PAYPAL / EBAY FRAUD: item not received and no refund from paypal - please help!

[TassiloH]

Just as info about the DHL response times: I just had a complaint where the response time was 17 days (from contact to first and final response). And in this case nothing was lost, I just wanted a refund because the parcel was returned to me without good reason.

[mcinque]

So, ecom.gp?

[Macbeth]

Perhaps he is on a 2 week vacation... during which the parcel was attempted delivery a couple of times, and now returned to sender... 

[ez24]

Perhaps he is on a 2 week vacation... during which the parcel was attempted delivery a couple of times, and now returned to sender... 

My bet he is too busy cleaning it to resale.

[mcinque]

So, any news?
We all are waiting for an update about your order,  it's been delivered or the seller has disappeared?

[ez24]

So, any news?
We all are waiting for an update about your order,  it's been delivered or the seller has disappeared?

The buyer disappeared!  Maybe he is buried under a pile of boxes at the shipping company or his package blew up.  He should have left some contact info so we could notify the police.

[ecom.gp]

Perhaps he is on a 2 week vacation... during which the parcel was attempted delivery a couple of times, and now returned to sender... 

My bet he is too busy cleaning it to resale.

Still nothing. These are the last messages from the seller.

2015-10-02
Hallo,
ich habe eben mit DHL telefoniert. Eine Rücksendung an mich konnte nicht bestätigt werden und ich habe dazu auch leider keine Informationen erhalten.
Meine Unterlagen sind am 21.09.15 bei DHL eingegangen und ich soll auf weitere Informationen per Post warten. In denen werde ich Informiert werde ob das Paket zurück kommt oder es eine Erstattung gibt.
Ich gebe Bescheid sobald ich weitere Informationen erhalte.
Liebe grüße und ein schönes Wochenende


2015-10-12
Hi,
Nein diese woche habe ich weder einen brief noch eine mail bekommen.
Am freitag werde ich dann wohl nochmal anrufen.

[crispy_tofu]

Glad to see you're still alive  , not glad to see it's not resolved yet. 
Maybe they're just trying to stall until you lose interest... 

[rr100]

It would be very funny if the parcel shows up AND DHL pays up!

Actually happened to me once, I sent a return via the international Päckchen and eventually (many months later) showed up. They had a very funny canned response, something like "we don't use always the fastest ways to ship" (you don't tell, it was like 3 months later...).

Well, it was only the Päckchen insurance (now it is 50 eur but back then it was 30-something) and of course I got dinged by the shop (no complains, lucky they gave me anything back after all that time) so in the end it was a wash but what I wanted to say ... it can happen!

[ecom.gp]

Here it is for all my aficionados, from DHL to the seller.
And this is what Google Translate tossed out:

We have received your search request to the broadcast # and apologize to you for the inconvenience generated in this context. To answer your under the operation number # stored request research at home and abroad and experience dictate. We want to already tell at this point that our cooperation partners abroad have up to 8 weeks time to complete the investigation. The influence of DHL ends with the dissemination of the request. Unfortunately, therefore, is an acceleration of the investigation is not possible. As soon as we have received a final result, we will get in touch with you. Should the process have done in the meantime, we look forward through a short message.

So, it looks like they have started an investigation abroad (Italy I guess) even if they don't have any sign of the parcel leaving their country.
And now, once again, I'm left alone with the 8 weeks down-counter.

Who said that DHL has 8 weeks to give a final answer?

[Rasz]

Who said that DHL has 8 weeks to give a final answer?

they did, because they dont give a fuuuuu..
Im amazed by the level of patience you demonstrated. I would be all over Police by now.

[vaualbus]

6 years later, do they find it? 

[Rayner]

I have found that eBay is the one who should be refunding your money.

[Trader]

Yeah, I wonder what happened. Usually, you should exhaust all the options thru the Seller and DHL, after that eBay, after PayPal, and after your Credit Card, and after you also can sue them.

[gnif]

I had a similar thing happen when shipping an item from Canada to Australia, the item was shipped with a tracking number but it never progressed past the initial lodgement. I tried to get the seller to check with the postal service to find out what's going on and they never did anything, the whole thing seemed dodgy to me.

