Ebay Scam 2 - buyer marked payment as sent but an hour glass is there

Sometimes this is accompanied with a fake email apparently from paypal as well saying payment has been made. Action to take to avoid being ripped off:

The first thing to do is to check your paypal account to make sure payment is in there and has cleared before sending the item to them. Do not send anything until payment is cleared and you can see it in your paypal account. Let the buyer know there is an issue with the payment, that you don't know yet what the issue is but will update them asap.

A buyer can easily click "mark payment as sent" from their ebay account and send a fake email.

Check with the buyer to see what form of payment has been made as nothing has reached you and that you will not send the item until all funds are cleared.

If you have already sent the item all is not lost, contact the royal mail or courier company and explain the situation especially if you have sent it by tracking method. They will often return the item to you.

If you have sent the item off and you only have proof of posting then it's a little more difficult though not impossible. Firstly mark the item as not dispatched on ebay and not paid. (you have to first mark it as paid to be able to mark it as unpaid) . Chase up the buyer for the payment through the normal ebay channels, you never know they may quickly pay you and all is well again.

If this doesn't work then the next step is debt collection or fraud squad. You can also let your buyer know quickly that the paypal email was fraud and you are reporting them to fraud squad. Don't at any stage mention that you have sent the item as once they think the item has been sent they won't care.

Naturally you should also report this to ebay themselves, mention that the buyer has marked the item as paid, and that you have received a fake email apparently as well as taking money out of sellers they can also do it to the buyers but act quickly don't hang about otherwise you could lose out.