The buyer assumed ebay feedback was good enough, but even veteran ebay buyers with good feedback will try to scam sellers by transacting outside of the site to save the transaction fees... and of course that's how you get scammed. The transaction fees are partially insurance for these things: if you buy and get scammed, ebay will eat the cost of it, much like credit card companies do in cases of fraud.
> if you buy and get scammed, ebay will eat the cost of it, much like credit card companies do in cases of fraud.
This is not true unless things have changed in the last few years. eBay will try to get the money back by flagging the fraudster's account. But if that account has been emptied there's nothing they can do and eBay does not refund your money from their pocket.
For the credit card comment. I don't think this is true either since I worked in retail before (family owned). Credit card companies are really quick to credit the account in case of fraud (I deal with this with my own CC every year). Thinking through this it makes sense since it doesn't come from the CC's pockets, they freeze assets in the merchant's account and forcefully refund the money from merchant's account if it was determined to be a fraudulent charge (in some cases merchant still pays the transaction fee for the CC charge).
The eBay workflow in a fraud case is this:
1) if the money can be regained from the seller in any way (e.g. charging the card they use for the seller account or pulling back the Paypal proceeds from account balance or bank account(s)), they will do so and refund the buyer.
2) if not, they will throw up every possible barrier to the buyer, including (I have experienced) giving you phony tracking data to "prove" you got the item, etc.
I've never been refunded from eBay/Paypal no matter how obvious the fraud -- I've always had to do credit card chargebacks.
Never, ever fund a Paypal payment with anything but a credit card unless it's for something you can't possibly need refunded ever.
My anecdotal experience: as much as I despise eBay and Paypal (various reasons going back to 2001) I have had only positive experiences with refunds from eBay.
Recently I had a $20 IP camera(that price was too cheap but I was not doing my research) not arrive from China from a seemingly reputable seller with 500+ selling feedback over 2 years.
I filed a complaint with eBay and seller claimed a fake tracking number.
More interestingly, the seller had gone rogue, turning feedback private and acquiring about 100 negatives in a month.
So either the seller was hacked or had just pulled a long con.
My payment had come from Paypal balance and I got a very quick refund once I informed eBay that I wanted a refund.
I am amazed that many still assume CC companies eat fraud charges. That is not the case, they always yank it from the merchant where the money was spent. cited as a so-called cost of doing business if you ask around.
