Have you been scammed on Ebay???

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by Chris_G, Jul 13, 2015.

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  1. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

    Location:
    Hawthorne CA
    On eBay since 98, over 800 transactions. Never scammed as a buyer but there's a good reason I don't ship overseas anymore (thanks, Russia!). Although I had some really big sales it's just not worth the hassle. I'd rather sell to US only and make 20-30% less on an item than put myself through all the bullblank that goes with a foreign sale.
     
  2. freditor

    freditor Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    1 - Never got the item I bought, contacted buyer but no real recourse was ever finalized. This was early on in the ebay days and thankfully the item wasn't expensive.
    2 - Buyer left bad negative feedback over a 4 dollar item they never intended to pay (had a perfect feedback score up until then, took pride in going the extra mile for the customer). Long story short, Ebay reused to remove the feedback so I haven't bought or sold anything since then. All over a 4 dollar item.
     
  3. Tree of Life

    Tree of Life Hysteria

    Location:
    Captiva Island, FL
    Just as a buyer and I've been buying and sometimes selling on EBAY for years. Twice for not receiving something that I bought, one time another item not working at all, another the item not as described. In all instances I eventually got my money back but you wait way to long for and it's a hassle because you either really want the item or really need the item. For that reason, when I buy from a seller, they better have sold A LOT of stuff, have awesome feedback and reply PROMPTLY to a question I might have about the item. I save ALL emails also.
     
  4. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    I was scammed as the buyer in the early 2000s. I bought an import music CD from a European seller. When it arrived it was a home made CD-R. I wrote an email to the seller explaining that a CD-R burned on a home computer was not what I was paying for. His only response was, "Thank you for your email." He would not refund my money or provide the product which was advertised. I let it go.

    I have sold many items since 1999 and was never scammed until 2014. Actually, I am not sure it is so much a scam as it is a weird and negative situation. I sold a Halloween costume in October. I asked the buyer, who lives about 250 miles from me, if she wanted any type of expedited shipping. She insisted that first class mail should be used. She then claimed that the costume did not arrive on time, which seemed very unlikely. However, I offered a full refund which she refused to accept as she said that her only interest was in pointing out to the world what a bad person I am. She posted the one and only negative feedback about me that I have ever received from anyone.
     
  5. Chris_G

    Chris_G Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    If you go on the Ebay seller forums, you'll see that there is a lot of honest sellers who are being scammed by dishonest buyers and abusing Ebay's money back guarantee and Paypal buyer protection to get their money back and keep the item. These protections were designed to protect honest buyers from dishonest sellers, but Ebay and Paypal still side with the buyers more often than sellers when it comes to a dispute. But I'm sorry to hear that some of you guys got scammed by bad sellers.
     
    freditor likes this.
  6. geo50000

    geo50000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canon City, CO.
    Twice, as a buyer...thankfully, not for much money.
    I bought a 45 rpm single from some guy for about 6 bucks;
    he never shipped.
    The guy had about 150 positive feedbacks, then for some reason he just stopped shipping to all of his customers.
    Maybe he died or something.
     
  7. Daniel Plainview

    Daniel Plainview God's Lonely Man

    Yes. As buyer. Bought $35 worth of books once many years ago. Seller just didn't ship them to me and didn't respond to inquiries. eBay and Paypal said funds were not retrievable. Ain't that helpful? Isn't that like....you know...mail fraud?

    Oh, and some jerk in Canada ripped me off $8 on a Genesis bootleg CD he never shipped. I got his contract info and called him. I think his dad answered the phone. Just some stupid kid, probably. I didn't get anywhere with it.
     
  8. bluesky

    bluesky Senior Member

    Location:
    south florida, usa
    4 times.

    2 times, buyer, both music CDs.
     
  9. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Been on E-Bay since 1999, 306 all positive feedback as a buyer and seller.

    I've had a few bad transactions. Bought an ash strat non Fender body, it arrived as maple instead, seller refused to take a return on it. Bought a strat neck non Fender, supposed to have jumbo frets, it had small frets, again seller refused return. Both sellers were later removed from E Bay a year or so down the road.

    As a seller I only had one sale go bad, I was selling an aftermarket hi flow catalytic converter. Some guy bid on it, near the end of the auction as what does usually happen the price suddenly got bid up high by a few other bidders but the initial bidder still won.

