I haven’t sold very many things on Ebay. I run a DJ company and had a brand new Pioneer DJ CD player that sells for over $1000 that I wanted to sell on Ebay. I went through the process of selling it and the winning bidder (who had very low feedback) payed me very quickly via paypal. The address the person gave me was for her son in Nigeria. Yes, I know Nigeria I should have known, but I was naive and trusted this person. Plus, I had seen on the Paypal website that they have up to $1000 – $2000 of seller protection. So I figured if it was a scam, then I was covered.

So I received the money and went ahead and deposited it into my checking account via Paypal direct deposit. Then all of sudden after I shipped it the buyer filed a claim against me saying that I didn’t ship it…

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I was contacted by Paypal and provided documentation of me shipping it to the address that she gave to me. They told me that since it wasn’t a Paypal verified address that I was out of luck and out of my $1100 that I sold it for. I tried calling the USPS and stopping the shipment, but it was gone already. So I was out of luck.

After a month or two of fighting with Paypal and not wanting to pay them they sent my claim to a collection agency. So I kind of had to pay it at that time or my credit would have been tainted. I ended up paying the $1100 and change to the collection agency via my credit card. I figured that my next line of defense was my credit card company. So after I paid on my credit card I contacted my credit card company and explained to them what happened. They sent me some forms to fill out and I sent them all the proof that I had that I had gotten scammed. They sent me information back saying that they talked to the collection agency and they couldn’t help me with my claim.

So now I’m out the $1100 which I could really use and I don’t really know where else to turn. I know I made a bad judgment call by shipping to Nigeria, but at the same time I would have never done that if I knew I didn’t have any type of protection from Paypal or my credit card company.

If you have any ideas as to how I can get this money back could you please help?

– Evan

Sorry Evan, you’re screwed. Paypal seller protection only works when selling to a verified address. Whenever we sell, we only sell to US, Canada, and UK, require paypal, and make it known that we will only ship to a verified address. Only then will you qualify for seller protection, and for big ticket items like yours, you need to require signature confirmation as well. Consider it a hard lesson learrned, pay your bill, and move on. Next time, a good rule of thumb is, if it involves Nigeria, it’s probably a scam. Those advance fee scams filling your email where you deposit $40,000 in gold bullion and send the princess the difference ? That’s also called the “Nigerian 419 Scam.” Nigeria = Scamopolia. Stay away. — BEN POPKEN

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