Bumped on Ebay! Advice please

[gordybaillie]

Hi

I was watching a set of Audi TT 18" alloys and tyres on ebay from a 56 plate TT. I only bid up to £220 and ofcourse missed them but I got a second chance offer through Ebay of £220. The second chance offer was genuine so I bought the wheels on saturday. The person I bought them from did not have paypal which I though was fine as quite alot of people do not like paypal as they charge quite a bit for receiving a payment. So I went in to my bank and got money out, got his bank details and paid the money into his bank account by going to my local Abbey branch on Monday.

However last night I received a email from Ebay advising that they had suspended the persons ebay account and to do everything possible to get my money back!

Anyway I can get my money back? and is there anything Ebay can do to help me since it is a binding legal agreement?
I have read alot of things on ebay safety centre but cannot get a real answer.

Unfortuately I did not get a note of the person address.

Help and advise is much appreciated!

Thanks
Gordy

 

[JohnS3]

There is a payment protection scheme if you use paypal, but I'm not sure where you stand with a cash transfer. Perhaps your bank can help out?

Good luck.

 

[odnet]

this happened to me before paypal was widely available! (i'm talking about 5 years ago).....

i lost £700 on ebay on a laptop..... ebay gave me back £140. that was that, nothing more said.

i never use anything apart from paypal now.... learn from your mistakes i guess!

hope you get a better result.

cheers

ivan

 

[klauster]

I think your screwed Im afraid. Unless you are 100% sure, never ever pay direct into a bank account. I dont think the bank can reverse the payment. I use paypal and will only receive payments on ebay, unless someone wants it delivering to a different address to their paypal.

Ebay wont do anything, they only act to bring buyers and sellers together and usually stay out of despites etc...

 

[consilio]

Only ever pay via paypal, or via a credit card which will pay back any money lost due to fraud.

I dont think you'll be getting your money or your item i'm affraid.

 

[gordybaillie]

Cheers guys. I know it was stupid now to pay the cash into his account, I have been using ebay quite a bit recently and started to trust people then BANG! Done out of £250.

Seems very easy for the guy to do though!

 

[a3norwich]

Sorry, you've lost your £250.

 

[S£]

I suppose you lucky it was only £250.. some people lose much more through scams. I almost bought a S3 from there 2 yrs ago, 2000 reg, 50k, £10000, i payed £100 bank transfer, arranged my train ticket & got the bankers draft then the night before i left i done a HPI check and it was a Ex lease car done 132,000 miles on last change of company's, and that was a year previously good know how many more it had done in that year.( he was selling it with a full HPI check certificate print out too, he must have forged it ) I Told every one i could Yorkshire police, trading standards, Ebay, never did see any money back although i did have his address.. that is if it was his, but it wasn't so much the odd £180ish i lost it was the thought of some poor ****** buying it not knowing. The next 3 weeks i done every thing possible to let anyone buying it know, the cheeky ****** even had the nerve to put it back on ebay under a different account 3 times but i kept E-Mailing bidders and Ebay warning them.

 

[The911SC]

If the guys name was dvilla then I bid on them too, and got a second chance offer. After a couple of emails and the fact he wanted a direct transfer I declined to procede, then he left me negative feedback, then got banned from ebay!.

Looked too dodgy, The pics were of wheels on a car and when i asked for more pics he said he had them packed up at a depot somewhere!...
Phew!...

 

[MarcQuinlivan]

I've seen a few of these second chance offers over the years. Usually the offer comes in within hours, even minutes of the auction ending. The reason given is usually that the winner failed to pay for the item.

My theory on what is happenning is that the seller is using a second user account to place a bid at their lowest selling price (in effect setting a reserve). A genuine buyer then comes in with a maximum bid and will get outbid until such time as they exceed the "reserve". If no buyer reaches the "reserve" the seller wins the auction with their second account, immediately sets it to non-paid and then does the second chance offer to the second highest bidder at their maximum bid - not the price where their bid exceeds the third highest bid. This guarantees the seller the maximum price for their item, and if the second highest bidder decides not to buy the item the seller can just relist it and repeat the process.

