Mike Lenthol

Here's how it works.

A seller with a high 100+ positive rating lists brand new items for sale at relatively good prices. Auction states the item is sent from warehouses. Nothing yet to throw flags up, since volume sellers do that.

Once the auction is over, a payment to the seller is made through a reputable 3rd party CC processing system to a legit business account.

Now the seller, goes to a number of various websites, types in the buyers name and enters a stolen credit card number. The website obviously ships the item, even though billing and shipping addresses don't match.

Legally speaking, does the website have any recourse against me?

Facts: 1) I didn't place the order 2) I never even been to shippers website 3) Nobody signed for the package ($100 item UPS) 4) I submitted good rating to seller before all this came to light, so if they do investigate, it's in writing that I received the item.

Leila Dougan

Wow, that's crazy! Quite a scam!

I don't know about legally, but here's what I think:

1) You're not at fault for the reasons you mentioned above.
2) The website should have never sent the item if the shipping address wasn't authorized.
3) UPS should have gotten a signature, but that really doesn't seem to have any bearing on the scam.
4) You report the fraud to Ebay and send the item back to the website.

However, I realize that you'd be out the $25 investigative fee so I'm not really sure how you'd go about getting that back. In fact, I'm not really sure about #4 anymore. I think Ebay and the website should work together to try to find the Ebay scammer.

Maybe the credit card company should reimburse the website since that falls, I would think, under their merchant protection policy. But you keep the item? I mean, you paid for it so I guess you should, but I am not really sure.

But anyway man, that really blows! I hope there's a somewhat happy ending.

Matthew_V

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Dave Poehlman

Uh oh, Matthew, my wife is an ebay-aholic... I'd better check to make sure she didn't get an email like that. Thanks for the tip!

Bryan X

I don't know the legalities, but I would say you have no right to keep the item. It's not yours.

Think of it this way:

What if person 'A' promises to sell to person 'B' a 2002 Corvette. Person 'B' sends person 'A' the money. Person 'A' steals YOUR 2002 Corvette from your driveway and gives it to person 'B'. Now would you say person 'B' can keep your Corvette and it's your problem now and not person 'B's?

Wayne Bundrick

How about this one... On Tuesday I got a snail mail letter from eBay saying that this is my last chance to pay them the $63.23 that I owe them or they'll hand it off to a collection agency and ruin my credit standing. But the account user ID they named in the letter is not my eBay user ID. I can't even pronounce it, as it's full of M's and K's and J's with not many vowels in between. My user ID is completely different, they're not even close. I checked that user ID and that account, whoever it is, has been suspended. Furthermore, I have never sold anything on eBay, and I've bought only three items, so I couldn't possibly owe eBay any fees. Some bozo out there, probably on the other side of the planet, apparently used my name and address to set up a bogus eBay account, and eBay thinks that they can stick me with the bill? I don't think so.

Wayne Bundrick

\"It tastes like there\'s a party in my mouth and everybody\'s throwing up!\" -- Philip J. Fry

Clinton McClure

A couple days ago, my mom bought a copy of Mulan off half.com (now owned by e-bay). It was advertised as a legit US release, widescreen, yadda-yadda-yadda and had pictures included of the disc and case. She pays and a couple days later, the disc arrives. She opens it and asks me if it's going to be in Chinese because all the writing on the cover is. The cover art is incorrect for both the front and back (the front cover was pulled from a panel on the rear cover of the US release), the copyright information has more misspelled words than I could keep track of and the disc information contains the following specs:
Region:0
Rated: R
Rated: G
Widescreen
English Stereo
French Mono
5.1 Dolby Digital

When you put the disc in, the menus are all in Chinese as are two of the three language tracks. (The first two are 5.1 channel Chinese and the third is 5.1 English.) The picture looks pretty good, but it's a direct P&S rip. (The 1.85:1 framing is nowhere in sight.) I think she got hosed.

Don't Panic

My Collection My Equipment

Keith Mickunas

Mike, I don't understand, is this guy buying you stuff and sending it to you? What do you mean by
Are you saying the guy sent you what you bought so you gave the guy a good rating, then he started buying stuff with your card? If he's using your card to buy stuff that's fraud.

Or did he keep your money then buy the stuff he was selling to you with a stolen credit card? If that's the case, I just don't know what to think. I mean, someone's going to be footing the bill on this. I think you should have to return the item and then contest the charge with your credit card company. But I don't know the laws about this.

Carl Johnson

Did that really happen? It sounds to me like a topic that would be debated in an ethics course. I'm skeptical because this criminal is far from ingenious. If he's smart enough to scam people on Ebay into sending him money why would he turn around and reward you by sending the merchandise? He could have just as easily used the stolen credit card numbers to send the goods to a vacant house where he would pick it up.

Ryan Wright

One thought: How do you know the credit card was stolen?

It's entirely possible the sell