It has come to light in the National Media this week that eBay is still falling foul to the Return’s Policy Scam that has been around for some time now.
What to be aware of ;
1. Buyer purchases an item from a seller on eBay
2. Item gets shipped to buyer after paypal payment
3. Buyer requests for a refund from eBay for a defective item
4. Buyer sends an “Empty” package to a different address but in the same post code as seller
5. Ebay automatically issues a refund once item is delivered to the sellers postal town, but not the right address
The issue with the eBay verification and Royal Mail is that the postage only tracks the Postal Town and not the full address. Royal Mail is unable to confirm the actual delivery address and eBay is unable to prove either way.
As a result the buyer (‘Scammer’) receives the product and also receives a full refund. The seller has no other option to try and argue with eBay.
A number of cases have been mentioned in the Guardian yesterday and also mentions on the tamebay.com
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/28/ebay-buyers-return-mailing-label-scam-fraud
https://tamebay.com/2019/01/ebay-scammers-exploit-return-labels.html
Following the story on the Guardian, eBay refunded the seller in this case for a £345 iPhone and announced “We are constantly improving our systems …our team is on the lookout 24/7 for bad buyer behaviour backed by large-scale, automated detection systems that examine millions of transactions every day.”
Be wary guys, but hopefully this loophole is closed very soon.
