Haven't Received Your Item? Fraud Issues With A Seller?
Use these links only after exhausting all other possible means of contacting your seller and working things out. Pay special attention to deadline dates involved with the various steps.

First try giving your seller a quick FRIENDLY phone call.
This may clear up many misunderstandings.
To Request User Contact Info Click Here.
You will need to supply their User ID and the Auction #.

If your Seller is *Not A Registered User*, you can click on this
online webform to contact Customer Support and request your seller's contact info through that. Please specify your ID, Your Seller's ID, the auction number and the fact that your seller is now NARU when requesting their contact info. You will not be given their contact info unless you can supply these details.

File A Non-Shipping Seller Report With eBay

eBay Fraud Protection and Claims Process
eBay Fraud ReportingForm

Didn't Get What You Ordered? (USPS)

The FTC's Mail or Telephone Merchandise Order Rule
(above also applies to merchandise ordered by computer)
It does not matter how the merchandise is advertised, how the customer pays, or who initiates the contact.

Postal inspectors investigate any crime in which the U.S. Mail is used to further a scheme, whether it originated in the mail, by telephone or on the Internet. The use of the U.S. Mail is what makes it a mail fraud issue (a federal offense).
Form To File A Mail Fraud Complaint

The FTC's Guide to E-Commerce & The Internet
This important site is the motherlode of everything you ever wanted or needed to know about doing any kind of business on the Internet, in easy to understand language. I encourage you to protect yourself and take the time to check out this most interesting site.

Internet Fraud Complaint Center
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).

IFCC's mission is to address fraud committed over the Internet. For victims of Internet fraud, IFCC provides a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of a suspected criminal or civil violation. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at all levels, IFCC offers a central repository for complaints related to Internet fraud, works to quantify fraud patterns, and provides timely statistical data of current fraud trends.

Filing An eBay Fraud Claim vs. Filing For An eBay Insurance Claim

eBay Fraud reports and eBay insurance are two separate processes. While the requirements for an insurance claim specifically address issues like feedback, time limitations, and include a deductible of $25.00, none of these apply to a Fraud complaint. A Fraud complaint is just that, a complaint about a seller not sending an item that has been paid for, or sending one that is not as described in the auction listing. eBay has no way to know that a transaction did not go as it should, unless someone reports it. Fraud is Fraud whether it is for a 99 cent auction or a $10,000.00+ auction.

Leaving Negative Feedback vs. Filing A Non-Shipping Seller Report

There is a big difference between leaving Negative Feedback for a Seller and Filing a Non-Shipping Seller Report. These are two separate actions, with two distinct purposes. Feedback is merely your comment to the eBay Community at large about your experience dealing with that particular Seller (or Buyer) and that particular transaction. It only serves the purpose to document both the good and the bad so that if a future buyer or Seller is considering entering a transaction, they have the ability to read the feedback and try to determine if there are any patterns or trends (good or bad) that seem to follow that user. If a prosepctive trading partner reads the feedback, they can decide for themselves how comfortable they feel enterng a transaction with this eBayer. eBay does not take action based on negative feedback alone until a users TOTAL feedback number (positive + neutrals + negatives) equals (-4).
On the Other Hand, if a Non-Shipping Seller Report is filed with eBay, eBay will investigate the report. Disciplinary action may result in the indefinite suspension of a user's account, temporary suspension, or a formal warning. eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged offense and the user's trading records before taking action. As a general rule of thumb, once a Seller has three Non-Shipping Seller Reports Filed against them by three different buyers, that Seller will be suspended.
File appropriate negative feedback to warn other, future auction partners, but also make sure to file that Non-Shipping Seller Report in order to help stop a truly bad Seller before too many more people get burned. If the transaction is later satifactorily resolved, you can always contact Safe Harbor and ask for your Report to be removed from your Seller's record at that time. Neg feedback, once left can not be changed or removed except for very precise reasons - and resolving your problem is not one of them. You want to make sure that if you leave neg feedback that your transaction is not salvagable in any further way and that all attempts to come to a mutual agreeable solution have been tried and failed.

Other Actions You Can Try To Recoup Your Lost Payment

If you paid by Credit Card, contact your credit card company immediately. Your credit card company may be able to issue a chargeback on the funds.

If you paid by personal check or cashiers's check, contact your bank. There still may be time to issue a Stop Payment Order on the outstanding check.

If you paid by Money Order (except postal money orders), contact the issuing agency. They may be able to stop payment. You can not issue a Stop Payment Order on a Postal Money Order.

If you paid by PayPal, Click Here and contact PayPal. They may be able to help you out. No guarantees, but it is worth a try.

If you paid by eBay Payments (Billpoint), Click Here and contact them. They may be able to help you out. No guarantees, but it is worth a try.

As a last resort, if you have a name and address for your seller, file a complaint with their local law enforcement agency. *A check (if it fails) can be processed by the issuer's local DA who issues a bench warrant. Then, if the person is ever stopped (driving), it is on the National CIC computer. Then it's like on "Cops;" out come the handcuffs and they are told "you have a warrant!" If they ever try to get credit, it's on there too, or anything using the credit bureaus such as would be accessed if they try to get a different job. To get it removed, they are required to pay you all reasonable fees and back interest.* (*©2000-2002 Air America)

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