Anyway, I escalated it to a claim with eBay and a week later they refunded me the total amount, and I got a letter from eBay thanking me for my patience (I tried to resolve this over a period of 4 months). Not only that, eBay themselves made an effort to have the item progressed through the postal service on my behalf. About 20 days later the parcel arrived and eBay allowed me to keep the refunded amount.

All a bit odd but at the end of the day I am super happy to finally get my hands on a Roland MT-32 (Rev 0) at a VERY good price

[austfox]

About 20 days later the parcel arrived and eBay allowed me to keep the refunded amount.

Did you end up paying the seller, who is obviously out of pocket?

[Fraser]

EBay sometimes take the financial hit and do not reclaim the funds from the seller in a ‘no blame’ case.

[SilverSolder]

I had a similar thing happen when shipping an item from Canada to Australia, the item was shipped with a tracking number but it never progressed past the initial lodgement. I tried to get the seller to check with the postal service to find out what's going on and they never did anything, the whole thing seemed dodgy to me.

Anyway, I escalated it to a claim with eBay and a week later they refunded me the total amount, and I got a letter from eBay thanking me for my patience (I tried to resolve this over a period of 4 months). Not only that, eBay themselves made an effort to have the item progressed through the postal service on my behalf. About 20 days later the parcel arrived and eBay allowed me to keep the refunded amount.

All a bit odd but at the end of the day I am super happy to finally get my hands on a Roland MT-32 (Rev 0) at a VERY good price

I had something similar with an Amazon shipment once, that was mis-delivered.  Amazon sent a replacement box of stuff...  and then, a few days later, a neighbour turned up with the misdelivered box!  - I called Amazon, they said "keep it"... - apparently, once written off on the insurance, the goods no longer exists to them!

[DiTBho]

I had something similar with an Amazon shipment once, that was mis-delivered.  Amazon sent a replacement box of stuff...  and then, a few days later, a neighbour turned up with the misdelivered box!  - I called Amazon, they said "keep it"... - apparently, once written off on the insurance, the goods no longer exists to them!

Guys, you were lucky. I bought a couple of alphanumeric LCDs from eBay, and according to the tracking the parcel was delivered 400Km far from me, but for eBay operator (probably not a professional one) "the parcel has been delivered" so they closed my claim.

Yes, it has been delivered, BUT to the wrong address, why don't you check it out?!? 

I ordered a second couple of LCDs from a different seller and paid for a better shipping option. This time I explicitly asked the seller to have my parcel managed by UPS rather than several international services, with last mile managed by the national post.

Two VCF LCDs cost me 60 euro shipped, but this time things went as expected 

[SilverSolder]

I had something similar with an Amazon shipment once, that was mis-delivered.  Amazon sent a replacement box of stuff...  and then, a few days later, a neighbour turned up with the misdelivered box!  - I called Amazon, they said "keep it"... - apparently, once written off on the insurance, the goods no longer exists to them!

Guys, you were lucky. I bought a couple of alphanumeric LCDs from eBay, and according to the tracking the parcel was delivered 400Km far from me, but for eBay operator (probably not a professional one) "the parcel has been delivered" so they closed my claim.

Yes, it has been delivered, BUT to the wrong address, why don't you check it out?!? 

I ordered a second couple of LCDs from a different seller and paid for a better shipping option. This time I explicitly asked the seller to have my parcel managed by UPS rather than several international services, with last mile managed by the national post.

Two VCF LCDs cost me 60 euro shipped, but this time things went as expected 

What made the difference in my case, is that the Amazon delivery person took a picture of the package on the porch...   of a house that was not mine! 

It is definitely problematic when the carrier messes up and misdelivers - their word is taken as gospel.  I think all of them should be required to photograph the package at the point of delivery just like Amazon does...

[gnif]

About 20 days later the parcel arrived and eBay allowed me to keep the refunded amount.

Did you end up paying the seller, who is obviously out of pocket?

eBay took the hit in this instance.

[sn4k3]

eBay took the hit in this instance.

How you sure about that?

