Fraud

[drumgorheights]

Sold an item- AirPods on eBay. Listed them as not working and placed them in the parts category. Buyer then contacted me complaining that they did not work. I explained to them that that’s why they were put in the not working for parts category. They then start completely they were in bad condition. This was not the case as they were checked and clean and in very good condition. I asked them to send a photograph and they sent me photographs of different AirPods with tips on them and yellow marks. I told them mine did not have tips and they were mistaken. They then sent me another set of photographs which were totally different. I contacted eBay about this and they told me that I should accept the return which I did. When I receive the items they were completely different and cracked. I linked them up and someone else’s name came up and this further showed they were not my original AirPods. I contacted eBay about this again and they did nothing. Clearly a case of fraud. can anyone help me with this?

[*vyolla*]

The usual way forward in these situations is that the seller accepts the return and gets their item back, if it isn’t their item they immediately file a report with Reportfraud (used to be Actionfraud) and get a report number:

https://www.reportfraud.police.uk/

Then click the "Report a problem" link in the eBay case, select "Different item returned"  as the reason and provide the Reportfraud reference number and report. This stops the automated returns process that would ultimately force the seller to issue a refund.

Then, someone at eBay reviews the case. As to what happens next depends on a few factors - if the buyer has done this before, if the seller is a long standing eBay member who's had no issues like this before etc.  We've seen a good few threads recently here in which the sellers have been in a similar scenario but have not lost out.