In Germany there’s this thing called Kleinanzeige. It’s like running adverts in a newspaper, but for everyone.
When I want to buy something, I do some research, set a limit, compare prices and see if there are any offers on Kleinanzeige. I’ve never had a bad experience on Kleinanzeige. When I find something, I write a message to the seller, make an offer or just pay. Cheap as I am, I usually pay with PayPal Friends. No fees on either side, but there’s a risk. I never gave it much thought.
My usual “verification” is a profile that’s at least 1 year old, has a name other than “Privat”, has some products on sale, badges about their behavior on the platform and to other users. It seems this is not a very good way (anymore), but at least takes away some risk.
Recently though, there was an article that came out 2 years ago with a price of €800. On Kleinanzeige all kinds of offers ranging in price from € 300 to € 800. So I set my limit to about €500 and went searching. I’ve bought items for this price before with the same discount, but something about this item seemed to attract a lot of scammers. And after a good few attempts and notifications to Kleinanzeige (where all of them got banned, restricted, or had their offers removed) I found one that was okay. I decided to make use of Kleinanzeige’s Käuferschutz (Buyer Protection), because at this point I was very sceptic.
So the seller accepts my offer (about € 500 plus shipping and a protection fee of around € 25) and sends the package. I get a tracking code and the package is succesfully picked up according to DHL. I wait. After 1 day the package is being returned to the seller. The seller acts kind and notifies me of this and asks if I did that. I say no and they offer to re-send the package with no additional costs. The package arrives and the seller tells me “he gave it straight back” and sends me another tracking code. By this point I’m still scepticle. Kleinanzeige shows “package delivered,” but does not know of the new tracking code. I decide to accept all and just go along, as I’m protected anyway. So I wait again. The seller stays positive and sends a nice reminder.
At this point I’m waiting, but I’ve notified both Kleinanzeige as well as DHL.
I’ll update as soon as the package arrives and will make a video and photos of the package before I open it. I’ve already screenshotted all communications.
Worst case, I’m out € 25. And the scammer gets his € 500, if he claims the package was filled before it was picked up?
Update
Turns out the seller had the wrong price for sending the package. Only paid for 2 kg for a package well above that weight. So the package arrived and all is well.
DHL replies with the same information as the labels on the package, so that’s good.
Kleinanzeige replied simply by saying I should enter the “I have a problem” case within 14 days and they’ll take over… Not sure what the next step would be.
All in all I was lucky not to have met scammer this time, but this search has made me aware of some issues with online selling / buying at Kleinanzeige.
Gone are the days of happy naivety?