USA, Ebay fraud by wire transfer

[troutlet]

Hi everyone. I searched this forum before posting and found some threads about Ebay fraud but none seemed to provide quite the info that I was looking for.

29 days ago I won an Ebay auction from a seller with good feedback. The auction was for a $3,000 boat motor. At first the seller was very responsive and we arranged for a wire transfer (bank to bank) for the total amount. I continued to receive emails from this person as he first baited me in and then stalled my efforts to aquire more info about my purchase. The seller is also in the US but in California.

At the present time I have found others that were defrauded by this person and the bad feedback is now starting to show up. Ebay claims it was identity fraud but of course they can do nothing to help me.

I'm not sure what my next move is. Should I contact the banks? If so what can I say to encourage them to give me information?

Should I file a police report? If so should I do it in my town or his (other side of the country).

Should I try to hire someone to assist me with this? It is $3,000 which is alot of money to me but I do not want to end up out even more.

Thank you all very much for ANY insight or advice on how to handle this.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Hiring an investigator is a lot of money and probably more than you lost. My advice is that if the seller is cagey about info, never ever go through with the deal as chances are that it is too good to be true. Wire transfers are also make me nervous and are a frequent sign of a need to be doubly careful. But I'm sorry for you that this has happened.

You will likely need to file suit and get a subpoena to get the bank information but it doesn't hurt to call up the bank and hear from them what they can do for you or what help they can provide. You should report this to authorities in the part of the country where this person is located. It is possible also that the local police department there may have prior experience in dealing with this person.

Filing suit can be problematic here as you have a geographic issue to deal with, you may have trouble locating the person, and we haven't talked about trying to execute on a potential judgment.

Originally posted by troutlet
Hi everyone. I searched this forum before posting and found some threads about Ebay fraud but none seemed to provide quite the info that I was looking for.

29 days ago I won an Ebay auction from a seller with good feedback. The auction was for a $3,000 boat motor. At first the seller was very responsive and we arranged for a wire transfer (bank to bank) for the total amount. I continued to receive emails from this person as he first baited me in and then stalled my efforts to aquire more info about my purchase. The seller is also in the US but in California.

At the present time I have found others that were defrauded by this person and the bad feedback is now starting to show up. Ebay claims it was identity fraud but of course they can do nothing to help me.

I'm not sure what my next move is. Should I contact the banks? If so what can I say to encourage them to give me information?

Should I file a police report? If so should I do it in my town or his (other side of the country).

Should I try to hire someone to assist me with this? It is $3,000 which is alot of money to me but I do not want to end up out even more.

Thank you all very much for ANY insight or advice on how to handle this.