After 10 years of buying and selling on eBay I finally got caught out this week. :shock:
1. I buy item
2. Item does not arrive after one month
3. I contact Seller
4. Seller says that item was returned to him undelivered and offers to repost
5. I ask if he can send it via a tracked postal service
6. Seller agrees if I pay additional US$7
7. I agree to the US$7 charge
8. He sends email address for Paypal
9. I send US$7 to him via Paypal
10. Seller closes out the issue on eBay by refunding the original payment
11. Seller Keeps US$7
Quite a clever little scam because eBay washes its hands of it because the $7 was not part of the sale on the site...which leaves me having to deal with Paypal. I wonder if this happens often, my first thought when told that the item was returned undelivered was that the seller hadn't actually sent it. I thought I was being cute seeking a trackable delivery method, but he/she was a bit cuter.
Of course the seller has no interest in responding to any communications from me and Paypal is about as useful as, I was going to say a chocolate teapot but that can easily be substituted by eBay.
I'll get the money back by Amex chargeback but it rather defeats the purpose. I suspect Amex will simply credit my account with the US$7 and not worry about the follow up. It will be cheaper than employing resource to chase the $7. The seller gets away with it effectively.