"Suspicious Buyer" Notice a MONTH After Shipping

[Amatino]

TL:DR eBay removed a “suspicious buyer” listing a month after it was shipped. Now I can’t find any tracking or sales info, in case I have to dispute a case with PayPal.

Long version:
eBay sent me this email yesterday (particulars removed by me for interwebz privacy):

“We had to cancel bids for the buyer, l********c, because they aren’t registered on eBay:
18******0 – ****item info******

We’ve also made it easy to relist your item if it was removed. Although the item is no longer available in search listings, you will find it in the Sold section of My eBay. For more information, please visit: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/relist.html

To help you avoid this situation in the future, consider setting a Buy It Now price and requiring buyers to make an immediate payment. For more information on immediate payments, visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html

We recommend you take the following actions if this buyer won the item:
– If you haven’t received payment, don’t complete the sale or send the item to the buyer.
– Don’t communicate with the buyer directly.
– Verify any payments you’ve been notified of by logging into your PayPal account (or other online payment service).
– If the buyer requests a refund or additional payments, don’t send any money without contacting eBay first.
– If you’ve already sent the item, try contacting the shipping carrier to find out if you can stop shipment.

In these types of situations, we may, at our sole discretion, decide whether to credit the fees for removed listings.
– We have credited all associated fees except for the final value fee for your listing(s).

If you have any concerns or questions, click “Help & Contact” at the top of most eBay pages.

We’re sorry for this inconvenience, and thanks for continuing to work with us.”

ALL my listings have immediate payment required, but this buyer sent me an offer, that I accepted, which went into Unpaid Item and then was paid. I checked my PP to ensure money in, as always, and shipped it out within one business day, per standard practice. This was all done at the end of January. Feb 28 I get the email from eBay.

Now they have removed EVERYTHING to do with this buyer. My listing has disappeared, it’s not showing up in my Sold items, it’s not on my Shipping page. Nada!

Something seemed a little hinky with the shipping address, so I put “Sig Required” on the shipment. The last time I checked, it was still in transit, but now I can’t even check it.

Has anyone ever encountered this before? Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

I sold an item and shipped it the next morning
then got an ebay from ebay saying they cancelled the sale — same deal as you

I called and tolds ebay I already shipped and the buyer paid – I see the funds in paypal.

The listing image is gone and the links to it fail.

In my ALL ORDERS page .. the mage is listing but the title is there, but much data has been deleted.

ebay does not know why

They acted surprised that it was paid for.

Tracking shows delivered .. I cannot give the buyer feedback

very odd… but so far so good It’s a $25 sale

[Inglewood]

I don’t know if this works all the time, but I had a “Suspicious Buyer” in January.

I had already shipped the item…however, I decided to cancel the label (I buy my labels through PayPal – not sure if other services offer the same option) to see what would happen.

What happened was:
-PayPal gave me all the money (original item cost and shipping) as I had shipped the item and loaded tracking information
-the item was returned by the Post Office for having invalid postage. No cost to me.
-the postage I paid for was also refunded by the Post Office once the cancellation request cleared.

So, I was paid for an item, plus shipping, and got to keep the item (since it was returned). Usually I’m out on these situations, so I was happy (and kept quiet) about getting something for nothing back from eBay/PayPal for once.

[Amatino]

It dawned on me (I’m a slow dawner!) that the buyer paid through PayPal and PP often has tracking info. Indeed, they did and I was able to use the tracking number to get the delivery status (delivered) and request a proof of delivery email, bc I’d included SigReq in my postage.

As I have the original automatically-generated emails of purchase and payment, and the tracking info with proof of delivery, I should be covered.

This begs the question, though… how does someone go through the eBay system if they’re not registered on eBay?

[Jay]

People can purchase as a “guest” without an eBay ID. This is why sometimes buyers have weird, gobblygook names.

[Author]

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