posted on February 29, 2000 02:12:18 PM new
I won an auction on eBay back in September 1999. the seller seemed in a hurry to get the whopping sum of $13.50, so I sent a USPS money order. When I had not received my package by October 20, I attempted to e-mail the seller and as you can guess, it was returned User Unknown. So I tried eBays Contact Information, which turned out to be false information.
Now I'm mad. I leave the seller negative feedback stating no valid e-mail address, no package received, etc. So the seller leaves negative feedback for me, stating that the money order took 22 days to arrive via First Class mail. My response? WHERES MY PACKAGE!!
By November 10, still no package and by now, two other users on eBay have contacted me, as they too hadnt received their packages, so I emailed eBay Safe Harbor, reported the sellers false contact information, so eBay suspendeded him/her/it. But I am still mad, so I follow eBays procedure, filing fraud report with fraud.org, and the postal service, mainly to stop this individual. At this point, I assume its all over and I am out $14.
Imagine my surprise when I actually get a letter from the postal inspection service on January 31, 2000 stating that their Consumer Inspection agency would investigate. and now the shocking results. On February 19, I get a certified letter from the seller with a refund. The postage alone cost the seller $2.98. And what did the seller say? Heres the exact words: "For whatever reason, there has been a misunderstanding. I believe you included no address with your item, so your letter was discarded, therefore no parcel was shipped off. Here is a refund for your $13.50. Sorry for the inconvenience". I am keeping my fingers crossed that the money order is real!
What did I learn? I now look for complete names when sellers contact me and I am now wary of any addresses that contain PMB (which I believe stands for private mail box). Also, in this example, the "system" worked.
[ edited by FromTheVault on Feb 29, 2000 02:32 PM ]
[ edited by FromTheVault on Feb 29, 2000 02:33 PM ]
posted on March 2, 2000 11:05:17 AM new
Hi I'm glad to hear you received a refund and a response from the postal service. I was ripped off by a seller last may. I reported her to ebay, fraud.org. postal inspector, bbb, web police,ftc., etc.even to her local police. Basically no response from anyone.
I did send a check and sent eveyone copies of the cancelled check. Maybe a postal money order carries more weight. I don't know.
She has frauded a lot more people and has a lot of neg. feedback ebay did suspend her but she just jumps to a new name and continues to sell and fraud. I can't believe nobody will stop this seller but i know i have learned my lesson a expensive one though!
posted on March 10, 2000 04:15:45 PM new
Great i also buy and sell on ebay but have had pretty good transactions. There was one time i recieved a regular n64 zelda game rather than the gold cartridge but i still got it at a great price. Thanks for following through and giving it to that person. Everyone who uses ebay is in your debt. I can honestly say the only time i really got screwed was by compuserve Which is owned by AOL.
DONT TRUST WHAT THEY ( SAY )!!
posted on March 21, 2000 06:40:17 PM new
I'm with wml. I got screwd big time. Same story, the seller screwed a lot of people, but E-bay after 2 months "investigation" said they can't do anything. but suspend him. USPS never replied, BBB never replied, Web Police never replied. I'm still waiting for an answer from Attorney General's office from his State. But I don't hold too much hope.
posted on March 22, 2000 11:16:52 AM new
I also was ripped off by an Ebay seller $76.00 for a Rookie baseball
card, Seller said card was in mint
condition, I won the bid, sent him
a Postal M.O. He then sent me the card, The card was not in mint condition, just good condition.
I E-mailed him and told him the
card was not as decried in the auction description, he replied
with send it back and I will give a refund. (Great) Card was returned
to him Registered Return Rec, Insured mail.
Someone signed for it. But that is the last I have heard. Ebay Suspended him and that's it.
have sent many e-mails to him, but no response. WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO. I may have to take a Vacation to Tennessee. His Feed back Rating was 15 with NO neg's
posted on March 26, 2000 11:18:48 PM new
wd733-shoud have been OK with no negs. But from my experience some sellers are only careful in the beginning, then figure their feedback can take a few negs and not dissuade bidders. That was my case with my second ripoff. All his negatives were more recent feedbacks.
Fromthe Vault-Reporting fraud doesn't always work. I filed a report on a guy who wouldn't answer my emails a month after the package was due. His wife answered one of my emails and said everything would be taken care of and it never was. I waited 6 weeks in all before filing the report. All eBay did was give him a warning. I never got my money back (almost$40). The guy got in touch with me 3 months after it all happened, gave me an extremely lame excuse why he didn't answer my emails but refused to work anything out or refund my money. This was May '99.
Just recently I had an auction gone wrong on Yahoo. I never got the merchandise. I tried to work it out with the seller but he was a real jerk and just insulted me (called me a liar in addition to a number of other things.) I reported him to National Fraud Organization, Web Police, local govt., post office and Yahoo! The only group I heard from was the post office. They told him to get in touch with me, and he did, and threatened to file fraud reports against me. I told Yahoo about his behavior and received a very lame response. They don't care. I reported him to his ISP for threatening me and I presume they have done nothing. I blocked his email address so I don't have to listen to his insults anymore. The post office told me to mail something back to them 45 days after the date of the letter they sent me, so I'll be mailing their sheet back stating "dispute not settled". All in all I've lost about $50 in these two auctions combined. The first guy had a perfect rating before me, so nothing to suspect. The second guy had a positive number after his name, and Yahoo wasn't working well the night I bid so when I tried to check the second guy's comments I couldn't. I found out he has alot of unhappy buyers, and I was also able to read his feedback on eBay which was even worse than Yahoo! Quite frankly, I only think reporting fraud works when you have a conscientious seller or a seller who doesn't want a bad reputation. I had one seller that was willing to work things out when I thought the package was lost, she was very nice about it. Of course, that time the package arrived, but delayed.
A question I have is this: I was under the impression that any auction was a legal binding contract. If that's true, how can the auction sites be so unconcerned when this kind of thing happens? I will never bid on Yahoo again because of the way they've ignored what I've told them. At least if this auction was on eBay I could have sent them his threatening email-but maybe they wouldn't have done anything either.
[ edited by brighttiger on Mar 26, 2000 11:45 PM ]
