Frustrated with New Castle Delaware Scam/Paypal siding with Buyer

[Mharvey]

Hello All, 

 I just wanted to put out yet another warning on the New Castle Delaware scams that have been going around for almost 8 years now.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know about this until I sold a phone on Ebay on October 13th, 2018.  The buyer paid through Paypal immediately after confirming the IMEI number on the phone and I shipped it out (with delivery confirmation/signature required).  The listing clearly stated US sales only, but that apparently only matters to the seller. The buyer’s communication was in broken English, but I didn’t give it a second thought as the shipping address was McCullough Drive in New Castle Delaware.  Well, 3 days after shipping, we get an email that they want to return it because it doesn’t work.  This was my personal phone that I used up until just a couple of days before selling it, when I upgraded to a new model, and it still looked and functioned as new.  After looking into it, they had filed a Paypal dispute before ever contacting us which already threw up red flags to me.  I googled the address which led me here and to many other websites where this has shown up as a problem.  The phone was sold under my wife’s Ebay account, and she has over 500 positive feedback (0 negative) over the last 12 years, also with no Paypal disputes before.  She had responded to the dispute before we google the address, and as luck would have it, they sided with the buyer.  So Paypal doesn’t seem to want to help, and now they say we need to send $400 back to the buyer after they return the phone.  I’ve read numerous posts on multiple message boards that we will probably receive a “brick” phone in the mail if there is a phone in it at all,  but that since there will be a tracking number associated with it, Paypal will demand the refund upon delivery.  Is there any way that I can protect myself on this transaction?  I can easily video myself opening the box whenever it returns, but then I’ve read where this still didn’t help as it still came down to one person’s word against the other.  It’s very disheartening that EBay nor Paypal seem to want to look into these scams any further than the person’s username.  If you check the address I shipped to, there are currently 41 residents there, which should at least warrant someone looking a little deeper but I get the feeling that they just don’t seem to care at this point, as the money isn’t being lost by them. It’s obvious that this is a re-shipper with this many residents. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as this is a first for me or my wife and I’m not sure if there are really any options.  Thanks for your time. 

[Mharvey]

Well, as luck would have it...we received a tracking number for the return of our phone today....The tracking information states that it is being sent back to us from Indiana!   Does no one at Paypal pay attention to these things???   Why would they even accept this as a return on our product when it’s not even coming from the same state?  I’m completely sure now that we are not even going to receive our actual phone, it’s just a waiting game to see what shows up at this point. Then it will be up to us to appeal and to wait for Paypal to draft our account for the money.  This is just one big nightmare with no positive end in sight...

[Mharvey]

Just trying to keep up the flow of information, hoping that this will help out someone else should they ever find themselves in this situation.  After some internet investigation tonight, my wife discovered that the fraudulent buyer has bought some “tree air fresheners” like you use in your car, and that is what is being shipped to our house instead of my IPhone 7 Plus.  We even called the Ebay vendor that sold our fraud the air fresheners and they were gracious enough to send us an email copy of the invoice showing his username and email address, but with our mailing address.  We have called Paypal back to see if we could send them the invoice and help this case along, but the answer was no, that we just need to wait until the package arrives and then send them a message that it’s not our phone.  We already know it’s not our phone because the tracking number from the auto parts store matches the tracking number the fraudulent buyer sent Paypal.  It really doesn’t take a Private Investigator to look into these things to figure them out.  I just don’t understand how a business gets so big that it ignores fraud and becomes complicit in letting it happen.  But it appears that this is the Paypal business model.

[Clvlnd]

Hello, I’m currently in the same situation you were. I shipped an iphone to the same address. They said it wasn’t delivered then claimed it was broken and wanted their money back. PayPal has sided with the buyer for now and told them to ship the phone back to me. I called PayPal to alert them of this scam and they didn’t have much interest. They say if they don’t actually send me the phone I will be able to dispute their claim, but I’m nervous they won’t. How did your situation end up?? Is there anything I can do here?

[Mharvey]

Unfortunately it took weeks to remedy this situation, and probably more hours of work and phone calls than it was worth.  We ended up getting the package in the mail just as I described above, and immediately knew it wasn’t my phone as it was just a flat envelope with a tracking number.  Once again I called Paypal (this was probably the 9th or 10th time) and they told me to take the envelope to the local police station and open it in front of them.  Then, when it wasn’t my phone, the police had to fill out a report for theft by deception that I had to submit to Paypal.  I’d say by the time it was over, I had probably 15 hours worth of phone calls, and trips to the PD department to get it all settled.  It also took about 4 weeks from start to finish to get my money back.  In the end, I was refunded the sale price but the “buyer” also had gotten his money back and got to keep my phone.  PayPal’s fraud protection insurance was what reimbursed my funds, so it cost Paypal $400 out of their insurance.  It just looks to me like they would have used some of the information that I gave them to stop the refund to the “buyer” but they just don’t even seem to care. I guess at this point they’re making enough money that paying out off of their fraud insurance doesn’t bother them. 

[Mharvey]

Also, unfortunately, this situation pulled the $400 out of our account until the dispute was settled.  I got my money back, but my wife’s Paypal account was short the $400 until it was refunded by the insurance. 

[Clvlnd]

Really appreciate the feedback here. The shipment is on its was back to me now... I shipped the phone to NJ but the return is coming from CA. Frustrating that this is so clearly a scam but PayPal isn’t interested in hearing it. They keep telling me I can just tell them that the returned item isn’t my phone and they will side with me. Needless to say, I’m skeptical.

[Mharvey]

I hope for your sake they take your word for it. It seemed like they weren’t just going to accept it from us even though the evidence of the scam was just growing. When we opened our return package in front of the police and they created the report, I had decided that was the last thing I was doing. If they hadn’t issued the refund after that, I was tired of jumping through hoops and was just ready to accept defeat. Please let me know how this turns out and I wish you the best.

[mnmlod]

Wow! I just dealt with this exact same issue. Everything was the same except I received a rubber gasket for a Ford Truck as my return. I had to jump through all of the same hoops....multiple phone calls, police reports. I even had death threats from the buyer to call PayPal and have " his " money released while PayPal investigated the claim. Originally, they sided with the buyer even with photographic evidence. I then wrote a letter telling them that I was closing my account and telling everyone that I knew to do the same. I received another email from PayPal saying that they were reopening my claim and I was to have an affadavit notorized and sent in with my photographs for further review. A fw days later...SUCCESS. I'm not sure who paid the money back to me though whether it be insurance or the actual buyer. I'm hoping it was the buyer. My next step was to take the IMEI# and report it as stolen to brick the phone. Which also gave me an idea to actually send something really heavy, like bricks to the address because the buyer pays per KG to have his items shipped back to, in my case, Georgia. 

[Mharvey]

That’s awesome that you got your refund, but it’s completely unbelievable to me that Paypal doesn’t recognize the issue and that they just keep letting it happen.  It has burned me from using EBay to sell anything as it’s full of these scammers and Paypal always seems to side with the buyer every time regardless of the proof.  I applaud you for thinking about reporting the IMEI# stolen, that was brilliant!  Between my wife and I, we had become so tired of the whole ordeal that we never even thought of doing that.  That’s also a great idea to send them some bricks, lol.  The satisfaction of knowing that they’re paying good money for nothing at least gives a little personal satisfaction.