eBay competitors fraud

[vxr1]

Hi Guys,
I've recently had 3 of my competitors buy products off me.
The first one paid for next day delivery and 2 days after he bought it he said it hadn't arrived, I tracked the order and found out it was signed for by him - I told him this and didn't get a reply obviously as he was lying to us. He must have been really stupid to think we couldn't track the next day delivery.
Another company bought off us from another eBay username (I know it was a company due to their email address) and said they hadn't received the item, so eBay refunded them after a number of days as the order was tracked so we had no proof it was sent.
Lastly a company ordered an item from us last week (from their company account with over 230000 feedbacks) and had it sent to their customers address as they'd obviously sold out of the item themself. Then 5 days after purchasing they reported the item as not received to eBay and complained to us saying we haven't sent it as they haven't got it yet.
Anybody else on eBay had this problem? I can't think of a way to prevent it to be honest unless we send all orders tracked.
Cheers

Edited by vxr1 on Wednesday 3rd April 22:58

[mjb1]

I think that's the way it's going unfortunately - everything sent by a 'signed for' service. Claiming the item never arrived seems to be an incredibly common scam now, and the way ebay/paypal work, the seller is screwed if they can't prove it was received. They buyers know this, more and more of them are milking it.

It must be hitting Royal Mail hard as well - in terms of the compensation claims that must have gone through the roof. It looks like they've reduced their compensation to £20 for an unsigned service (think it used to be 100x the value of a 1st class stamp).

[vxr1]

mjb1 said:

I think that's the way it's going unfortunately - everything sent by a 'signed for' service. Claiming the item never arrived seems to be an incredibly common scam now, and the way ebay/paypal work, the seller is screwed if they can't prove it was received. They buyers know this, more and more of them are milking it.

It must be hitting Royal Mail hard as well - in terms of the compensation claims that must have gone through the roof. It looks like they've reduced their compensation to £20 for an unsigned service (think it used to be 100x the value of a 1st class stamp).

Thanks for your reply . As the competitor that bought off us had it sent to their customers address I could send the customer a letter asking them to let me know if they have received the item? That way I can prove that we did deliver it and let eBay know.
I'm not sure what eBay would do to the customer(our competitor) if we proved that they were lying about it. It really annoys me that sometimes our staff are packing items just to give money back to customers as I'm a very honest person.

[spikeyhead]

vxr1 said:

Thanks for your reply . As the competitor that bought off us had it sent to their customers address I could send the customer a letter asking them to let me know if they have received the item? That way I can prove that we did deliver it and let eBay know.
I'm not sure what eBay would do to the customer(our competitor) if we proved that they were lying about it. It really annoys me that sometimes our staff are packing items just to give money back to customers as I'm a very honest person.

Why did you send it to the wrong address?

[randlemarcus]

spikeyhead said:

vxr1 said:

Thanks for your reply . As the competitor that bought off us had it sent to their customers address I could send the customer a letter asking them to let me know if they have received the item? That way I can prove that we did deliver it and let eBay know.
I'm not sure what eBay would do to the customer(our competitor) if we proved that they were lying about it. It really annoys me that sometimes our staff are packing items just to give money back to customers as I'm a very honest person.

Why did you send it to the wrong address?

Presumably so that the customer packaging would be full of his own branding

[steve1]

spikeyhead said:

Why did you send it to the wrong address?

This+1, I thought you only got protection from paypal if you sent it to the address that's registered for that account.

[joewilliams]

vxr1 said:

send all orders tracked.

That's what you want to do I'm afraid.

[paulshears]

Stick those 3 on "blocked bidders" for a start ... along with all other people selling similar items to you?

I block bidders that ask stupid questions too ... i.e. Can I have it for half of the buy it now price, pay for it at the end of the month when I get paid & send it free to Swaziland

[vxr1]

spikeyhead said:

Why did you send it to the wrong address?

I didn't, the customer changed it at checkout to their customer's address

[randlemarcus]

vxr1 said:

spikeyhead said:

Why did you send it to the wrong address?

I didn't, the customer changed it at checkout to their customer's address

But you did. Presumably the address you delivered to is neither the registered Paypal address of the purchaser, nor the registered CC address of that card.

Not all sales are good sales...

[vxr1]

randlemarcus said:

But you did. Presumably the address you delivered to is neither the registered Paypal address of the purchaser, nor the registered CC address of that card.

Not all sales are good sales...

oh, I always print the labels from eBay so that's the address what came out.

[vxr1]

paulshears said:

Stick those 3 on "blocked bidders" for a start ... along with all other people selling similar items to you?

I block bidders that ask stupid questions too ... i.e. Can I have it for half of the buy it now price, pay for it at the end of the month when I get paid & send it free to Swaziland

I've blocked the 3 I've had some really stupid questions recently: one being 'Can you do it any cheaper as I think it's very expensive'. I told him we are the cheapest online for that product which we are and he replied 'it's still expensive I'm not buying it'. Lol

[Coco H]

Agreed - add them to your blocked bidders list immediately. If you read the discussion boards it appears a common form of tactic on ebay appears to be the revenge purchase and DSR (star rating) trashing. If your DSRs get too low or you have more than 1-3% low stars in any category, ebay can permanently ban you from selling and even buying.

[M3StuT]

I personally think Ebay is the biggest waste of time and biggest rip off there is. I sold a load of stamps recently of which half never got recieved (funnily enough the more expensive ones) and people complained the postage was too high even though it was costing me more than I was charging! Ebay just refunded at the first drop of the hat after threatening me, its just a massive scam. Not worth doing once Ebay and paypal have their pound of flesh after all the refunds. The above example shows this clearly.

[Chrisgr31]

I would definitely write to the address you sent the product too. You might want to include some market research questions as well along the lines of:-
- You paid (whatever price you received for it) was this value for money
-Why did you buy it from me

etc

After all I assume your purchaser didnt receive less than he paid you?

[mjb1]

vxr1 said:

Thanks for your reply . As the competitor that bought off us had it sent to their customers address I could send the customer a letter asking them to let me know if they have received the item? That way I can prove that we did deliver it and let eBay know.
I'm not sure what eBay would do to the customer(our competitor) if we proved that they were lying about it. It really annoys me that sometimes our staff are packing items just to give money back to customers as I'm a very honest person.

It could well be (likely) the end recipient who is pulling the non delivered scam though? Unless you know that your competitors are very dodgy?

[vxr1]

mjb1 said:

It could well be (likely) the end recipient who is pulling the non delivered scam though? Unless you know that your competitors are very dodgy?

No it's the competitors buying off us and sending it to their customer's address. As the competitor has sold out of the item they bought it off us, had it delivered to their customer from us and had a refund from us.

[RRH]

I think I can beat you ALL on this one...

I had a chap buy my product off eBay (designed and manufactured by me, and able to prove it!), copy it, then have me shut down claiming I've infringed HIS intellectual property!

It took three months for eBay to realise what was going on, by which time the market was flooded with similar products from the far east, and it wasn't worth doing anything more with!

[New POD]

Beat them at their own game. Don't put the product in the box. put a photo of the product in the box. state clearly on the advert that it's picture that they are getting.

[bigbubba]

I think some of the problem is that sellers believe that eBay and Paypal have the last word.

VXR1 I would write to the customer (third party) and ask them if it arrived, even go to see them maybe. If they confirm that it did arrive, take the competitor to court, do a small claims. When you win, present this evidence to both eBay and the police.

I also produce an item where there isn't currently a competitor. If my design got ripped off after someone bought it I would sue them for lost sales. I amy not win but it would scare the st out of them.