Unfortunate first eBay sale - help!

hey guys

I had an laptop for sale last week it was on bidding,
this guy Link hidden: Login to view contacted me at my ebay account to tell me that he want to buy the notebook, and this was his message ,,

------------------------
Hello Seller,
I will like to buy this Item from you I'm in A.T.F.N for Agric
conference in Africa Nigeria, I will pay Via PayPal this is fast and
secured. You can calculate the shipping cost to this address so i will
know the shipping cost including the Item cost. the adrress is here
below, Calculate the shipping cost and tell me the Total cost. please if
PayPal make sure you reply
with your PayPal ID, ALL THE PAYMENT WILL GO INSIDE EBAY

Name:- Ademola Ayodeji.
Address:- 7UP Rd,Opp MTN Oluyole Estate, Ring Rd,
City:- Ibadan
State:- Oyo State
Country:- Nigeria
Zip Code :- 23402

I want Shipping Via US Postal Service .
Thanks
-----------------------------------------

And then eBay Customer Support sent me a message to Warn me from this member because this membership someone Stole from its owner.

according this i ignored him,
But now he won the bid and he want me to send him the item, one more thing 'At the item page I said that i send only to the united states and now he want me to ship it outside the US .
i sent him a message to tell him that i am not going to ship outside the US , he sent me back with this message :
-----------------------------
I just want to inform you that i have made the payment for you and as soon as you have received the confirmation of the payment that has been approved by PayPal ,kindly go and make the shipment through USPS Express Mail International to Nigeria Today and send the tracking number of the shipment to me ,also to them so that they can verified the shipment on time..Hope to hear back from you as soon as you ship the item out...The tracking number will started with E series and End up with US....

Below is my store Shipping Address.

NAME : OLAYEMI ADEDAYO
ADDRESS : NO 6 AYO AYINDE CLOSE , AGBOWO UI.
CITY : IBADAN
STATE :OYO STATE
ZIPCODE : 23402
COUNTRY :NIGERIA
RECEIVER'S PHONE NUMBER : +2347059237158


Thanks and God Bless

I will stay online to read back from you as soon as you ship the item out and get back to me with the tracking number ...
-----------------------------------------

and till now i don't see any payments on my paypal account and ebay still doesn't show any payment from him.

What should I do ?

Hi Ibrahim,
I got it once, shipping to Nigeria, but a different buyer. Saying that she wants the SLR camera, as a birthday gift to her son.
I still provide to her the price including freight. Payment accepted by paypal.
I also received an email on paypal payment, look about the same as what the official paypal mail subject 'You've Received Payment for an eBay item!'

In actual fact, i received nothing, after checking my paypal account. And as i read below the mail, this is the message that show hints of a fraud.

'Send shipment reference/tracking number to us or email us through our Customer Care Service at: Link hidden: Login to view and our Customer Care Service will attend to you. As soon as you send us the shipment reference/tracking number for security purposes and the safety of the buyer and the seller,the money will be credited to your account. '[quote][/quote]

The next check to confirmed is, ebay should have already ban this buyer's ID.

This is common.. I always do it this way as my rule of thumb...
'No payment, No shipment'

Cheers,
Edwin

first, thanks Edwin
so now what should I do,, just ignore him,, and what about the item should I relist it ?

Hi Ibrahim,

It's Nigerian Scam. I'm glad that you posted this and checked your PayPal account for the payment before deciding on whether you should ship the item or not.

Don't ship the item and report him to eBay. I assume that his eBay account is already under investigation since as you said, eBay warned you about him. If you report him, you might actually get him suspended from eBay.

If you do a Forum Search, you will find some related posts.

For more information on online scams, what steps to take to avoid being scammed, how to deal with scammers, how and where to report them and other related topics, please check out the following links:

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All the best,

thank you Haydee
thank you guys :)




Best Regards
IBRAHIM

HI Ibrahim,

I am very sorry to hear of your first bad experience! I too am new to EBAY. I have to say though, i have found a lot of sellers on EBAY with notes on their listings that say they will not post to NIGERIA so i think that this scam thing is very common knowledge (among people who have been on EBAY a long time that is!). As far as i know, if you have specified that you will not send internationally, then they should not be bidding and you are not obliged to send the item - i would have reported to EBAY as you were advised above so you have done the right thing. Better luck for your next sale,

Grace190208

Hi IBRAHIM KOKY,

As has been said, definitely a Nigerian Scam, and these types of scams have actually been given the name 'Nigerian Scam' because of the volume of these types of scams that come from that part of the world.

Now even though this scam will most likely always have some sort of Nigerian contact as part of it, they can come from any area of the world so you always need to make sure you do the same checks and balances.

A regular example from Nigeria would be: 'I live in London, but my brother is working for a charity in Nigeria currently, and requires a mobile phone so we are able to maintain contact with him. I would really like to buy the phone from you and have you send it direct to him there please.

They will also usually offer you a premium price for the phone to close the deal.

Mobile phones are a favourite of theirs to sting, but they will usually go after any sort of electronic technology that they find available.

