buyer stole my cooker via a courier (who was probably him)

[jaybus4]

I sold my cooker but heard nothing from the buyer. Then a courier rang me on a Saurday saying he would be at my house in a few minutes to pick it up. I didn't know the courier was coming and suspected something fishy, but I let him pick up the cooker without checking it was paid. The 'man in a van' said  he was just doing a pick up on behalf of his boss via an ebay buyer. He had other items in the van and he took my old cooker away. The cooker was a SMEG one and only 5 years old (cost £2k), so this wasn't junk.

I'm selling my house and the photographer was coming 3 days later, so I was backed in a corner as I needed that big cooker (stored in my dining room) out of the way.

I should have checked the feedback and took a chance that he will pay me - let my guard down once and get scammed. The buyer has severeal feedback comments of people saying he took the item and not paid etc. He's ignored my emails via ebay and I raised an unpaid case with ebay. All that has done is for ebay to wave my seller payment cvia a credit. Ebay thinks i still have the item to relist but I don'y - its in his van!

Police will not be interested - there does. not appear to be options to cover this on ebay reporting - any advice?

[rusticrye]

The buyer didn't steal the cooker. You gave it to a man in a van who turned up on your doorstep. No actual crime has been committed.

You can certainly try taking legal action, but you apparently don't have any proof that the courier collected it or that the buyer has it, so I doubt that will get you anywhere. But go to the CAB's website and arrange to speak with an advisor.

As for the buyer's feedback, buyers cannot receive negative or neutral feedback. Buyers can only ever receive positive feedback (or none at all). So those sellers have left negative comments on a positive green dot. Leaving such feedback is a serious breach of the rules, and if the buyer reports those feedbacks to Ebay, they will all be removed (and the sellers will have a damaging defect slapped on each of their accounts for breaching feedback rules). So get a screen shot of the feedbacks while they're still there, as it may be useful if you decide to take legal action.

For future use, note that PayPal is totally unsafe for sellers of collection items. You would lose an Unauthorised Account Use claim as you would have no proof of dispatch to the account holder's registered address. That is the only proof that a payment processor will accept for such a claim. You would lose the item, your money, and be charged a hefty admin fee too. Always insist on cash or bank transfer, which the buyer pays once s/he's fully examined the item and is happy with it. 

@jaybus4