Side note -- I believe, per AW terms of use, you need to remove your item number and your winning bidder's and the scammers email address from your post... This won't diminish from your post..
Otherwise I think a moderator will lock the post and invite the buyer and the scammer to join the discussion.
Also.. would you want your email address posted by a buyer on a form without your permission?
But, to answer your question, you need to forward ALL of this stuff to both [email protected] AND to PayPal.com's fraud department (call them... they may not respond in time to an email to prevent the looser from scamming someone), AND to mail.com's "postmaster@" or "abuse@".. to get them locked from that system.
Do this immediately before the scammer actually gets away with this from a buyer that is not as smart as yours LUCKILY was.
Also, EVERYONE might want to put in their auction posts to only accept email as valid if from your registered eBay email address and to not respond to a PayPal payment request as you don't accept paypal (for those sellers like me who decided not to deal with them anymore)
posted on January 9, 2001 12:44:33 PM
I just got off the phone with PayPal customer support, (what a joke, 47min hold time), and was told that they would start their investigation in about 24hrs. They are a little backed up right now with this apparently very common problem. They could not tell me when or if they would put a stop to this account.
This is exactly why we do not use their service. No real security, no customer service. Not to mention the "Always Free" lie that turned out to be "Always FEES".
It is easy to tell that we are no fans of PayPal, but we let them be until crooks start using their service to steal our money and scam our bidders.
They should be banned, or at least provide some sort of security so that you can only send a request for payment of an auction that actually belongs to you!!!!
posted on January 9, 2001 01:24:47 PM
They should be banned, or at least provide some sort of security so that you can only send a request for payment of an auction that actually belongs to you!!!!
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Aside from taking much too long to answer your phone query, how is this PayPal's fault? Virtually any online payment service could be used in this way by a scammer.
I'm also not sure how PayPal could know that "[email protected]" isn't just as legitimate as "[email protected]." Just because a person uses a similar email addy to yours doesn't mean that he or she is a scammer. In THIS case, it's a scam, but I fail to see how PayPal can be held responsible for magically knowing in advance who is going to prove to be a rotten apple and who isn't...at least in terms of checking email addresses.
I'm really sorry this happened to you, and I'm glad you posted about it so that the rest of us can be more aware, but I think you're putting the blame on the wrong party here.
posted on January 9, 2001 01:52:37 PM
They could simply do a confirmation that the ebay sellers email address listed in the auction matched the requestors email address. It is a very simple query to make and confirm. Something they refuse to put in place to stop this type of fraud.
posted on January 9, 2001 06:41:48 PM
No payment service can stop a crook from sending out a request for money. However where Paypal fails is that they don't seem to act fast enough to stop this before it's too late. When the buyer contacts them to tell them he paid the wrong party, PP will tell him to wait 30 days and then wait some more and give the scammer ample time to abscond with the money. I have to wonder how these scammers would even think of pulling this stunt when PP has (or should have) their name, address, credit card number and bank account. They could only get paid with a bank transfer or a check, either of which PP could stop if they really cared.
Be sure to include the full email with expanded headers.
The suggestion to email all your winning bidders and warn them is excellent. If any of your winning bidders paid to this address, they need to file fraud claims immediately. However, they probably won't be successful, since I'm sure the scammer didn't verify the account. The bidders really are at fault here, since they paid on an email from something other than your registered address. Didn't they question the fact that they received TWO EOA notices from different addresses? How many bidders actually made payment to this other account?
As far as PayPal checking out the email addresses, some of us intentionally use different addresses on PayPal, so that we can screen which buyers use it. Since we can't accept/refuse payments, this is the only way to assure that someone doesn't send us payment that we don't want to accept, e.g. for those who don't accept international payments. Since no one else can register our Ebay email address with PayPal, we don't have to worry about anyone intercepting payments sent there.
always pickersangel everywhere
