Another Nigerian Buyer...

Soldato
Joined
2 Jul 2005
Posts
3,549
Location
Newcastle
Hey all,

Yes I know what you are all thinking and I am thinking exactly the same.

My Ebay auction has just been ended via Buy it Now by a member from Nigeria with 2 feedback and I have recieved the following e-mail from the seller almost instantly after.

I have purchased the following item on eBay from you. Please send me the total amount I owe you.

Dear Seller, I won your item display on ebay and i want the item to be ship as a Special gift to my Friend. who work's at (British College) in West Africa.So don't worry about the shipping fee I'll add Extra £40 GBP. fast delivery abroad and i want the item to be posted by Royal Mail (Recorded Royal Mail International Signed For to 23401). Payment method:- I will go straight to www.paypal.co.uk to make the Immediate Payment. Happy New Year. Regards.

Do these guys ever give up :rolleyes:

Now I have to go through all the hassle of relisting the item and claiming the fee's back.

Meh, rant over!
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
2 Jul 2005
Posts
3,549
Location
Newcastle
This is strange, without even taking any action yet I get the following e-mail from Ebay:

We have removed these listings and will credit all fees to your account because it has come to our attention that the items were bought without the account owner's authorisation. We are now restoring the account to its owner.

Please be assured that there is no negative mark on your account because of this. We only removed your listing so that we could credit all of your Insertion and Final Value Fees and prevent any further problems arising such as Unpaid Item disputes or negative feedback.

Note: It may take up to ten days for all the Insertion and Final Value Fee credits to be shown on your account status page.

You are free to list the item again using the Sell Your Item form or other listing tools. Unfortunately the listing won't appear as an Unsold item in My eBay and we can't relist it for you. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you for your understanding in this difficult matter. If you have any questions or require assistance, you can contact us from any eBay Help page.


Regards,

eBay Trust & Safety

Seems like they know I am not going to fall for it and are claiming that someone else took control of their account.
 
Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2004
Posts
465
Could someone explain how, once they've paypal'ed you the money, this turns into a scam?
please excuse my naivety
 
Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2004
Posts
465
But if its through paypal, surely paypal is making a mistake if it credits your account with the nigerian fella's illegitimate funds before paypal checks whether its cleared and therefore legitimate or not?

I thought once paypal credits your account, thats that, game set & match
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
15,861
Location
NW London
I would also like Huppy's question to be more extensively answered.

Also, what if the Nigerian buyer is totally genuine and without even emailing the seller, he transfers the money, via Paypal, to the seller's account? Surely not all Nigerian buyers are scammers?
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Dec 2003
Posts
21,604
Location
Sol
I think a lot of them hijack different paypal and ebay accounts, using them together, when I got scammed buy some Nigerian guy the name was some English name, and I was paid by an "Amita Singh"
 
Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2004
Posts
465
I see... so the main reason for not accepting their offers is because its with dodgy money?
i.e. not theirs but someone elses
 
Permabanned
Joined
9 Aug 2006
Posts
2,273
basiclt what happens is they paypal you the money u send the item then they tell paypal that the item was not as described/bits missing etc etc, paypal always side with the buyer and give them a refund
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Jun 2005
Posts
5,152
Location
Kent
just simply never deal with nigerians, what they are doing is perfectly legal in their country, so MANY people do it for a living. If legit nigerians want to buy stuff from ebay, and use paypal, maybe they should do something about the stupid laws in their country, because all the scammers have given their country a bad name.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Dec 2003
Posts
3,144
Location
Edinburgh
basiclt what happens is they paypal you the money u send the item then they tell paypal that the item was not as described/bits missing etc etc, paypal always side with the buyer and give them a refund

so what can you (as a seller) do to stop this happening to you? Other than just not trading with Nigerians (surely brits can do it too?)
 
Soldato
Joined
31 Jul 2006
Posts
10,276
Location
Belgium land of chocolate
it is a knightmare and paypal+ebay is even worse. The whole system is a shambles.

From hard to follow auctions to immediate buy, 2nd chance, and the system where you have to wait weeks to make a claim is hopeless.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Aug 2006
Posts
8,312
basiclt what happens is they paypal you the money u send the item then they tell paypal that the item was not as described/bits missing etc etc, paypal always side with the buyer and give them a refund

That's not what is happening in this scam...

Basically the buyer has hacked into someone else's ebay & paypal account, they use the credit card on file to pay for the item. Once the real account holder realises that their credit card has been charged they alert Visa/Mastercard/whoever and they chargeback the Paypal transaction. Paypal then pass this debt on to you meaning you have to give the money back to Paypal even though you've already sent the item to Nigeria.
 
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