Potential eBay scam please help

[Micky9776]

Hi all,

I sold a 1 kg silver bar on eBay on Thursday, i posted the item on the Friday and it was delivered and signed for today at 12:31. It was sent via Royal Mail special delivery guaranteed by 1pm. 

So I get a message from buyer today at about 14:14 saying this:

Hello,was your parcel a signed for delivery?im a bit worried as I had a card from the postman that they left 2 parcels outside,but they were not there,I am also waiting for other items,I will contact Royal Mail also.

 

The bar has been delivered and has been signed for but does Anyone know of a scam like this where they will try and keep the bar and get their money back? 

 

Any help/advice on what I should do next will be greatly appreciated as I don’t want to lose a lot of money

 

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

It could be legitimate or it could be a scam. I say it could be legitimate because Royal Mail sometimes isn't as good as they should be with certain items. I regularly have signed for or special delivery items that the post-person signs for themselves and either sticks through my letter box or at least in one case (where it was a valuable delivery of silver) my neighbours post box. This being said as above it could be someone trying to get the item and a refund.

My advice would be to upload the tracking information to eBay if you haven't already. This will give you your coverage. Secondly I would send a message to the buyer asking them to clarify what exactly has happened with an explanation that you will chase it up with Royal Mail yourself (Royal Mail won't deal with the buyer - only the person who paid for the postage). If the claim is that the item says it was delivered but they say they didn't receive it you should ring up Royal Mail and make enquiries. Your tracking information should cover you but it is good for you to do as much work as you can to double check that the item was indeed delivered.

I make my living selling on eBay and have had one person attempt to scam me using this method. Fortunately for me my tracking details and the fact it was a Global Shipping order meant it was eBay's problem and not mine. Fingers crossed you get the seller protection you should in this case.

 

[Roy]

2 minutes ago, AppleZippoandMetronome said:

special delivery items that the post-person signs for themselves and either sticks through my letter box or at least in one case (where it was a valuable delivery of silver) my neighbours post box.

Not special delivery, surely?

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

1 minute ago, Roy said:

Not special delivery, surely?

Sadly, yes. I've lost track of the amount of complaints I've made at this point to the main delivery office. It is all a side effect of the Post Office restructuring where they shut down loads of village post offices. We used to have a small village post office where we had two posties who lived in the village that would sort the mail and deliver it within the village. They knew the village and there was never a problem with mail delivery. When they closed our post office they got rid of the local posties and now our post is delivered from posties based out of a big delivery office in the closest town. There isn't a regular postie and none of them seem to know the area so post constantly gets mis-delivered. They also seem to be in such a rush that they make mistakes. I had a £260 silver order sent special delivery get delivered to a neighbour - the tracking claimed that I had signed for it. I had to go around and knock on doors to find it as there were no clues as to who might have signed for it. Beyond fearing loss of expensive post I run my business from home so there is a real annoyance in certain important post not turning up. The joys of "progress" 🙄

[Roy]

That's disappointing 😕

And surely fraudulent? Signed for?!

[mr-dead]

Get in touch with the local delivery office.

The PDA's record the GPS location at the time of the signature, if the postie was found to have signed for the item himself he will be sacked with no second chances.

Special Delivery items are royal mails most premium product and is tracked and monitored at every step of the process.

 

Also better to ring sooner rather than later as if everything is above board the postie will more likely to remember what happened.

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

Yeah my biggest complaint was that the postman had typed my name in to the machine that either he or my neighbour then signed for. There was no asking for a name - no checking in any way to make sure the address was correct. The complaint was handled badly too as they pretty much passed the buck explaining that if the item couldn't be found I should contact the seller so they could make a claim. I've been re-assured multiple times by a supervisor at the delivery office that they would sort the problem out but it keeps going on. Last time I went on holiday I came back to a pile of letters that were only about half mine. The ones that belonged to neighbours were bills, letters from HMRC, etc...  important stuff that had just sat on my floor for two weeks while I was away. I could go on but you probably get the point by now. It is a shame how bad it has got.

[kimchi]

7 minutes ago, mr-dead said:

Get in touch with the local delivery office.

