How to use "Online Stalker" Techniques to Get Your Unshipped eBay Item

If you’ve used eBay to any extensive degree, you’ve surely come across some un-delivered items, or at least purchases that take forever to arrive.

It’s vexing from every direction: you paid swiftly with Paypal, and now it’s three weeks later and you’re wondering where in heck your item is. Everything else you’d paid for around that time has already delivered – and then you check the feedback ratings for the deadbeat seller, and you find a string of recent negative comments (“item never shipped“, “no response to emails“, etc.)

You could use the standard method of filing a complaint through the eBay/Paypal “non-delivered item” resolution center method…but that – again – takes additional weeks to reach any satisfactory conclusion. The often lamented structure of Paypal fees does indeed provide valuable “insurance” in the event of a seller fail…but who needs the lengthy agony of a transaction in limbo when the key to your own superior vigilante effort is the internet itself.

Here’s what you do:

1. Get the name & location of your seller. The eBay listing for the item will give you the seller’s location (city & state), but you’ll want to return to the actual listing for your won item, and then click on ‘View PayPal transaction for this item’. You’ll be re-directed to Paypal… so log in, and then scroll down to ‘Payment to:’ in the Paypal transaction detail. There you’ll find the seller’s full name and their email address (very useful).
2. Google them. They have your money – and you want your item. Many times it’s not a huge amount of funds involved…but the item itself is endlessly valuable to you. So, if you google search the seller’s full name, city, and state…you will very likely find some leads. Don’t hesitate to phone them, or use your other newly discovered channels of contact (blogs, twitter, etc)
3. Myspace and Facebook are your friends. Another great thing about web 2.0 and the current social networking phenom is that pretty much everyone has made themselves a very search-able web presence. If the seller doesn’t respond to your message swiftly, you can also politely (but insistently) trouble their friends and family to help resolve the matter.

I once had an eBay experience where I (gasp!) paid via money order for an item that cost $135. I googled not only the seller’s name and particulars, but also sought their immediate, nearby relatives. Long story short: after many unanswered emails, I phoned the seller’s mother…at her work. She was easily found via google results (thanks to her employer’s website), and she promptly mailed me a cheque for refund in full, with the explanation that her son had “left the country”.