posted on June 9, 2001 06:42:22 PM
This has taken a turn for the worse. Here is the full story, and hopefully you don't fall asleep during it.
I had a small cross shaped porcelain planter on ebay. A new user won the auction (along with about 35 others from other people). I sent my EOA to him, and the next day I get an email from him saying he lost his job 3 DAYS BEFORE HE BID ON MY ITEM and he couldn't pay. Of course he ended his email with "Thanks and God Bless"
Needless to say, I refused to let him off the hook, because I have heard that one too many times before (not to mention the fact that he had bid on 97 items in the past 2 weeks).
So of course, he emails me back with a scalding letter calling my item a "piece of crap" and that I am a jerk.
Then of course he NEG's me.
So, I NEG him because it is obvious he has no intention of completing the transaction.
I opened my email folder today, and here is the email I had waiting for me (and I am editing it for content):
"Dude, email to you was not profane. this isprofane. stick your ******* piece of ****broken crap as far up your stinkin' ***as it will go. PRICK."
So I did what anyone in my position would do: I reported him to his email provider.
I woke up this morning to this in my email box:
Dear ****,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and the e-mail documentation attached. This is direct violation of ***********.com rules and policy and will be handled accordingly.
***********.com Support Putting Faith in the Web!
Then I got cc'd this second email:
Dear *** *******,
Upon receipt of this e-mail, this servesas notice that your ***********.com e-mail account will be discontinuedwithin 24 hours. This is based on report of your ***********.com e-mail account usage by another e-mail recipient exhibiting a direct violation of our e-mail rules and policy as documented below.
***********.com Support Putting Faith in the Web!
I didn't think it would work, but I GOT HIS EMAIL ACCOUNT CANCELLED!
I thought this was the end of it, but then I received an email this evening from him that said this:
you're full of ****. do whatever you have to *******. i will do everything in my ability to make your life miserable. there's plenty of free emails accounts out there and ebay is easy enough to forge an account. you started this over a lousy few bucks. every single seller but you has been kind, compassionate, understanding and helpful. you accused me of lying and cheating and you made threats of legal action. bring it on. you're obviously a minister in the wrong church because your show of christian charity is non-existant. if the broken piece of crap is so prized as a gift, why the hell are you selling it? you want to play games, well get ready for the mother of all games.
I reported him to safeharbor already via their online form (which was not very helpful), and am awaiting a response from them, so I can forward all the emails to them.
What I am wondering, is if there is anything else I can do to stop this from happening? I did pull his user info from ebay a few days ago, and ran his phone #, which amazingly checked out.
Does anyone know the URL for the cybercops and if something like this would qualify for an investigation?
[ edited by revvassago on Jun 9, 2001 06:57 PM ]
[ edited by revvassago on Jun 9, 2001 07:01 PM ]
posted on June 9, 2001 06:54:05 PM
Hello revvassago,
I know you used ***'s to mask out the vulgarity...but, I would ask you to further mask it or take it out altogether if you can - I know you're trying to get your point accross by showing what this person said to you in their correspondence, but this could be construed as offensive to some of our Members.
you've got a wacko on your hands, but you knew that. sorry this happened to you.
there was another thread about cyberstalking. i think the organization that dealt with it was at www.cyberangels.com? pretty sure it was redskinfan aka tigressoflove (lol, tigress, i thought you were a guy too!). don't know if this is the kind of thing they'd handle, but perhaps she'll pop in and say.
do you have another ebay account you can use until this nutcase cools off?
posted on June 9, 2001 07:05:33 PMKittykittykitty:
This is my selling account. All of my feedback is there, not to mention I have some higher end items on eBay right now (things I was hoping would net a lot of money). Changing userID's is not an option I can pursue.
The one glimmer of light in this whole mess is that if he does in fact get a new UserId using a free email service, he will be forced to submit a credit card. If I manage to get that account NARU, he won't be able to do it again with the same credit card.
That is IF I can figure out that it is him before it is too late...
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Still charging exact shipping fees, and darn proud of it!
posted on June 9, 2001 07:16:36 PM
Report him to his ISP complete with e-mails etc. They should cancel his complete account. Pretty hard to get a free e-mail account if you can't get online. Just a thought.
hmm, well i guess you *could* cancel the high end auctions and list them under a new id. you could write an 'about me' page explaining you're selling under a new name, give your regular id and ask them to check out your feedback. i've seen this done a few times and always check the 'about me' page on a 0 fb new user, and usually that's the case. i figure any new user who's smart enough to do a 'me' page right off the bat is probably not new.
That is IF I can figure out that it is him before it is too late...
yeah, that's the problem
may as well check out cyberangels and see if they'd be of any help. i doubt safeharbor will do anything meaningful.
kittyx3
edited to add, while it's a real pita to have to do any of these things because of some idjut, it's more of a pain to have to worry about someone tampering with your auctions. he may be full of hot air, but then he may not.
[ edited by kittykittykitty on Jun 9, 2001 07:21 PM ]
posted on June 9, 2001 07:26:57 PM
Thanks for your responses.
gk4495: That was my first idea, however, all of his emails have been via an online email service (and a religious one at that), and not through his ISP, so I don't think I have any way of obtaining his IP address to get his ISP.
KittyX3: That will be a last resort. I have worked long and hard for my feedback rating, and would not want to have it ruined by someone like this. Not to mention I was planning on listing a huge amount of auctions tomorrow, and don't want to split my feedback.
As for CyberAngels, everything I can find seems to say that this jerk must actually carry out one of his threats NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE before it could be considered "Cyberstalking".
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Still charging exact shipping fees, and darn proud of it!
posted on June 9, 2001 07:39:46 PM
I am not having any more correspondence with him. According to the CyberAngels website, I actually had to tell him to stop, so I sent him a cease and desist. If I email him again, it will violate that cease and desist.
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First of all, I'm so sorry this has happened to you, and I hope this jerk doesn't follow through on his threats.
I thought you could have more than one eBay ID with the same credit card. Is it different if someone is NARU? Do they block the credit card itself from being used to verify another account?
Also, you may want to put in your description that because of a recent threat of auction interference, you reserve the right to pull contact information for any bidder who has just registered on eBay. Once you pull the info, verify the address on anywho.com or whowhere.com. If it won't verify, it might be a non-published number or a bogus one. Spend a few pennies to call and find out (and be VERY wary if it's in the same area code as your wacko!).
Good luck!
Without eBay, I might have a real life...
posted on June 9, 2001 08:20:56 PMmcbrunnhilde You are correct. If an account which has a credit card attached to it becomes NARU, any other accounts that try to use that credit card will have to be manually done by safeharbor. I know this from experience on an account I asked eBay to close (didn't realize my CC info was on the acct. until after it was closed)
As far as the user info, I already have it (got it a couple of days ago), unfortunately, I cannot pull a street address off of it, only the city and phone number. Apparently the city he lives in does not provide street addresses online. Rats.
I do, however have a phone number, city, state, name of someone else who lives in the house, name of local ISP (which I am contacting to see if that is where his acct. is through).
Just waiting for him to strike next......or not (hopefully the latter of the two)
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