I bid on an EBAY auction ($900) and began to pay with Paypal. During the process the sellers phone and address pops up and I call the seller to ask some questions as it is a large sum of money ($900 plus $155 shipping). I talk to a guy named Zander (407) 430-3600 I am guessing in Orlando, Florida.
He answers and we converse about the item and I ask for a tracking number whenever he sends it. He says to wait till Monday (this was a Friday). I felt a small tingle of apprehension at that, but I had never had too bad of a luck as yet doing this—until now.
A few hours later I get an email from EBAY saying the auction had been cancelled because the seller's ID had been compromised. I immediately phoned Paypal to put a hold on the funds and the Paypal rep said to put a "buyer complaint" in and this would hold the funds. I then asked if the funds were still there and the rep said that they should be.
I asked if there was any way to be sure and he told me that due to seller privacy, he could not disclose this. After arguing that this was most probably a fraud case, he gave me the email address of the security department of Paypal and told me that they would handle this and would work with the police if need be. He said to write a description and all the numbers and details that I could in the email. I did so and basically got a canned response from the security department 2 days later stating how to issue a buyer complaint. I called back and was told to wait 10 days for the process to work.
After 10 days, Paypal was only able to retrieve $175 of the monies. I called saying, "What's this?" They said it was all they could recover. I then requested the "Buyer Protection Program" be implemented as Paypal displays this all over the place saying that buyer are protected up to $1000 and the Paypal rep. Asked if there was a "Shield" on the auction.
I told her I didn't know because I never thought to look for a shield and thought that all buyers had this protection as it is part of their service. She said no—only if there is a shield.
As I could no longer look at the auction as EBAY had cancelled it, she told me I was out of luck and case was closed as far as Paypal was concerned.
I contacted my local Sheriff and he told me that there are so many scams out there now that this goes on all the time. Basically, someone (actually an organized group) from Romania or Russia or some other foreign country will set up a scam using a Paypal account that will dump directly into a foreign account and then set up an auction and bilk folks out of several hundred dollars or as much as they can. Then when Paypal does it's 10 day thing, they are long gone and set up somewhere else doing it to someone else.
I am out $880. I don't know where to turn and hope at least for some geniuses out there that can tell me where to turn.
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