I love sharing with you fascinating stories of fellow online sellers and this story from Reddit is no exception!

An eBay seller named ssateneth specialized in selling electronics. As he quickly discovered, people are not honest when it comes to pricey items. One of the most common problems electronic sellers face is a dishonest people will already own the same type of electronic however the buyers item is broken. So the evil buyer will purchase the brand new, identical item then “swap” for their damaged item and claim “it doesn’t work! I demand a return and a refund!”

So, to combat this issue ssateneth, who we will call "Sam", began photographing serial numbers… and thankfully, his serial number pic paid off big time!

Around 6 years ago Sam had a $650 computer part purchased. He shipped it to the address on the PayPal transaction, per eBays policy. In this case the address was a Military Base (APO), which was fine. For the sake of easy understanding, let’s call the buyer General Smith (<--- 100% fictitious name.)

So, General Smith contact Sam to claim the expensive part never arrived. Sam checked tracking and, as with the majority of Military Base shipments, the parcel is given to the Military Postal Service by USPS. … then the tracking stopped updating and General Smith took advantage of this by filing a Dispute. Of course PayPal refunded Smith in full and Sam took the loss.

But then things changed….

Sam was able to figure out what General Smiths eBay SELLER account was and guess what General Smith had listed? Yep, sure enough it was a $650 part. But locating the identical part wasn’t enough proof, so Sam cleverly made a new eBay account and messaged General Smith to provide a photo of the back of the part that shows the model number of the item … in addition to the serial number!

General Smith fell right into the trap and quickly sent the images. Sam was able to compare the serial number to the picture he took before shipping the item and it was indeed a match!

Sam then went to police with all of the info and police notified the Military police at General Smith’s base. In under 24 hours Military Police searched General Smiths living quarters and located the part! It was then quickly shipped back to Sam.

But the craziness doesn’t end there. General Smith sent private messages to Sam to berate him for involving the police, in addition to claiming that the whole issue was a “misunderstanding” (yeah friggin’ right!). But regardless of what General Smith claimed, the issue actually IS Mail Fraud! So shortly after General Smith was no longer in the military. Sam guesses he was dishonorably discharged!

LESSONS LEARNED:

• If it has a serial number, whether it’s an electronic, a high end purse or pair of sunglasses, be sure to take a photo of it! 
• Sometimes you have to be your own detective!