You've done really well to keep your eyes open with this one, as many new comers to ebay will be so excited about making the sale, they forget to do their checks and balances and then pay the penalty.

Hi.

I got the same scam twice. It was actually by someone within US. She want me to send a Wii console to Nigeria and I was almost fall for it. First, I received the same email title like the one come from Paypal states that I received payment for the item I listed on Craigslist. When I emailed her back and told her the payment didn't go through. She informed me that it has been cleared and I have to ship the item otherwise she will report me to Paypal and federal investigator. I forwarded her email to paypal support and they told me to ignore her request because no payment has been submitted and the email she used in her paypal account does not exist. She sent me bunch of email threaten me about federal offense and all kind of stuff - ONE THING SHE FORGOT IS THAT I COULD CHECK HER REAL EMAIL ADDRESS AND NOT JUST TITLE. It came from mail2consultant.com, I reported it to federal agency and paypal for investigation. Never heard anything from her again. I hope she got locked up somewhere :)

So, just ignore them!!! Forward their email to Paypal and Ebay Customer support. This is high priority for Paypal and ebay to process these frauds. Good luck with eBay business!!!

Hi Ibrahim,
There usually target on high cost electronics items. The 2nd time i have encountered is on my handmade product. Value about $300, not really high cost as compared to my previous SLR Camera in $thousand. Furthermore, its not on eBay selling platform.
I have replied him on buy procedure and explain how the order process works., such as approx 3 weeks to received his handmade goods.. Below is his reply, which you can use as a typical example

Good day,thanks for the response i am really glad you
still have the item in good condition ,I am highly interested in buying
this item from you,i will proceed and inform my banker to send you
a Certified Check for the payment so that as soon as you receive
the check you go cash it, so that pick
up can be scheduled by my shipper.You should kindly send me your full
contact details with your full name (physical address) so that
the payment can be issued out immediately, as soon as i receive all the
information needed i will send your payment out to you.Thanks. Send me your info as requested below:
1,FULL NAME......
2,ADDRESS.......
3,ZIP CODE......
4,COUNTRY.....
5,MOBILE NUMBER......
Am sorry i cant come personally because am a very busy Man, and i promise to even pay more than the price for the extra work am giving you, its not going to take time before you receive the check.
looking forward to hearing from you.

I only replied him that I accept PayPal. Nothing else.

Cheers,
Edwin

Be careful there is a lot of scam. I am as a buyer, if I would look for something and the seller would say that he doesn't ship internationally I wouldn't even bother him. Next time you can just reply that:' Sir, as it says on my listing I do not ship internationally. Sorry for the inconvenience.' And never ship anything unless you received their payment. Good Luck.

the Nigerian/uk scam is nothing new to any site where goods are sold.these guys are out to take your goods and probably file a did not receive goods claim.kudos to you for being smart enough to not fall for it.i suggest you delete messages like this on site.

now what???

i sold the labtop to a guy who has a really good feedback,
the money was bending in my paypal account, I shipped it ,after he received it,on my paypal the Payment status changed to held !! does it mean that he canceled the payment ????

This is new to me.. have not heard of this situation; none that I have experience before.
U mean the buyer paid and on your account, paypal status change to 'on hold' after buyer received?

no, the payment was on hold i think till the buyer receive his item,but once he received it the payment changed to held trans. and the money disappeared ???!!!

and paypal telling me that :

This payment has been selected for review and we have opened an investigation.
We have placed a temporary hold on the funds until our investigation is complete


why??!!

Hi Ibrahim,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately, you obviously fell to some of the notorious Nigerian scams, and I wonder if this is an open secret - that you shouldn't be dealing with them.

What that buyer did is that he filed for a complaint with Paypal, after receiving the laptop. Regardless of the complaint being valid or not, the person intends to keep the product and get back his money as well. This has been going on for quite a while and people have learned not to take orders from them.

And there are now so many new versions of the Nigerian scams, that it is very difficult to recognize.

I'd like to share with you this useful link from eBay, showing how to determine eBay scams and ways to avoid them - Link hidden: Login to view

Hope this helps. :)

Hi Ibrahim,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately, you obviously fell to some of the notorious Nigerian scams, and I wonder if this is an open secret - that you shouldn't be dealing with them.

What that buyer did is that he filed for a complaint with Paypal, after receiving the laptop. Regardless of the complaint being valid or not, the person intends to keep the product and get back his money as well. This has been going on for quite a while and people have learned not to take orders from them.

And there are now so many new versions of the Nigerian scams, that it is very difficult to recognize.

I'd like to share with you this useful link from eBay, showing how to determine eBay scams and ways to avoid them - Link hidden: Login to view

Hope this helps. :)

Thank you Irene, but this was a year ago :D
I even forgot this post already. But I handled the situation and sold my first item safely on eBay.
Note: I still get more of those scams, but I already know what to do ;)


Best regards

That's great Ibrahim :)

You may also find this an interesting read - Link hidden: Login to view Since there are so many types of buyers out there, it is best to be prepared for every scenario.

Take care.