eBay horror stories!

[themacko]

I am so relieved, that I just had to share this with all who care to read. As some of you know I sold my iBook on eBay back in April in preperation of getting a new iMac (woohoo!). Well, let me tell how NOT to conduct a trade.

I sold the iBook to someone who used the 'Buy It Now!' feature on eBay. Basically, I set the price to $1200, and this guy choose to buy it. Fine. He sent me the money via PayPal and that was great. The next day I had a problem arise where I had to move, so I couldn't ship the iBook. I sent this guy an email and told him it would be about a week late and I was sorry. I didn't get a response.

A week later on the exact day I shipped the iBook, I get an email from the guy telling me that he has contacted the FBI, FICC, eBay, PayPal and local authorities to my acts of fraud. I send him an email back and let him know that I did ship the iBook and it was on it's way.

Next day, I get an email from a company called SquareTrade which claims this guy opened an account with them in order to expediate my shipping of the iBook. I respond to them with the FedEx shipping number.

For the next 2 weeks I hear nothing from this guy or from SquareTrade. So I email him twice in the next month asking if he recieved the iBook okay. Nothing. The SquareTrade case closes due to him no longer participating and I forget about it.

Last week I get an email from PayPal claiming my account was -$1200. This fool had reversed his payment! I then email this guy (being more of an ass now) telling him that he needs to contact PayPal and un-reverse the $1200. He writes back to me telling me that if I want to see my money, I need to call him and re-negotiate the price. He tells me that if I do not call him that day he will contact PayPal and request the $1200 refund be sent directly to his account.

What a joke! Luckily, I saved all my receipts, emails and was able to enter the tracking number back into FedEx's website, where I then printed out a copy of his signature on the delivery record. So it looks like this a-hole gets nowhere and I get my $1200 back.

We'll see .. I'm still a bit scared about the whole ordeal, but can you believe the balls of this guy? He's basically holding my $1200 for ransom! If I wasn't organized I would potentially be screwed. I just can't believe how dishonest some people are....

Sorry that took so long to explain, but I'd love to hear any eBay (or other online merchant) horror stories you may have personally had.

[xaqintosh]

people like that shouldn't be allowed on ebay, they disgrace the whole system

[edX]

sounds like a rough deal indeed. but i have to admit i can partially see his side. If he was willing to pay full price to 'buy it now', he may have had a reason for wanting to get it asap. when you failed to deliver on that, his needs weren't met and so it would have been reasonable for him to be upset at paying that much.

I think it is also fair to say that he took his inconvience to an extreme that was not called for. He could have simply cancelled the transaction with you after you let him know it would be late. that is the big problem with ebay and other online classifieds - most times you have no idea who you are dealing with or their level of rational thinking/actions.

hope it all works out Scott!!

oh, and while it hasn't happened to me - the most common horror stories i hear from friends is about buying airline tickets thru these online auctions and discounters - they constantly screw people over, mostly by not having clear instructions as to how the services work.

[voice-]

I'd be screwed, I'm not organized at all. I hope he got into a huge deal of trouble over that episode...

[uoba]

You're only at most 5 hours away from going to the guys front door, and sorting him out (if ya know what I mean )

I suppose if I got an e-mail saying thanx for the payment, I'm moving now, you'll get your iBook soon, honest, I'd not be too happy. But yeh, the guy has turned into a a-hole.

The worst I've has on ebay was buying a router (seemingly 1st hand), well advertised, for £40 (great deal). Only for the most important info to be ommitted, it needed a USA power supply (another £30).

But that is small compared to you problem! If this guy like sthe fed/law route, do the same, you have his signature!

(I luv reading bad scores against people on ebay! )

[rinse]

check this out:

Back in October, I won an auction for a Dual 533 G4. THe price was great, I was psyched...

I sent my money via PayPal and got a notifcation from the seller via Paypal message stating that everything was in order.

2 weeks went by.

I was freaking furious. I contact them via email. No answer. I wait 2-3 days and repeat. No answer for another week.

I start to look on Ebay for recourse steps. Basically you have to wait 30 days before it is actually "fraud". I contact them again and notify them that they have a week to get me my machine.

It never comes. I manage to put all the pieces of identity from ebay and paypal together and send out emails to about 4-5 addresses that were linked to this seller via white page lookups based on info in his profile areas. Finally a day later i get an email back from a person claiming to not have any idea what i was talking about, and saying that i was the second person to have said such a thing happened to them due to a seller on ebay acting to be him in the last 2 months.

He and i contact ebay and paypal and present this info to them. Paypal is only willing to refund roughly 75% of the transaction. They put the money in my account.

My CC company contacts me asking if I got my refund... I say I got partial credit, but PayPal was unwilling to give 100%. They assumed I was satisfied (WTF?!) and closed the case. My temporary refund from the CC was removed and I get a statemdn from them for a crazy amount of $!

After having some words with the customer service I managed to get my money, but I lost so much time in this whole ordeal, I cant believe it!

I will never buy anything on ebay over $100 or so now. Screw that. Its not worth the hassle.

[themacko]

I know that it may sound hokey here, but when I originally emailed him telling him it would be late, I basically asked him if he wanted it shipped that day w/o the original box or late, and I gave him my phone number and (new) address. He shouldn't have felt screwed, and if he did he could have easily emailed me telling me so.

rinse: you REALLY did get screwed, luckily you got some money back but still .. i'm guessing you lost a hundy or two. and I'm with you, I'm not buying/selling anything else on eBay that's over $100.

[jbromer]

I also agree with the dollar limit restraint. I might consider selling/buying a computer or something big through a local auction though, where the money and goods can change hands in person...

There is a running article on macintouch.com right now on internet fraud, that has some ebay horror stories:

http://www.macintouch.com/fraudreports.html

One thing suggested was to only make/receive payments through postal money orders. That way if there is any funny business, it constitutes MAIL FRAUD and gets a federal investigation as a felony. I thought that was cool.