    Well he then claims I had friends bid it up at the last minute, he refused to pay, he complained to E-Bay, E Bay investigates & finds no wrong doing on my part, they kick him off, (this was his first and to be last transaction there). E Bay let me relist it for free, and it sold for even more the second time around.
     
  10. Sword-of-Kings

    Sword-of-Kings Well-Known Member

    It's happened a few times.

    I was stupid and several got cheap game OSTs. It's so obvious that they were bootlegs, but stupid me didn't realize it then.

    I got a couple NES Max controllers and one of them had a messed up cable, so it didn't work.

    I got a copy of Star Fox for the Super Nintendo and the inside of the cartridge was messed up. As you can see in the picture, the plastic is made in a certain way to keep the PCB in place. The plastic thing on one side was broken on the cartridge I got, so whenever I put the game in the cartridge slot, it just pushed the PCB up instead of going in the console.

    [​IMG]
     
  11. leeroy jenkins

    leeroy jenkins Forum Resident

    Location:
    The United States
    You should have mentioned that you're The Zodiac. I bet he would have shipped.
     
  12. JohnO

    JohnO Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Yes, in matters of degrees. I've bought dashcams that turned out to be fakes, and break anyway in 3 months, but that was educational and I now know which ebay seller for those is the good one.

    I ordered a somewhat pricey Gene Autry 78 and they shipped it in a Priority Mail mailer, they just dropped the 78 in that, alone, so it arrived in 13 pieces. The seller refunded.

    (A different time, a different title, different seller did the same thing, and it arrived good in one piece. Accidents happen. The accident is that it arrived ok.)

    The worst was: I ordered a pile of rechargeable batteries from a China seller who had a 100,000+ positive rating. The price seemed low but fair and doable. The batteries were fakes, worthless. Ebay/Paypal demanded that I file a complaint through the original listing page. But they had removed the page because they had already found that seller turned into a scam or was hacked or whatever nonsense they told me by phone. But they continued to demand that I file the complaint through the listing page, which was nearly blank and only said something like "This listing has been removed because the item was not as listed", and that seller was completely gone from ebay, with no other listings left or any trace. There was no way to start a complaint on a listing page which no longer existed - but the ebay/paypal telephone morons could not seem to understand that. This took several phone calls going around and around. Finally I got a refund through Paypal or Ebay or whatever it was.

    But I have made over 1000 purchases from ebay over all these years, all kinds of things, I have a red star (whoopee), all the above is almost just some noise. Everything else (except 2 even more minor things) has been OK.
     
  13. JohnO

    JohnO Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I just remembered a flip side of this. Two times I have received "Second Chance Offer"s or something like that, for being the second highest bidder on something when the winning bidder cancels. Sometimes that could be a scammer bidding things up, or there could be a legitimate reason. Both times I had bid my maximum and had let it go. Both times I accepted the offer and everything was OK for me, with my 50-50 suspicion that each had been scam-bid higher.
     
  14. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Yes, please send to:
    Old Pink,
    care of the Funny Farm,
    Chalfont

    (FYI it's the same Funny Farm that Motorhead are back at...)


    I think I've been OK on eBay, only take PayPal, no out-of-country. Had some foreign guy repeatedly bugging me on one auction, just told him NO. Had another buyer singing the praises of postal money orders, I said nah, too much trouble.

    I did have an Amazon buyer claim I shipped them an empty box and they sent me indignant emails. Fortunately, I keep my shipping receipts, which showed the parcel weighed 4.3 pounds. I told that to Amazon and said the buyer was lying to get out of paying. Amazon refunded the buyer but did not charge me.
     
  15. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I did do well several years ago on an E Bay purchase of a Pioneer Elite A91-D integrated amp.

    It arrived damaged, it was a very heavy integrated amp, close to 70 pounds. IMO the packaging was suspect. I wanted to return, seller said just keep it I'll full refund you full . Ok, I have a free, damaged integrated amp.

    Unknown to me my wife had contacted UPS about the damage. They came and inspected the amp and packaging and took full responsibility for the damage, paying me the full amount and letting me keep the unit.

    So, I ended up with double my money, and after pulling the unit apart the major damage was to the speaker A/B both switch. I ended up bypassing that switch totally and to this day the amp performs perfect.

