What would you do? Buyer paid half and dissapeared!

[SellingASite]

I listed a site in the premium sites category. A sitepoint user asked me if I'd remove the listing for an 8k bid. I did so. He paid half via paypal then promised to pay the rest early the following week. That was 14 days ago. After repeated invoicing, reminders, and emails to this person he seems to be gone in thin air. I have no idea what will happen with the 4k that was already paid. He assured me I'd have been paid 14 days ago. I explained I was moving for school and the initial half would pay the move and the rest I needed for my schooling tuition which is now overdue. So far there have been no chargeback attempts on the 4k, but I'm starting to wonder the logic of anyone who would do this?. What do I do?

[Dan Grossman]

14 days is a long time...

If you want to be safe, just send back the money and look for a new buyer.

If you're willing to risk an encounter with him down the road if he reappears and wants all $4000 back, this is what I see as the other option:
- Keep the $4000 for now
- Relist the website for sale
- After the site is sold, if it sells for more than $8000, return all $4000 to the original buyer
- If it sells for less than $8000, return $4000 minus the difference in the sale price and minus the cost of relisting

My logic behind the second option is that this is what you'd get if you took the original buyer to court over the sale. Assuming you can prove a contract, the damages for breach of that contract would be your costs to find a new buyer (which is the fee to relist it) plus the difference in price between the two sales. You can't sue to enforce this type of contract, so that's the most of the original $4000 you'd be allowed to keep with a judgement.

[SellingASite]

Thanks Dan Grossman.
I may have reason to suspect as well since this is not logical that the person's persona and paypal may have been hacked and funds that were not the persons were used in an attempt to persuade the site from me with half paid only which didn't work. If this were the case perhaps the proper paypal account owner does not even know that his account were used to pay this. My thoughts on this if it were the case would be to as you mentioned hold the initial 4k for now because logically I would not know if I were refunding the proper person or the account hacker? It just makes no sense to me that someone would half pay for a site, make a promise to pay the rest in a couple of days and then vanish and no contact despite repeated attempts from me to finish collecting. No logical person in my mind would do that so I've ran almost every possible scenario in my head and either he's dead, got in some bad circumstances or someone attempted to purchase it with a hacked account. If the account has been hacked why would paypal not have tried to recover this yet either? As you say 14 days is a long time. Especially when the buyer knows I needed ALL the funds to transfer the site to them. I also need the remaining 4k for my real estate licence course.

[Dan Grossman]

If the funds are stolen, it may take a longer time for it to be noticed. Let's say the PayPal payment was funded with someone's bank or credit card number. They may not get a bank statement for April until mid- to late May, and not know about it until then. So you could have another month before anyone notices and reports the fraud.

I would not spend the money.

[SellingASite]

No no intention of it. But I will hold it for the fellow just in case. Refunding to a hacked paypal account would be a bad move. If it were the case I'd feel proud to save his money! Sad that I've been screwed in the process though. Great site too. Too bad as it's a shame. The site is in the Alexa 39k range with 700k UV per month and around 1700 p/m net profit with ways to increase that substancially.

[Dan Grossman]

You might want to let PayPal know. I'm sure they can get in touch with the owner of whatever payment method was used. Either it'll be a way to get in touch with your buyer, or to notify the payer of fraud before they notice.

[g1siberia]

definitely hold on to it for now, and definitely do not spend any of it. resell your site tho if you need tuition money.

[SellingASite]

OK. The m8 did contact. He's very happy that I was able to catch on. He paid for the relisting and wishes me to send to him using western union with him having to show his ID to collect it. This way if his paypal is still compromised he doesn't have to worry. I feel pretty bad for him because The thief also stole 3600.00 worth of xbox live codes from him.

He thinks the person who gave him the virus / trojan / keylogger's name is Matthew Ellis.. Someone who he owned a forum with.

[Dan Grossman]

Do not send this money to anyone by Western Union. If you've really found the source of the money and he didn't authorize the payment, he'd tell PayPal and PayPal would have reversed the payment by now. There's no reason he'd need you to use Western Union. You're going to end up mailing this money to a thief with a fake ID, and owe PayPal $4000 on top of it when the real owner notices.

You should just refund the payment by PayPal and notify them of the situation. That's the only course of action that can't end up costing you thousands.

[SellingASite]

Yes good idea. Sounds good.
Thanks for all the help Dan Grossman.

[bankruptcycopies]

This sounds like that sceme (I don't know the name) where people send you a check for a higher amount, ask you to cash, and send/wire the difference back...hmmm

[vmpower]

Dan advices are good. But I would re-list it anyway because it is NOT your fault. sometimes crazy things happen.