All problems i had as seller they always take my money to give the fraudulent buyer, in most cases buyer with almost no feedback open a not recieved dispute, ebay delivery dates are lame for normal international orders which mean a international order will never reach buyer in the time they claim. Buyer open dispute in same day they can, even if tracking show the item just arrive to country, but for example it got stuck in customs or in transit and need more time, ebay auto refund buyer after the dispute time over, item get delivered after some days, they say they can't do anything now and they don't care.
So i found the protection very bad balanced, the buyer feedback doesn't matter at all, almost no checking from ebay, all in behave of buyer even if i have a 5 star store with thousands of feedback vs a 0 feed back buyer.
To "solve"/have more time i have to put wrong postage type to ebay expand delivery dates which i can't define my own anyway.
On many cases problems are not from seller nor buyer, orders that never reach, are lost or stolen are very commun and we can't do nothing, we just ship the package, delivery are not our responsability, and for me in last year every tracked order i sent to US are simply not tracked back on US, it just lost the tracking after leaving my country, it looks to me that they just ignore the full tracking service and do what they want because it come from other country? No way i know if got delivered or not so buyer can take advantage of that to scam even after they got the item, because i don't have any proof of delivery.
I have loss some money by now due this bad ebay policies and because of that i don't sell anything that expensive of my pocket because i know if i do i will be in a loss soon or latter.

A much more fair policy would be a better handle of the case, look at seller and buyer feedback as well other evidences, if package is simple in transit recently then give it more time, and each time it change the local give a extra time to able to get delivered, customs can hold items for 30 days or more in some countries and what can we do?? That doesnt count at all to ebay... Buyer can even wait a few more time and only pickup when times  pass to open a dispute, there's so many ways to scam that make this policies so stupid and no sense to sellers.
In a not fault by both parties at least do 50/50 refund for each side so both share the loss, there's always risks in buying online and people should be aware of that, why seller should be always the one to blame 

[gnif]

Absolutely certain as I contacted the seller asking if he lost his money on this item, I like to think I am an honest and fair person.

[dietert1]

The last two years i noticed subtle changes in ebay, which i have been using for almost twenty years now. They are turning into a scam system for catching stupid people. Majority of offers are from US, UK and China. If i a select "Germany" as origin, i am still looking at offers from China as i can recognize from the delivery times and when i happen to look at the sellers info at the bottom of the offer page. Recently they enforced payments through US enterprises, that nobody needs for deals inside European community or within Germany. We do have banks in Europe. If i select "EU" as origin, they don't show all offers from France or Italy.
Some days ago i wrote an Email to a US seller about his HP 3457A offer, explaining how to perform a basic voltage measurement (no keypresses!) and the exact key sequence to display the type of plugin with the "Opt?" command. It was the third EMail i wrote to them within 10 days since i am looking for a working HP 3457A. The response was whether i really need to know the type of the scanner. It takes less than a minute to display it. This is an item that would be 430 € plus 100 € postage plus 100 € EU import taxes if everything works out. As paypal will take money for the currency conversion it will be more than US $ 800.
They really try to find a buyer who doesn't care. And there seem to be lots of people who forget everything when looking at a colorful screen with nice images. It's just one example, but i think i have to go somewhere else.

Regards, Dieter

[DiTBho]

To "solve"

You have to

• use UPS, DHL, FeDex. More expensive, but safer, and faster. Just 5 days to have a parcel delivered abroad with someone who also prepares all the documentation for the customs. They also offer "postal stop" services, which covers the unlucky case where the consignee is not at home or the consignee's address is wrong or not clear. I had this problem with a couple of customers in Africa, their consignee's address were not clear and, instead of wasting time, UPS parked their parcels to the local postal stop office hence for eBay the status was "parcel has arrived to the final destination, awaiting for pickup"
  
• add 5 working days of delay to delivery time estimate in order to cover the worst case. Those services are really faster, 5 working days covers the maximum time their department needs to solve something related to customs or two failed attempts to delivery before parking the parcel in "postal stop"
• add 2-5 USD to the insurance to have the 95% of the money refund in case of problems