Pretty Sure I was Scammed--Not Sure How but Fascinating

Evan,
I had the same thing happen to me about a year ago. It took several attempts haggling with PayPal to get a refund, but I finally did. I talked to USPS and they said this is a common scam. The seller apparently makes a bunch of sales, gets one tracking number which is sent to all of the buyers, but the tracking number is only for a single address. So, someone actually gets a package, but all of the others get screwed. My local USPS office took a photo of the package with the tracking number and someone else's address. I emailed that photo to PayPal and that finally convinced them.
Good luck
Ted
 
ACHiPo said:
Thanks. Misery loves company I guess. The part that really stumps me is the USPS tracking info. I didn't have any packages delivered the day it was supposedly delivered, and no packages before or since with that tracking number. I'm thinking they must have hacked the USPS?
Click to expand...

i have had similar instances on ebay sellers from China claiming that a package was delivered, when no package was delivered.
i believe that they desperately want fast shipping to appease the impatient US buyer.
they claim 90% of shipments land in 12 to 18 days, or something similar.
if it goes beyond those terms, the buyer is antsy, and will leave negative feedback if too much time passes between order and receipt .
to combat this, DHL or whoever is shipping bulk drops loads of packages at the USPS to deliver.
at that point the package was technically delivered(but not to you).
USPS takes a few days to process the to delivery to you, at which point you may have taken actual delivery.
it appears that the shippers have vested interest in claiming fast shipping, their data supports it for most cases!

many times recently, i have had USPS state that a package was delivered on like a, monday but didn't get actual delivery until, let's say, wednesday.
 
I must live right. I have not had a single order that hasn't been delivered. That includes orders from Amazon, e-Bay, and direct from China vendors. Once in a great while, a shipment might be delayed a few days but often shipments come before the stated received by date. As an example, I ordered a trailer coupler at 7PM on 8/28. At 8:11PM on 8/31, I received an email from Amazon stating my package had shipped and it would be delivered on 9/8. An hour before that, I received and email from UPS stating that my package wold be delivered on 9/1, which it was. Living in a rural area and personally knowing the delivery people helps, I'm sure.

I have noticed that some vendors will state that the item has been shipped almost immediately after receiving the order. They reserve a tracking number for the package bu actual transfer to the common carrier may be several days later. I expect that allows them to submit for payment.sooner.
 
The USPS option that some of you have mentioned is "Informed Delivery Digest". It works OK, but not foolproof. For example, just today I received a package from Amazon but did not get the picture of it in my 'Informed Daily Digest".
I am with RJ. I can't think of ever being burned by a delivery. In fact, about two years ago I bought a C-160 Albrecht chuck on eBay. When I got the box it had a hole in the end and the chuck was gone. Emailed the seller and he refunded my money immediately. The next day I went to get my mail and here was an Albrecht chuck in my mailbox with a post-it note from my postal carrier. He said he found it under the seat of his car and figured that of all the people on his route, that chuck must be mine. Love living in a small town. Oh, I did send the seller his refund back to him. He got a kick out of that...
 
In all of the years that I have been buying stuff online I have only had one thing lost in transit. It was logged out of the USPS distribution center in Fresno but never made it to my local post office. I spoke with my local postmaster. Don't know how hard they searched but it was never found. The Ebay seller promptly send me a replacement.
 
I mailed someone my book (from the US to Canada) and after about a month it still hadn't showed, so we agreed that it was apparently lost. There was nothing I could do so I ate the loss and mailed him another, which showed up on schedule. Fast forward six months and I get an email out of the blue, "Your first book just arrived!" All we could figure is that it must have fallen behind a sorting machine or something. We all had a good laugh and he paid for both, giving the second copy to a friend. Sometimes people are just fallible and it's not really anyone's fault, and yes, other times it's all be design.

The only problem I've run into are what I call "criminally lazy" Ebay sellers, who, while they aren't out to scam you exactly, never seem to get around to mailing what you just bought. They do, eventually, but sheez.
 
Tangentially related. I have had several USPS packages that tracked as "delivered" when they were not. They were correctly delivered within the next 48 hours. Seems like the shippers might be scamming the sellers on the actual shipping time?
Robert
 
Recently had an eBay buyer tell me he didn’t receive the package. Tracking says it was delivered. I did some digging and discovered his PayPal name is different than his real name - which I found to be strange after the fact. I suggested that FedEx delivered to another apartment # or building. He opened a resolution case on eBay. I ended up refunding his money $30 and I think he scammed me but I had the eBay Feedback Shivers real bad, so I just refunded his money knowing he probably got something for nothing with this little scheme. I don’t know if there are more shiesters buying or selling out there.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
ACHiPo said:
Thanks. Misery loves company I guess. The part that really stumps me is the USPS tracking info. I didn't have any packages delivered the day it was supposedly delivered, and no packages before or since with that tracking number. I'm thinking they must have hacked the USPS?
Click to expand...
Considering the recent issues we had with UPS and now this?
The hackers are having a field day. I don't think like a crook so I don't understand how they can pull this off.
Check your credit card statements.
I have a business card through work, I noticed a charge for a call forwarding service. We use this type of service but it seemed high.
I called the company, asked them about the account. The guy asked for the business name, my name, business phone number etc. He had no record of our company in his accounts.
He then asked for the credit card number on the statement, actually he asked for the first two and the last four, nope.
I said wait a minute, your company billed my credit card and it's recurring.
He got angry and said it wasn't him or his company. Oh, then I asked what phone number am I paying for? He gave me the number, I called it while he was on the phone. No longer in service. @#$%^&*(
Who's getting this money?
I called the credit card company, they said they would look into it.
Sorry, I got a little excited.
It's rampant, oh and last week, my office manager asked why I enrolled for unemployment???? I didn't.
Scams and hackers are having a ball.
 
I just sold my daughters car for her yesterday. The number of scammers on Craigslist is unreal. I would say that 70% of the inquiries were scammers. Some of them were very sophisticated too. Got an email "from Craigslist" saying that there was an issue with my posting and I would have to re-enter my credit card info. Just for the heck of it, I clicked the link (I have excellent spyware software) and it opened up a credit card input page IDENTICAL to what Craigslist uses. The only clue was the address bar had nothing to do with Craigslist. Just pisses me off, all of these scammers and robo calls from friggin India.
 
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