, you paid using a credit card through PayPal, and your credit card allowed you to dispute your payment to PayPal and without your ever filing any claim through eBay/PayPal at all? That doesn't sound possible to me, because, among other things, PayPal is the merchant and they didn't perpetrate any fraud.

To also be fair I purchased something from EBay that came as a fake and I opened a dispute and was awarded a refund after returning it.

I checked the description again and the seller lists this as an “original unrestored dial” which is clearly not the case. If you’re unable to cancel you can open a dispute to the actual listing and description itself as it is a redial and no where near original. This would be your last resort out if needed.

It never occurred to me to go through the cc instead of through eBay on an eBay transaction. Your payment recipient on your cc statement was PayPal and not the merchant? You referred to a provisional credit was that credit eventually fully executed and credited to your account by the time the watch showed up? What cc was this, BTW. I had this conversation with AMEX and I'd chosen AMEX specifically because of their previous record handling disputes for me.

Today Ebay informed me that the sellers account might have been highjacked and that the cancelled the transaction.

Again many thanks for your help and be assured that I won`t ignore those red flags in the future
Cheers Duffy

Thanks for the feedback. Luckily all went well.

Congrats on saving yourself from a scam!

not necessarily. In some countries (e.g. Germany), bank wire is the preferred payment and private sellers usually don't accept other methods (except cash).