How are sellers protected from this type of (potential) scam?

[igirisu-stu]

Hi,

I had 2 separate orders on the same day for a couple of my items.

The orders were made from 2 separate 0 feedback accounts. The account holder name was the same on both.

The orders were made to the same delivery address, but with 2 different names - none of which matched the account holder's name (in all honesty, they looked blatantly made up names).

I sent out both items separately on the same day. Both 2nd Class standard, ordered through eBay and both have a 'barcode number'.

As soon as the estimated delivery date had passed, I got Item Not Received claims for both (As I was actually anticipating, and merely minutes after midnight).

So now I'm being coerced to refund the buyer, no questions asked.

I get it. They're low value items so I'm not hung up on them at all, and offering tracked mail by default is actually pointless given the item value and competitors pricing.

However, my question is what exactly stops this buyer making a third account and repeating - given how easy it was the first time around? What protections can eBay provide here?

[geosacha007]

Up to the point when you got the very rapid INR claims against you it sounded quite innocent.  It sounds like a buyer bought two items as a guest.  In such as case ebay give them weird made up usernames and they would be different for each sale.

You say there is a barcode on the postage. RM have a code which, when you enter it in the RM tracking should show you if the items have been delivered.  You can upload that number into the ebay case and if it shows delivery you will win.

[igirisu-stu]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, in my experience the barcode numbers will only show delivery for large letters. These were both normal letters, and they always come up with 'Tracking not available for this service' via RM track and trace.

I've looked at both accounts in question and they were both registered in April 2023 apparently...

[papso22]

EBay makes it clear that the only protection sellers have against item not received claims is online proof of delivery.   That doesn't change with suspected linked accounts or repeat purchases.