The PDA's record the GPS location at the time of the signature, if the postie was found to have signed for the item himself he will be sacked with no second chances.

Special Delivery items are royal mails most premium product and is tracked and monitored at every step of the process.

 

Also better to ring sooner rather than later as if everything is above board the postie will more likely to remember what happened.

Spot on. There should be no problems with SD to protect you as the seller/sender given all the safeguards. SD is dealt with very seriously.

[Martlet]

I'd call scam.  It might be possible that a postie would fake a red card then keep the items, but there's still process to be followed for that missing item they'll be investigated.  Special delivery though is another level though with dedicated team to ensure they deliver.  

[mr-dead]

2 minutes ago, Martlet said:

I'd call scam.  It might be possible that a postie would fake a red card then keep the items, but there's still process to be followed for that missing item they'll be investigated.  Special delivery though is another level though with dedicated team to ensure they deliver.  

If it was red carded the special delivery would also be scanned back into the delivery office on his return.

[Fivepoundfred]

One of the problems i have noticed often with Royal Mail special delivery is that the postman does not ask for and enter a full name when items are signed for by the recipient and as a result you never really know who exactly has received the item. 

It seems a little strange that the buyer was asking you if the item was sent signed for, they could easily  track the item themselves to confirm this.

[Micky9776]

Awesome thanks so much guys for the reply’s! I really appreciate it!

i have messaged the buyer asking for as much info as possible and I will ring the bath delivery office tomorrow and try and find out what’s going on.

 

[SILVERFINGER]

If it was special delivery I would say that they would never leave it on a doorstep, it would be more than their job would be worth speaking to our local posty once about signed for items.

It sounds like a scam to me, either stolen by the posty or the buyer being a con artist.

[SILVERFINGER]

Call the buyers bluff by saying you are probably going to contact the police as you are worried about it possibly being stolen.

[Micky9776]

I also think it’s a scam, like @mr-dead has said, if it was red carded they would of signed it back to their depot and not just signed it them self’s and leave it outside. 

 

Again thanks for all the help guys!

[Micky9776]

@SILVERFINGER my thoughts exactly. I have sent her a message asking for a photo of the card that was left and asked her for as much info as possible as I am going to contact Royal Mail and if all fails I will contact the police..let’s see what she comes back with. 

 

Thanks everyone!!

[Xander]

Sounds dodgy. Why would the Postman put a card through the letterbox then leave the package at the front door where it could be stolen? He would have been incriminating himself, especially Special Delivery. 

[AlphaBeast]

Sh1t them up and say you're going to file a report with the police for a missing item. 

[mr-dead]

1 minute ago, AlphaBeast said:

terrible them up and say you're going to file a report with the police for a missing item. 

Dont you just love auto correct.  Its terrible

[AlphaBeast]

4 minutes ago, mr-dead said:

Dont you just love auto correct.  Its terrible

Must be a forum autocorrect! Lol

[Goldhooked]

Ive sent and received hundreds of Special Delivery items through my business and they do not leave them without handing them to a person at the address.  I don’t believe any postman would risk his/her job leaving them unattended.

Smells dodgy to me, particularly seeing as the contents are a high risk scam target.

[Money2Metal]

I had a RM red card the other week and from memory it did have an option for item left in safe space. Though I had to make a 2 hour round trip to our "local" sorting office instead.

[mr-dead]

3 minutes ago, Money2Metal said:

I had a RM red card the other week and from memory it did have an option for item left in safe space. Though I had to make a 2 hour round trip to our "local" sorting office instead.

You cant have special delivery items left in a space space or recorded delivery items.

[Money2Metal]

That does sound fishy then. When you track it on the RM website, can you see who signed for it? I had to do that at work and it provided a screenshot of the signature. I'm pretty sure it was RM. 

[Scuzzle]

I think the Royal Mail deliberately use those machines for signatures and make you use you finger to sign them purely so every signature is totally illegible so they can cut down on claims for missing packages.  Nobody can actually make a fair representation of their actual signature on these machines using their finger it's always just a scrawl.