Scam Buyer Lessons Learned: Hawaiian Punch
This article series analyzes real experiences fighting scammers
You have no doubt heard the phrase “There is no substitute for experience.” Some aspects of the hobby game/comic/video/collectible market are absolutely like this, and that led me to create the Scam Buyer Lessons Learned series of articles that are exclusive to paid subscribers.
Last time around, we talked about an international sale of a Spectral Tiger where the buyer redeemed the code and then abused the eBay returns system to get a refund out of me. If you’re a paid subscriber you got to learn the thrilling ending and, I would hope, incorporated that information into your process logic. There were specific things I had to do and did to resolve the situation with a less-awful outcome than the obvious one you’d expect.
This time around it was a little bit different. I sold a case of Dungeons & Dragons Waterdeep/Mad-Mage painted miniatures from Wizkids to a buyer in Hawaii. The buyer received the items. And then the buyer decided that she wanted the money too.
And eBay obliged her. At our expense.
Wait. What.
Sooooo. How did this happen and what did we learn from this? Read on!