I've had a clearout at home and instead of chucking stuff away I've decided to flog it on ebay. I've sold the first chunk which consisted of 5 items, 4 of which sold without issue. The 5th item which was an ADSL modem/router sold to a user who'd only been active 2 days which I was immediately wary of. Anyway, send the invoice, no reply, send a reminder, no reply, send another, no reply. Try to ring the phone number given, doesn't exist. The address in Cardiff doesn't exist. Definately dodgy, so I report him as a non-paying bidder. All of a sudden he replies saying he sent a postal order the day after the auction ended. In the auction the only payment options listed are Paypal and Cheque, so he hasn't even read the auction details properly. Also the amount he claims to have sent is incorrect too. Someone else seems to have been stiffed by him as well. Are ebay going to take this seriously, is there a human being I can speak to so I can sort this out?

Needless to say this is pissing me off.

is there a human being I can speak to so I can sort this out?


Probably not... but please keep in mind that eBay racks up hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions?) of transactions a day, and they simply cannot track each one on a personal basis.

There are procedures for reporting fraud, but as you have found out, the wheels grind slowly.

At least you didn't send him the item before finding out about him...

tanstaafl.