Scammed by the buyer

[ma_17654319]

My son sold his phone on ebay, sent it to the buyer, the buyer claims the box was empty and claimed a refund, the package in his photo was not the way the package was when sent, now the package has been sent back, empty.  My son now has no phone returned and no money for selling it. What do I do?

[tressygirl]

I'm so sorry your son had one of the worst experiences there is on eBay,  the common scam for a high priced item being sold on a very new account .

All you can do is to try and appeal that decision for the refund, I take it a case was opened for item not as described and either you / your son or eBay refunded.

It's not easy,  but you never know the buyer may have a history of this, or or making too many cases for refunds,  this will all show when reported to Customer Services who will look at their account.

This explains the appeals process, again I stress it's not easy  and not always ending in a seller's favour.

@ma_17654319 

[red_magpie]

This is such an old scam, but still very difficult for sellers to combat. The problem is that eBay, by default, seems to take the buyer's word against the seller's. And if the buyer claims a parcel arrived empty, proving that it was not empty when dispatched can be difficult or impossible.

Did your son send it using eBay's simple delivery? If so, did the paperwork record the weight of the parcel  n delivery? Or can the weight be determined from the delivery pric?

The point being that, on simple delivery, eBay and not the seller is liable to refund the buyer for loss or damage in delivery. So if you can show that the box was not empty when dispatched eBay should be responsible of the buyer claims it arrived empty.

Good luck anyway!

[*vyolla*]

Report that phone as stolen.