I haven't heard a peep from her since. And the money has been unfrozen in PayPal. Result!
Glad it appears to be sorted.
I've been scammed twice now on ebay, both with very similar situations that you've gone through.
The first was when I sold a piece of musical studio gear, a 1 unit rack limiter I think. I bought it, realised I did need it, and just flipped it. My mistake was I used the original sellers description and photos as I'd literally bought it days before - pretty lazy really as it bit me on the arse! The unit never came with a power supply, but anyone who has a load of gear just unplugs one item and plugs another in, it's no big deal. This buyer, after 2 weeks, said it didn't have a power supply, I informed him that the advert never mentions a power supply or has a photo of a power supply, if it did have a power supply it would have been mentioned in the advert. To cut a very long exchange of emails short, he reported me for the item being damaged (which he never mentioned in the first email), PayPal froze my account (in December when I use it the most for Christmas presents), and ebay gave me a stern warning that if I don't refund the money then they will charge me for the sale as well. I fought it with a load of evidence - did f*** all good because the morons at ebay just sided with the buyer. When the item came back it was a clear that he buyer had had a pair of pliers on the rack ears, bending them back so it couldn't be mounted anymore. Thanks ebay!!!!
The second one (funnily enough, at Christmas time again) was for an old, hardly used Canon 10D & kit lens. Came with cards, charger and a few other bits I threw in there. I think all in it sold for less than £100 including £12 shipping. I rushed it to the guy and increased the postal service so that he received it on the 23rd December (last post) rather than it sitting in a cold warehouse over Christmas. On boxing day he tells me that the lens had mildew on it - it did not, it was immaculate. I toldl him to just send it back and I'd give him a full refund as I knew the camera was mint and I knew I could just sell it on again. The guy didn't want to send it back he wanted a partial refund. I knew he was trying it on and I knew that ebay would side with him so I decided to take it on the chin and refund him the entire price of the lens - I think it was about £30 when I looked on replacement lenses on ebay. The guy was furious - he wanted 50% back plus the shipping cost because he felt that I'd charged too much. Not only that, he wanted me to put it into his PayPal account as a separate payment. His ebay account was blocked form leaving any feedback and he didn't have it showing. Turns out when I searched for the guys ebay name he'd done the same thing for other camera gear twice. I ended up refunding half the shipping separately if he cancelled the refund claim with ebay.
(I still keep these people on my ebay sellers list and I check in from time to time to see if they list anything and when they do, I'll be buying and then I'll screw them over just like they screwed me - trouble is, they never list anything!)
If I'm selling anything of value then it's collection only AND cash only. I've had someone mistakingly day me via PayPal who wanted to collect and I refunded them immediately. They did pay in cash as it turned out. The reason you must insist on cash is because they can pay you via PayPal, collect the item from you, then claim the payment back stating they sonnet have the item because there's no proof of postage. Genuine buyers understand this when you tell them the reason and there's no issue for them because they're playing straight. Anyone who comes up with excuses is just trying it on.
I would NEVER buy an iphone or iPad or anything like that unless I can collect (although I did buy an iMac from ebay but I did my homework and checked the seller out fully)
Anything else I sell I always mark the items with a blacklight pen and take photos of the markings, plus the packaging process, so that I have evidence that the item was packaged correctly. Although I go through all this effort, I know that it's probably pointless when dealing with moron ebay employees that can't make the right decision based on factual evidence. It's b******t that you can't leave negative feedback for a buyer and that in reality, its the buyers who win every time - apart for the scammers selling boxes full of books instead of iPhones & iPads!
