I got defrauded!

Well for the first time I won something on eBay, paid for it, and it never arrived.

I paid immediately upon winning the item by bank deposit as that was the only method the seller accepted. Bank deposit seemed like a reasonably safe payment method as it is traceable.

Within a week the item hadn't arrived and other people who also won the same auction (it was a multiple listing) had already given the seller a negative rating. About this time eBay sent me a generic email warning me that I may have received a fraudulant offer from this seller.

Then they sent another generic email saying the auction had been cancelled and the result was null and void. Here's a quote from it:

"eBay has cancelled all bids or offers on this listing and you no longer have any obligation to purchase the item. If the seller chooses to relist the item, you're welcome to bid on it again."

Not much use after the auction ended, eBay. And removing the listing also removed my record of the seller, their contact details and any of eBay's dispute resolution channels (not that they would help anyway).

I notice the seller has also been deregistered.

In eBay's help pages they suggest reporting these incidents with the police. eBay have not made this easy as they have removed the listing, and will not provide contact details because I cannot provide a valid listing number. All I have is the seller's user name, the listing number and the bank account details.

I have sent eBay a question about what they can do to help.

Will report updates here if anything actually happens.