Sorry this is so long...I'm not good at condensing my words! But anyway...I can't believe I was so dumb. I responded to a marketplace posting on Christmas Eve. I asked if the seller was willing to ship the item. She responded the next day when I was right in the middle of my family's Christmas celebration, so I was admittedly distracted. She asked for my zip so she could quote shipping, and she did. I didn't really have a chance to respond yay or nay until later that evening when I got home, and when I tried to reply that I did want the item, the message wouldn't send. I tried several times, but kept getting the same error message. I couldn't even seem to get back to the original posting or view the seller's profile. I finally gave up, figuring maybe she had sold it to someone who responded quicker than I did, and had deleted the post. So I went to bed.
The next morning, I had an idea; my phone has been really full and I had taken lots of pics at my parents' house of the kids. So I thought maybe that was the problem, and cleared a bunch of stuff out. It then let me send a message...I apologized for the delay and said I was still interested if the item was still available. I didn't hear back for several days. Wednesday she messaged back and said that HER messenger had been screwy for a couple of days and apologized, and said yes, the item was available. I asked if she took PayPal, and she said no, she doesn't have PayPal, but I should be able to pay through FB messenger and use PayPal. I went in and figured it out, however when it gave me the option to use PayPal it said there would be fees, so since it just let me pay with a debit card without going through PayPal, I did. (Apparently, this is called MetaPay?) I probably would have been more circumspect about this, but during this conversation, I was running errands and driving around, and I just wanted the transaction over with. Stupid!! She said she would most likely mail it out the following day at lunchtime.
That would have been Thursday. I know it hasn't even been a week, but I just got a nagging bad feeling even the next day about the transaction. She never messaged to say she had sent the item out, or gave a tracking number or anything. I figured I'd give her a couple of days; it was a holiday week. But then yesterday I decided to message her asking if there was a tracking number, and I just got an error message again, just like I did on Christmas night.
I'm a little freaked out that I can't get ahold of this person. I'm not really buying the 'my phone is messed up' excuse a second time. I admit that I'm completely new to buying and selling online, and I probably should have vetted this person out a little more before blindly buying from her. I'm also very inexperienced on the workings of Facebook, as I do not use it on a regular basis as a social network, only the occasional marketplace transaction (up until now, only local cash transactions), and I don't even have the Facebook app; I only access it through my phone's browser. I'm also a little worried, because I gave this person my address...not sure if she could use that as a verification somewhere to get more money out of my account...I did check my bank account and while the amount for the transaction came out as expected, there is no other suspicious activity.
Do I have any recourse at all, through MetaPay? If there is in fact a way to file a claim, how long should I wait? I'm not sure 6 days is a fair amount of time to give someone before filing, but I don't want to give her any extra time to obliterate her account or, basically find a way to 'disappear', if she hasn't already. I did take screenshots of my entire conversation with her, as well as of the original post. Any help is appreciated!
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