I've never accepted any of these second chance offers becuase I felt I was being screwed for the reasons above due to the speed at which the second chance offer was made. Any reasonable seller will allow more than an hour for a winning bidder to make a payment. I would tend to avoid all sellers who don't accept paypal though, as there is no reason why anybody should not be able to get a paypal account. Paypal also offer payment protection which gives added peace of mind.

 

[benw123]

This has happened to me before on some wheels I was bidding on. I emailed the guy back - the genuine seller that is, through eBay - and said we could meet and I would pay cash. He came back and said I'd received a fraudulent offer, as the wheels had already been collected.

Eventually, I bought my 17" Stars from eBay, but met the vendor at Bluewater where I paid cash. Same with the RNS-E - for bigger purchases, you need to be sure.

What happens is that when an auction ends, you can see who the highest losing bidder was and they get a phishing style email to tempt people in. This is why I always mark all my auctions as private, so the bidder's identities are always hidden and thus protected.

 

[jamiekip]

Do you have the paying in receipt from the bank?
Have you considered going to the police explaining the situation and seeing if they can track the user of the bank account.
Basically, it is fraud and they should take an interest.
You have the bank details, they can easily track him through that.
Perhaps even pop in to his bank explain the situation and ask there advice?????

I got stung with ebay once.... they offer little or no protection if you step even slightly our their 'protection' policy.

Good luck

 

[pav-g]

I feel for you mate - I lost 6 times that amount a few years back on ebay in the quest of buying a plasma. Apart from Ebay you should report the crime to the police as I did. Lets hope you have more luck than I did.

Oh well it was an expensive learning curve and I wont be making the same mistake twice. Good luck

 

[jmohide]

I know its of a different scale, but I use ebay a fair bit and bought a CD off it over day, nothing out of the ordinary. Turned up with a huge crack in it, so keep mailing the seller and he is pretending he doesn't receive the messages, thus am opening a dispute. In the past I have always got the money back, have always paid with good old paypal though. I feel for you, people who rip you off on there are scum! Beest of luck.

 

[Caesium]

maybe try telling your bank it was a fraudulent transfer, depends how long has passed mind you.

 

[gordybaillie]

Do you have the paying in receipt from the bank?
Have you considered going to the police explaining the situation and seeing if they can track the user of the bank account.
Basically, it is fraud and they should take an interest.
You have the bank details, they can easily track him through that.
Perhaps even pop in to his bank explain the situation and ask there advice?????

I got stung with ebay once.... they offer little or no protection if you step even slightly our their 'protection' policy.

Good luck

Thanks for the replies guys, looks like my money has gone and was a bad mistake on my part! Just soo annoyed as seems too easy for people to scam money!

Yes I have got the receipt from me taking money out of the account and one for me paying it into his account. I have also got an email with his address, but could be a fake address and it is in London and I am in Scotland!

 

[The911SC]

was it that 'dvilla' guy?

 

[Nelson15]

Reporting to the police can be an issue due to the distance involved (the offence would have been commited in London, if that's even where he is) and the fact that you made a civil agreement to purchase goods, sent the money and didnt receive the goods. I'm not saying to not report it, it just may be very tricky to actually prove it was a fraud! As you're in Scotland as well, Scots law is different from English law, just to make things even more complicated...

May be worth contacting Citizens Advice or a lawyer to attempt to recoup the monies lost through a civil action I think?

J

 

[Teejay]

I feel for ya. It's crap when you think you're getting something genuine and get screwed over.

Paypal isn't the answer though. I was subject to a false sale. It was only £30, but paypal couldn't contact the seller, so said that until he responded they wouldn't return my money. 12 months on, still nothing.

I also found that my account was hacked at some point and another user was using my paypal account to make purchases. The money was returned, but at the expense of the unfortunate sellers in these cases.

I accept Paypal when selling items, but until the money has left paypal and is in my account I won't release items that I've sold!!