Buyer Fraud - Acion Fraud Report?

[ronteal]

Without going into details I believe that a buyer has committed a return fraud and I have been advised to report it to Action Fraud. Has anyone done this and had the refund successfully reversed? I don't want to go through the process of reporting it to Action Fraud if the outcome just remains the same and Ebay upholds the refund.

[arkwebus]

It's now called "Report Fraud" as - previously - they never took any action. 

All that can really be said is that to have any possibility of a refund through eBay you seem to have to have reported to RF.   

I doubt eBay will take any action against the buyer and they certainly will not tell you.

How much is involved?  The problem overall is that in most cases it is impossible to "prove" [to the criminal standard - beyond reasonable doubt] what happened. 

@ronteal 

[ronteal]

The customer service agent seemed to think I would get a refund if I reported it - but I will take that with a pinch of salt as I have been promised things before by agents only to be contradicted by another agent when I call again!

[arkwebus]

That is - I think - the theory 

@ronteal 

[style_wise]

Usually Sellers post on these Boards that acting quickly to give the police report number to eBay causes them not to require a refund. (Instead eBay refunds the Buyer and the Seller keeps the sale money.) If they promised to reverse the refund, I would trust CS, since this is similar.

[4_bathrooms]

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@ronteal wrote:

Without going into details I believe that a buyer has committed a return fraud and I have been advised to report it to Action Fraud. Has anyone done this and had the refund successfully reversed? 

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When a seller is in the process of being defrauded - i.e. the buyer has returned a different item - the process is to report the buyer to Report Fraud and obtain a reference number. In the return case there is a link that specifically states "Report a problem" that appears once the return tracking indicates delivery or attempted delivery. The seller clicks that link and selects "Returned a different item" (or whatever the most accurate reason is) and provides the reference number and report obtained from Report Fraud. This typically results in eBay refunding the buyer out of their own pocket with no impact to the seller.

As your case has now presumably been closed in the buyer's favour you have one chance to appeal the outcome. I'd suggest doing as the customer service agent advised and file the report with Report Fraud providing the reference number and report they give you in your appeal. There have been a few reports on these boards of sellers being reimbursed by eBay after appealing a closed return case in this manner.

[vinylscot]

It will only take a few minutes. What have you got to lose?