Ebay Buers and Sellers Beware - Don't Upload Tracking


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Well I have been selling on Ebay a long time.  I have a 100% feedback rating but I learn something new every day.  I know a lot of you guys sell on Ebay as well, or purchase.

I have just lost a lot of money and time trying to recover a brand new Equinox 800 I sold on Ebay, worth $900, all because I dutifully uploaded tracking information.

After selling the Equinox, I packaged it and shipped it.  Buyer notifies me she didn't buy the item.  I get her contact information and call her.  All the address information is correct but she says she has no idea of how the item got ordered through Ebay and paid for with her Pay Pal account.  I told her just refuse the package when it arrives, when I get it back I will refund her money.  I told her to contact Ebay and Pay Pal.  I followed up our telephone conversation with a message through Ebay to document the conversation.  (I honestly thought her husband probably bought it and didn't tell her, and she would probably get back in touch with me and tell me her husband confessed to buying the detector and all was fine.)

On the day the package was to arrive I checked tracking to make sure the buyer had refused the package and that it was on it's way back to me.  Instead I find that the package had been intercepted and re-routed to New Jersey and was due for delivery on that very day.

Now I get the postal inspectors involved.  They tell me that the package has been delivered to a Russian Freight forwarding company that has been known to be used by hackers and scammers.

Long story short, the postal inspectors tell me that anyone who hacks an ebay account and paypal account and makes an unauthorized purchase obviously has access to all of the account information.  So they know the account holders name, address and when the seller dutifully uploads the tracking information, that is all they need to redirect a package to anywhere they want to.

The only way to stop it, is to not upload tracking information.  SELLER BEWARE!  Paypal seller protection DOES NOT protect you if the package is redirected, so you are just out of luck.

I happened to have had a great postal inspector, who went above and beyond to recover my merchandise.  The merchandise had been repackaged and was getting ready to be shipped to Russia.  Inside the box was not only my merchandise valued at $900 but also a watch valued at $1000, which I knew nothing about.  Obviously the hacker was scamming several items then having the forwarder consolidate the stolen merchandise into one box to be sent to them in Russia.  I told the postal inspector to seize the watch, and my Equinox 800 is on the way back to me.

Take this information and do with it what you will, but protect yourself.  I would recommend that if you are a seller, never upload tracking information.  If you are a buyer, tell the seller not to upload tracking information.

Doc

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