Worried about item I sold to a new user

[west_hammers]

Hello everyone,

I'm after some advice as I am very anxious about being "scammed".

Today I sold a Xbox one X console and the buyer paid instantly but I noticed it's a brand new account with 0 feedback. I am very worried that I am going to be "scammed" as I have been in the past. All they had to say the previous time was someone hacked their account and bought the item and that was it, I was forced to give them their money back and they got to keep the item too.

I am very cautios of somethig like this happening again, so I have took pictures of the console working and a video of the console working, the video also contains the serial number, my ebay user name, their ebay user name and the date / time of the sale. I done this to try cover myself incase they make a claim saying it is faulty or something along those lines. I also supplied tracking information and the parcel requires a signature on delivery.

I am now thinking maybe I should just cancel the sale and refund the buyer, because I do not want a repeat of last time.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[captain*obvious]

I'm unsure of when you were scammed previously but it must have been some time ago as seller protection has improved significantly.

For unauthorised use, for example, all you'd need to provide PayPal with is proof of postage.

For item not received you'll need proof of delivery - looking at that console I'd be sending it Special Delivery.

You don't get more protection from a zero rated buyer than you do from a buyer with hundreds of feedback.

Make sure the payment is showing in your PayPal account, post to the address shown on the PayPal payment, upload your tracking information and you're as safe as it's possible to be with any buyer.

[west_hammers]

Thank you for your reply.

It was in January this year I was "scammed" before.

I have proof of postage and will have proof of delivery.

The payment is showing in my PayPal and I made sure their ebay delivery address matched their PayPal delivery address.

Do you think I will be covered? Worst case scenario.

[captain*obvious]

Their eBay address is irrelevant - the only address that matters is the address on the PayPal payment notification.

That will match the address shown on the view order details in eBay but won't always match the details on the original eBay notification of sale.

You're covered as well as you can be with any item you sell here - it's a shame you didn't post on community when you had your issue in January, the chances are we could probably have helped you avoid that loss.

[rusticrye]

We all started with zero feedback, so that means nothing. You are just as likely to be scammed by a buyer with hundreds of feedbacks, or by someone who has hacked into an account with hundreds of feedbacks.  You just have to be sensible and ship only to the address provided by PayPal on the payment confirmation email, and ship using a service that fully insures the item in the event of loss or damage in transit. Check too that the item is not on the carrier's 'exclusion' list - not everything is insurable.

How did you manage to lose the Unauthorised Account Use claim...?  All you had to do was upload a copy of a Proof of Posting receipt which proved dispatch to the address on the PayPal payment confirmation email. The claim would then have been closed in your favour.

If you lost because you no longer had your PoP, be aware that UAU claims can be made for up to 13 months, because many people only receive their bank and credit card statements annually. So always make sure you keep your PoPs for at least this length of time.

If you lost because you shipped to a different address to that on the PayPal payment confirmation email, then you should never do that. An account hacker will naturally ask you to ship  to a different address (they obviously won't want the item shipped to the account holder's address!) and so will a dishonest account holder. If anyone ever asks you to send to a different address, cancel the Ebay transaction, and relist the item so that the buyer can buy again, this time using the correct address. Someone who made a genuine address error (it happens) will have no issue with that all.

Finally, as you're obviously nervous about shipping valuable items, don't do it.  List them for collection only, but on Gumtree, Ebay's sister site. You'll then have total control over how you're paid (cash or bank transfer only, once the buyer has fully examined the item and is happy with it - PayPal is not safe for sellers of collection items). You can also leave the ad running till someone has actually turned up, paid, and taken the item away.

@west_hammers 

[m25jet]

Certain items appear to be more attractive to scammers than others, and things such as Xboxes and mobile phones are classic examples of such items.  However, just because the buyer is a brand new user doesn't necessarily mean that he/she is a scammer.  Everybody started off with zero feedback when they first opened their account on eBay, so if you think about it the seller from whom you purchased your very first item on eBay may well have been worried that you were a scammer, but he/she still sent you the item regardless.  Therefore, treat other people how you would wish them to treat you - you could just as easily get scammed by a buyer with a five figure feedback score as you could by a buyer with new account, as scam buyers are not exclusively limited to those with brand new accounts.

When you post out the item make sure that you use a fully tracked and signed for postal service, as this will reduce the chances of a buyer opening a false Item Not Received case against you.  If a buyer did open an unjustified Item Not Received case against you then so long as you were able to prove successful delivery to the address provided on the PayPal notification of payment e-mail and the tracking showed receipt of the item then eBay would decide the case in your favour and the buyer would be unable to leave you any feedback.  If, however, the buyer left you negative feedback prior to an Item Not Received case being decided in your favour you could get the buyer's negative feedback removed by contacting eBay Customer Services and asking them to remove the feedback, reminding them that they decided the case in your favour and that the buyer's feedback should not be allowed to remain.  If you did have to do that then eBay would remove the buye's negative feedback for you and your account would not be damaged in any way by the removed feedback.

If you were to go ahead and cancel the sale without the buyer's consent then the buyer could leave you negative feedback and eBay would be unlikely to remove it if you asked them to, so the best option would probably be to post this item to the buyer and hope for the best.  If you really feel uneasy about selling this type of item for fear of getting screwed then the best option would be to refrain from listing such items in the future, and only list the kind of items that scammers don't tend to be interested in.

Basically if there is one rule that you should always stick to when listing anything for sale on eBay it's "Don't list anything on eBay that you cannot afford to lose", as eBay are very biased towards the buyer and in most cases will decide against the seller unless the seller is able to provide solid proof that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the buyer is lying and they (the seller) are telling the truth, such as with false Item Not Received cases whereby the seller is able to provide solid proof of successful delivery and receipt by the buyer, in which case the buyer's allegations of non-receipt would be blown out of the water and he/she would lose the case.