eBay fraud with a refreshing twist

One More Solo

One More Solo

One More Solo

Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2004
Posts
17,108
Location
Shepley
It all began on the 9th September when I won an auction for an Alpine subwoofer and box for my car for the princely sum of £51. Realising it would cost less in petrol to drive to Leicester and collect the tiem than it would to pay the seller for postage, I arranged to collect the item the following Monday. The seller requested that I pay in cash to "save on Paypal fees", but I chose to pay via Paypal so I had the supposed extra security. Anyway, I went to his house to collect the item, spoke to his father as he went to pick up the sub from another room and then went on my merry way with it. I bring the sub home and power it up, only to find it doesn't work and shows classic signs of the voice coil being fried. I post sound and video clips on talkaudio.com and the posters there agree, so I contact the seller asking him about it. No response.

Having had no response through eBay I file a dispute through Paypal. No response. I then escalate it to a claim in order to get my money back. No response. I check his seller account today on eBay only to find, shock horror, no longer a registered user, which is a regular occurence on eBay but here is a guy with over 140 feedbacks! For some reason he's decided to pull a bit of a scam and it's backfired on him so he's jumped ship.

Now, the problem is I haven't yet got my money back though am hopeful as I only just filed the dispute. Where it gets interesting is I have the guy's address (definitely correct) and mobile phone number (also definitely correct). It's very tempting to pay him a visit to dump the sub on his front door and ask for my money back, but it's a 2 hour round trip. My hope is however that someone knows the appropriate Police proceedings to go through to get the local force to pay him a visit (wishful thinking but there must be some fraud squad), or perhaps one of you nice folks in Leicester might like to go round and ask for my cash on my behalf? Any help would be appreciated at this point!

Oh, and if you would like his address or phone number, email's in trust. ;)
 
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Just wait for Ebay to maybe sort it. You can of course ring him up and let him know your concerns. Maybe he will sort it out then. Especially as he knows you know where he lives and your willing to pop round and get things resolved.
 
hahaha. ive had many a dealing with paypal after dodgy ebay buyers and its such a con... ive been refunded all of £40-£50. Same goes for royal mail and a courier i used to use called interparcel :mad:


I woulnd't goto his house if you plan on forcefully getting your money back because you will end up in more trouble than £51 is worth.

Email him and make out you've spoken to the police about fraud or something and see if he replys then?
 
Why not phone him and simply say you'll get the police involved if he doesn't give you a refund? ... failing that a text message? Like Pete_m said I would definetly avoid going round to his house again, could easily turn violent and end you in more trouble than its worth.
 
Pete_m said:
hahaha. ive had many a dealing with paypal after dodgy ebay buyers and its such a con... ive been refunded all of £40-£50. Same goes for royal mail and a courier i used to use called interparcel :mad:


I woulnd't goto his house if you plan on forcefully getting your money back because you will end up in more trouble than £51 is worth.

Email him and make out you've spoken to the police about fraud or something and see if he replys then?
Click to expand...
just a word to the wise Pete_m,
spambots often traul though forums looking for email addresses, unless you want more spam at the address in your sig I'd remove it and put it in your trust details (can only be seen by other trust members)
 
VeNT said:
just a word to the wise Pete_m,
spambots often traul though forums looking for email addresses, unless you want more spam at the address in your sig I'd remove it and put it in your trust details (can only be seen by other trust members)
Click to expand...


hehe. i dont mind a little spam :p thanks though
 
One More Solo said:
or perhaps one of you nice folks in Leicester might like to go round and ask for my cash on my behalf? Any help would be appreciated at this point!

Oh, and if you would like his address or phone number, email's in trust. ;)
Click to expand...

gotta be the best i have ever seen on any forums....

'translated' please go get him my money back for me cos he's bigger than me OR i am too scared :p

let paypal do the work, thats what they take the fee's for and they almost aways refund the buyer........
 
I have told you what to do. Do it. Start the ball rolling. It may just take that one phone call to sort everything out.

You never know till you try
 
Didnt you check the item before you took it home? I certainly would have done. I would alos have accepted his offer to pay cash on collection.

What excuse have you used to paypal, as as far as im aware they only refund if you havent actually recieved anything.

also i think the police will do nothing, you got an item so its not like he defrauded you and sent you nothing. They will likley tell you its a civil matter, plus he can easily claim it worked perfectly when you collected it and broke it yourself and now wany your money back. You cant prove otherwise as you didnt check it over before you took it away.

At the end of the day its your word against his im afraid, you paid for an item and you now have it. Thats all the police will care about.

Would you go to the police if you recived faulty goods from a retailler? No, of course you wouldnt.

If anyone comes to my home to get stuff from me, i always insist that they see the item working even if they dont want to, just to pritecxt against this sort of thing.

PS, i do bilieve you, im just saying you should have checked item first as now youre a bit stuck
 
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One More Solo said:
It all began on the 9th September when I won an auction for an Alpine subwoofer and box for my car for the princely sum of £51. Realising it would cost less in petrol to drive to Leicester and collect the tiem than it would to pay the seller for postage, I arranged to collect the item the following Monday. The seller requested that I pay in cash to "save on Paypal fees", but I chose to pay via Paypal so I had the supposed extra security. Anyway, I went to his house to collect the item, spoke to his father as he went to pick up the sub from another room and then went on my merry way with it. I bring the sub home and power it up, only to find it doesn't work and shows classic signs of the voice coil being fried. I post sound and video clips on talkaudio.com and the posters there agree, so I contact the seller asking him about it. No response.

Having had no response through eBay I file a dispute through Paypal. No response. I then escalate it to a claim in order to get my money back. No response. I check his seller account today on eBay only to find, shock horror, no longer a registered user, which is a regular occurence on eBay but here is a guy with over 140 feedbacks! For some reason he's decided to pull a bit of a scam and it's backfired on him so he's jumped ship.

Now, the problem is I haven't yet got my money back though am hopeful as I only just filed the dispute. Where it gets interesting is I have the guy's address (definitely correct) and mobile phone number (also definitely correct). It's very tempting to pay him a visit to dump the sub on his front door and ask for my money back, but it's a 2 hour round trip. My hope is however that someone knows the appropriate Police proceedings to go through to get the local force to pay him a visit (wishful thinking but there must be some fraud squad), or perhaps one of you nice folks in Leicester might like to go round and ask for my cash on my behalf? Any help would be appreciated at this point!

Oh, and if you would like his address or phone number, email's in trust. ;)
Click to expand...

Write to him and threaten small claims court if he doesn't respond, he'll end up having to pay the court fee's on top of the money he owes you back.
 
I think you should have checked it before you left, if it all worked i think you should have paid cash tbh. The other guy is a bugger but if you were thinking you would have checked it before driving all that way back!

Id say put it down to lesson learnt, forget about it...
 
Actually thinking about it. I fully now agree with "meatloaf" he is correct. The guy could just turn around and say it worked fine before you took it away.
His word against yours really.

Would be hard to proove otherwise I would think.
 
I'm with MeatLoaf on this it's a civil matter, you didn't test/witness a test at the sellers location and you recieved your item, paypal never gives a full refund anyways afaik it's always a %. It would have been just as safe to pay cash, but i suppose you have a record of doing it.

Local Trading standards might be the best port of call but i think you really only have three options:

1.goto house persaude or threaten him (depending on your morals)
2.get a solicitor to write letter saying your taking his sorry ass to court, letter is costly so might not be worth it.
3.take it on the chin, forget about it all and see what paypal say.
 
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