CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

stefuel · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: E-Bay spendor or...

How many E-bay transactions did it take for you to to get PORKED???
Nuff said Rolling Eyes

Elaine Benes · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1416

Do you mean "ripped off ?

About 300, and so far only once out of about 600 or so total...

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject:

Porked... Boned... Shafted... Screwed...

I've only done probably 20 sales and 100 purchases between my wife and me, and I've been an ebay member for almost 10 years now. So, I'm not a heavy user. Still, in 100+ transactions, I've never gotten screwed. I did get a vintage toy once that wasn't quite in described condition, and left the seller neutral feedback.

My dad bought some automotive headrests with LCD's in them for about a grand, and the guy skipped town, but PayPal reversed the charges and refunded him.

SC

stefuel · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:33 pm Post subject:

Boy I must be good. I was able to reach that goal with only 22 Rolling Eyes

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

Never happened. I don't do a lot, but I've been a member since 1997 and have bought and sold. My only out-of-the-ordinary experiences have been when people I'm buying from go extra - the guy I bought my color filters from sent an extra red because he thought there might be a scratch on one of them.

My dad's done a ton of buying/selling and hasn't ever had a problem either. Then again, his handle is 'mollify', so maybe he just manages to calm everyone down before there's a problem... Wink

Heywood Jablome · Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 1548

I thought I was in for a bone'n with much of that Crestron stuff I've recently picked up, but it all worked out in the end.

One seller was real shady... Feedback not stellar but not terrible either: After starting the paypal process I noticed his paypal ID was the same as a now-defunct eBay ID which WAS terrible (yes, he dropped his bad feedback history by abandoning his eBay account.)
That transaction went all the way to PayPal Resolution before I got a response from him: Took about a month for the -PRO to get into my hands.

lostmandan · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject:

Well, 70+ transactions and have run into a few sticky situations, but nothing terrible.. yet.

Sold an item that was shipped through Canada Post Xpresspost, properly packaged. The unit arrived slightly damaged and when I talked to Canada Post about filing a claim I found out the dirty details. I had two options:
1) Get it sent to them.. they would make their decision and if they paid out, they kept it. I'd have to refund and then be out the item.
2) Get an external shop to estimate repair costs, then hope they'd pay for it.

Turns out the fellow had a bit of mechanical know-how and he fixed it himself. Phew! If he didn't then I would have probably gotten it shipped back to me to fix, and back to him - with the risk of causing more damage.

Otherwise it just seems that nowadays a large number of sellers just don't know how to reply to email or questions and certainly don't like to give an ETA of the item once it is paid for. It sure has gone downhill, in my opinion.

speedyandre · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 291 Location: Netherlands

I've been screwed 2 years ago when someone with 100% positive feedback didn't deliver.
He had Paypal but he insisted to use bidpay because I'm from Europe.
No problem so far but one month later he still hadn't sent the item and he stopped responding to my emails.
At that time I couldn't get this resolved by Ebay so I asked for a copy of the bidpay recue giving me his full name, passport ID and address.
I found a fbi website where I could file a fraud complaint.
After 2 weeks an inspector contacted me and I sent him all the emails of the seller.
He lived in a small town and this inspector visited him to get it all straight.
I've got my money back and also the bidpay fees and the banking costs to get his cheque payed.
The seller has a fraud record now and I found out that other ebayers had bought the same item as I did.
I emailed them to tell what I had done to get my money back and they did the same Thumbs Up

André

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:38 am Post subject:

Wow, nice sleuthing!

I have not been screwed through ebay, but have once in about 1999 when I sent a guy a money order for $700, and he never sent me the projector.

Still, 1 shafting in 9 years of online business is pretty good considering I was writing off about $2K a year in local bad debt in the sound industry.

speedyandre · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 291 Location: Netherlands

I didn't expect this result, it was my last hope to file it on the fbi fraud website Smile

If this guy had lived in NY nothing would have happened Wink

It's good to see that a minor case like this gets their attention Smile

André

Programguy · Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 29 Location: Wilmington, IL

I've been an eBay member for some time now, and got very close last year to getting screwed. I bought a Sony Pearl for $1300 with "Buy It Now" and everything seemed to go just fine. Great communication and everything, and the seller sent me a tracking number. However, a couple days passed by and I noticed he was selling another Pearl... and got me thinking. Well, I received the package from him and it was a necklace... and I thought "What the @#$% is this?", so I tried to contact him... and guess what... he was saying it was a mistake his wife made and as soon as I returned the bracelet, he would send the projector (which he sent to the person who bought the bracelet). So, I talked to the local police and they came to my house and was decided to create a "sting" to see what was going on. So, I started another eBay account and I bid on the projector so high that nobody would beat and and I won. Now, all along he was saying how sorry he was about the mix up, he was giving my new eBay account an offer for a "Buy It Now" price and he would knock off an air line ticket if I would pick it up the next day. He was located in Minnesota and I live in Illinois, so my sting with the local police was pretty much useless, as they decided my loss didn't reach their minimum (which I never did find this minimum amount from them) and they would not take it to the states attorney for prosecution, but they did tell me the town in Minnesota where he lived. So, I took all the information from my "sting" and filed a complaint with the FBI... and to this date, a little over a year later, still haven't heard from them?? Totally discouraged at this time, I called the local police in Minnesota where he lived and they said that he was known to them and they would take on my case. When it was all said and done, eBay did nothing for me... PayPal did nothing for me... FBI did nothing... however, 2 months after all this started, the police in Minnesota called me and said they had a check for me... apparently they told him pay the guy back or you're going to jail... and we got our money back... Smile

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject:

stefuel · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject:

My new toy just showed up today. Not bad for 2-3 day shipping. I must have mis-read it as it was 23 days in shipping Rolling Eyes