ebay Fruad - how to they make money?

[Ranger 6]

So, process as follows...

• Sold a mobile on ebay - invoice sent to account registered in London
• Chap can't type english very well and has Eastern European name
• Asks to delay payment by a day as he's short of money in his account
• Pays following a prompt the next day.... but suddenly it's a Norfolk address which has been verified in Paypal

• Alarm bells start rining so I google the Norfolk address - it's a Butchers shop and a quick phone call gives me the info that no-one has bought a phone from ebay and the boss was very bemused but totally helpful.

So my guess is that I would've sent the phone to Norfolk - they would've been very confused - buyer would've claimed the money back through paypal - but where's the profit/scam? I get my phone sent back by the Post Office and they get their money back - all square???? or am I missing the blindingly obvious?

[Mojooo]

Ranger 6 said:

So, process as follows...

• Sold a mobile on ebay - invoice sent to account registered in London
• Chap can't type english very well and has Eastern European name
• Asks to delay payment by a day as he's short of money in his account
• Pays following a prompt the next day.... but suddenly it's a Norfolk address which has been verified in Paypal

• Alarm bells start rining so I google the Norfolk address - it's a Butchers shop and a quick phone call gives me the info that no-one has bought a phone from ebay and the boss was very bemused but totally helpful.

So my guess is that I would've sent the phone to Norfolk - they would've been very confused - buyer would've claimed the money back through paypal - but where's the profit/scam? I get my phone sent back by the Post Office and they get their money back - all square???? or am I missing the blindingly obvious?

Maybe the Paypal account was hijacked and he would have asked you to send the phone in London?

He gets the phone and someone in Norfolk loses their dough.

[Ranger 6]

Well, more digging shows the original London address as being a company in Bow - the delivery address in Norfolk is probably a stolen/cloned credit card so they pay from paypal/credit card then withdraw the money to an account and that's it the stolen credit card gets the bill and the refunded money goes into a differnt account.

Ebay have been completely useless:

• the first call 'it's up to you if you cancel the transaction, but you could be reported as a non-selling seller...'
• the second was slightly better
• the third ignored what I said and asked if I'd tried to contact the seller about a mistake in the address....' - how the f*ck would you have a verified Paypal account if there was a mistake in the address which meant they were over a hundred miles apart?