BEWARE OF FRAUD with this member

In May I bought a turntable off of Audiogon. Paypal provided me with a USPS tracking number. A few days later the USPS tracker showed me it was delivered to my front door.

Nope.

Contacted my local post office they tell me it the tracking number must be wrong because it involved a delivery to a different address in my town.

Reached out to seller via Audiogon and Paypal. No response. File a complaint with Audiigon and Paypal. I note that while the seller lists his address as new York, New York, the package was shipped from South Carolina.

Audiogon says gee, sorry, contact Paypal, and then immediately sends me a email survey on how well a job did they do in responding to me.  Well, not well at all to say the least.

Paypal denies my claim. Says the seller provided a legitimate tracking number. Go back to my post office. The postmaster looks things over and shows that the package was delivered to another address, but, here's the kicker, the package weighs 9 ounces.

Well guess what. The turntable weighs 22lbs!

Paypal throws in the towel and I get my money back.
It's a fairly creative scam, but yet another thing to watch out for when buying online.

Wouldn't Paypal "Friends and Family" remove the risk of this claw-back scam? The "Friends and Family" option removes the fees - as well as access to the Paypal dispute process that these scammers rely upon. Win-Win.

I think FF opens up a whole other can of worms. Wouldn’t it? 

Here is an elephant for the room…. In the old days, before PP even existed and we paid by postal money order, bank transfer or checks, agon didn’t try to prevent the buyer and seller from talking. What a concept!  Talking when closing in on a deal.  Probably the best, but still not perfect, way of gaining confidence in a deal.  As a buyer, I much prefer to use a service that lets me talk to the seller.  I say boo agon on this!

Friends and Family.. LOL I could hear PP. BUT it was friends and family in Siberia. :-)