'I was tricked by a scammer into posting a parcel to the wrong address'

The reader was told by eBay that they could send the item to a different address

Five months ago, I sold a camera and equipment on eBay, for which I received £629 through PayPal.

Before posting the items I received an email saying, “Hi, I’m sorry, I bought the goods as a gift to my son, but did forget to change the delivery address, could you send these to [him] thanks. Here is the right address, sorry for my mistake.”

I contacted eBay to inquire if this was OK. It clearly said it was. I arranged for a carrier to deliver the items. Then I had an email from PayPal to say it had received a claim of unauthorised payment and could I send any relevant information. This I did.

It told me it would investigate the matter. The next message stated, “The disputed amount has been debited from your account because the item was not posted to the address provided on the transaction details.”

IP, Devon

When things went wrong, PayPal had suggested you approach eBay, which had told you in the first place that you could send the purchases to a different address.

The person you thought you were selling to then wrote that his email had been hacked, along with the eBay account. He said he knew no one in the location the parcels had gone to and he does not have a son.

You tried and tried to deal with eBay, without success. Shortly after all this, your mother died and you had more important things to think about.

PayPal’s spokesman said: “We have looked into Mr P’s case and unfortunately it appears he has fallen victim to a scam. The buyer’s account appears to have been compromised and then used to buy Mr P’s camera. The scammer tricked Mr P into sending his camera to a different address, thereby invalidating his seller protection cover.

“As a goodwill gesture, we have issued a full refund to Mr P.”

I went back to eBay. It now said that, as it had approved the address change and the parcels had been tracked, you would have been covered by its money-back guarantee had the buyer opened the case through eBay.

However, the buyer had filed a claim with PayPal. “The decision to refund the buyer came from the payment provider and not eBay,” its spokesman said. How the buyer proceeded with the complaint was, of course, beyond your control.