posted on December 10, 2001 04:46:40 PM
What can I do about a paypal fraud? Paypal just emailed me and said my account was being debited 300.00 because of this person who charged w/ a stolen credit card. I have been in contact with several ebay people, and they have been bilked out of 300.00, 500.00, 200.00 and much more. This guy is now buying high dollar items under a different user id. He had me mail a package to Russia for a friend. The item is gone, the money is gone, and now I don't know what to do. Paypal won't let me talk to one of their security reps about all the information I have, such as aliases, etc. Help! My email is [email protected]
Rachel
posted on December 10, 2001 05:03:05 PM
This has nothing to do with Paypal Fraud This was Credit card fraud and basically the Card company got there money back from you in inless the CC company investigates and get the person you are Pretty much SOL on this.
posted on December 10, 2001 06:12:53 PM
paypal seller protection does not cover intl transaction,but the buyer is from usa,asked you to send package to russia??
is this considered a domestic transaction or intl transaction??
RUSSIA,NIGERIA,INDONESIA,ROMANIA, in fact the entire eastern european bloc and african bloc should be avoided.
the only way you should do business with these buyers is via money order or cash or wire transfer.
if he is still buying under a different id,should you be reporting to ebay instead of paypal??
you are out of not just your merchandise,your 300 dollars but you have also paid for shipping to russia,three losses.
how about ebay insurance,you may be able to recover 150 dollars?
it has to go back to the venue providers-ebay,yahoo and amzn,they have to clean up their acts and dont let crooks prosper
posted on December 10, 2001 10:17:23 PM
You made some excellent points. I have since contacted several more people that have been scammed by this guy. Yes, he is still buying on ebay, and I contacted the sellers, and forewarned them about this thief. Many wrote back and said that this person wanted to pay them via paypal and ship the item to Russia! I've written ebay today via timesensitive to try to get this guy kicked off but to no avail. I've learned my lesson re: this huge loss, but I can say I've never had a problem selling to Russia in the past. But guess what? Never again! One more thing, this thief contacted me after the auction ended, and said he'd like to buy this item, is it still for sale? So I don't get any sort of eBay protection at all.
posted on December 11, 2001 12:49:51 PM
Another lesson to be learned: Don't let the Nigerian government hid any funds in your account in exchange for giving you 10%.
posted on December 11, 2001 12:55:30 PM
Valleygirl,
I've gotten that Email about the Nigerian Government about 6 times to one of my email addresses. Makes me wonder who would be fool enough to fall for it. "We want to give you $4,000,000 for laundering $40,000,000 through your bank account. Please send us $10,000 as a security deposit. "
posted on December 11, 2001 02:11:44 PM
I received one about 25 years ago via the post office, and wondered then why anyone would fall for that.
I know we have new people on this board all the time, but having a bidder pay via CC and asking for the items to be shipped to Russia/Romania/Etc has long been a scam that has been discussed at length here. I'm sorry the original poster fell for it.
Not my name on ebay.
[ edited by Valleygirl on Dec 11, 2001 02:12 PM ]
posted on December 11, 2001 05:59:25 PM
who will fall for nigerian scam??just like we fall for all the other scams of getting a camera free ,dirt cheap large screen tv ,laptop etc.
years ago there was a front page article in wall street journal of a korean american in st louis,he is an accountant with his own practice and his wife has a beauty salon business.
she moved her salon to her closed in front porch of her home and turned some customers off,his business must not be doing well as he received these letters on impressive stationary from a certain nigerian govt agency asking to park some money in his bank account,on and on it goes with him ponying up money for bribing,arranging limo service,hotels ,etc,altogether he lost his life savings.
is he stupid >or just he is looking for way to make a living??there are gullible people out there and when they are not doing well,they become more gullible??
posted on December 11, 2001 06:06:09 PM
Oh yes the old send to another country to a friend trick. Yes I lost about $500 when I first started. Mine was to Indonesia. I am very careful with those kind of things. if you are looking for them they are very easy to spot. They will pay high dollar for the item and shipping. They want next day shipping. Live and learn. They are always on the lookout for new sellers to take. It is quite a ring of thieves. They are in Indonesia big time and it seems it has moved to Russia lately. They tried the same thing on me recently. I don't fall for that anymore. Just be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. If it seems to good to be true it is. There is nothing you can do but watch your money go away. Sellers have no protection for that kind of thing. The only protection we have is ourselves watching out for red flags.
posted on December 11, 2001 07:28:02 PM
there is a thread on AW i wonder if you can search and find it,it was not that long ago-a seller sold something to a guy in arizona and the item was to be shipped to russia.
he arranged either ups or fed ex to ship to russia ,then found out card is no good,then he contacted shipper to stop the shipment and return the item to him.
he has to pay for return shipping fee and the guy is still loose in arizona.
i kind of recall his gripes was shipping is 700 dollars,does any one recall this thread??
THIS IS SOMETHING EBAY MUST DO -CLEAN HOUSE or else congress will do the cleaning for ebay,or attorney office or FTC will do it .
anyone who needs money can right click and steal a seller's photo of laptop,projector,antiques etc and start listing.with all these people losing their jobs,and rent/mortgage/auto payment coming due,it is very tempting to just RIGHT CLICK !!!!!!
dont even need to buy a scanner or camera
posted on December 11, 2001 07:43:35 PM
if you have merchant account,you can ask them to fax you front and back of the cc card,if he has the card,then he could be the legitimate owner,when he faxed,he is leaving trails of his phone number,of course he can fax you from a place where he pays for faxing.
years ago there were some credit card fraud in HONG KONG,someone managed to steal a computer listing of cc data in usa and passed on to some crooks in hk,where they reproduced a batch of these cards and start charging,that was before MC/VISA came up with the hologram business on the cards.
American express never have those fancy circle holograms ,but last year they have to replace all the small business account cards.does any one know if american express cards have those holograms?or whatever it is called,i know no one can duplicate those features on the cards,not yet at least.
another note-Singapore is an asian country but is very strict ,unlike indonesia .
posted on December 11, 2001 07:49:55 PM
yahoo has a way of detecting potential cc frauds-if someone comes to yahoo shopping and go on a rapid buying binge across shops,charging left and right,yahoo will send out alerts to shopowners who receive these orders.
if someone comes and makes rapid fire purchases across shops on electronic goods,that definetely raises eyebrows!!
posted on December 12, 2001 05:31:19 PM
I don't feel like I "fell" for anything. I just didn't realize that that sort of thing existed, and in such a large and vast network. This is not a one time deal where I was taken. There are thousands of dollars involved, and I since have been on the phone with the FBI, Secret Service (who is in charge of cc fraud in the state I live in) and with paypal. This is a much larger fraud network than I expected and I hope these thieves are caught (but I highly doubt it).
posted on December 12, 2001 08:49:55 PM
Ebay doesn't seem to respond to emails anymore -- they have a handy dandy form to fill in complaints, and they do respond FAST to this! I suggest you fill one out on this buyer and explain the situation the best you can. Encourage any other sellers that were burned to do this too.