    Best amp I've ever been paid to own.

    [​IMG]
     
    Dale A B likes this.
  16. motionoftheocean

    motionoftheocean Senior Member

    Location:
    Circus Maximus
    I'll admit I find this part very surprising as UPS is notoriously difficult when trying to file insurance claims. In my experience they always blame the packaging for being inadequate and seldom (if ever) are willing to accept responsibility for damage. Most of the time they either try to negotiate down to some lesser amount (i.e. accepting only a percentage of responsibility for damage) or just deny it entirely. Consider yourself fortunate.
     
    GuildX700 likes this.
  17. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I was surprised too, they actually sent an agent to the house, inspected the amp and the packaging. I was shocked. This was about 10 years ago though. Perhaps my smooth talking wife helped the situation, I was at work at the time of the inspection. Surprised the heck out of me for sure.
     
  18. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    Never scammed, no, but dealt with a couple really nasty sellers.
     
    Vidiot likes this.
  19. motionoftheocean

    motionoftheocean Senior Member

    Location:
    Circus Maximus
    I've personally had agents come out as have friends and colleagues. They look at things, take photos, etc. etc. If they don't turn you down flat there, you get a letter or call in a couple of weeks telling that after a thorough investigation they've determined the packaging to be at fault. One of the worst examples that happened to me personally was about 15 years ago when I moved from California to New York and shipped a large, extremely well padded box of CDs via UPS ahead of my move. Virtually 75% of the jewel cases in the box were cracked and in some cases the CD spindles were cracked and the discs were loose in the case. The box was visibly damaged and was obviously dropped on its side numerous times. The agent came out, conducted his inspection and told me the box wasn't packed well enough. He also said the box was too heavy. They wouldn't pay a dime. I eventually had to get an attorney after them.
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I've been scammed twice: once with a vinyl LP set that was maybe half a step above Fair but rated by the dealer as near mint (badly warped and very noisy), and once with a CD that turned out to be a CD-R with an ink-jet label. In both cases, the dealers basically felt I was expecting too much and believed their ads literally. (!!!)

    Me personally, I always offer a 10-day money back guarantee on anything I sell but make as a condition that the item is exactly as described. It may be beat to hell or it might not work, but it'll be exactly as I describe and picture it. In 16 years, I think I've had a total of maybe 2 or 3 refunds, tops, and I think my rating is almost at 900 right now.
     
    GuildX700 likes this.
  21. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, pictures and 100% accurate descriptions are the key to minimal issues. You can see it, I told you about, what did you not understand about what you were buying?
     
    Vidiot likes this.
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Exactly. But that can also backfire: I once bought a spare open reel recorder on eBay, we went down and picked it up, brought it home... and then I noticed it had no head stack. I went back to the ad, and though the guy hadn't mentioned it, the ad copy basically said, "this is a model X audio recorder, I have no way to test it, but here's a dozen picture showing everything about it, and you're buying it as-is." So that was my mistake for not looking more carefully at the photos.
     
  23. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, the "as is" disclaimer always makes me a bit suspect. What exactly do you mean by "as is"???

    Seems to be a catch all back door way out IMO. I don't use that wording in my ads.
     
  24. JFS3

    JFS3 Senior Member

    Location:
    Hooterville
    Couple of times I didn't get items that I had purchased, but as they were in the $10.00 range, it wasn't worth the time or trouble to bother with them, so I just wrote it off as the costs of being in the collecting game.
     
  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Naw, it just says "as depicted in the photographs." I make it a point to take great photos and go into detail about any damage in the gear or if something isn't working 100% perfectly. If it's got an intermittent issue, that'll be mentioned. I think 100% honesty is absolutely key in any eBay ads, and honorable behavior goes both ways.

    What I do generally will say though is, "this device is 100% functional and works great, but it's got a couple of dings on the back and the jacks are scratched from years of use" or something like that. So that's what I mean by as-is -- perhaps "as described" is more accurate, but it also says that in my ad. The legal phrase I generally rely on is, "I guarantee the unit being sold is exactly as pictured and described, but it's sold as-is and there are no other warranties other than I'll issue a refund if it's D.O.A." So if you buy a 30-year-old tape deck from me and a board blows out three months later, it's not on me.
     
    eddiel and GuildX700 like this.
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