posted on July 28, 2000 10:39:38 PM new
Howdy, all...
Hard luck K-bar here with another interesting story of seller misconduct. I seem to be a scum seller magnet, I do.
Fresh on the heels of my last fraud complaint here (the, get this, Concorde model incident), I've got another.
Some blithering idiot in Alabama (no, he's originally from the north, he's not what you're thinking :^)sent me an item that broke in shipment.
Being used to postal service insurance where they are willing to pay claims that you can prove value for (as opposed to only paying invoice cost...I mean, what if it's a shipment between family members?), I asked for the item to be insured for about 30% more than the final cost, which was still only about 50% of the fair market value (yeah, I got a good buy...go eBay :^) Also, it would help reimburse me for the time I 'd have to take off waiting for the UPS inspector to come in the final 5 minutes of the 5-hour window they'd specify :^)
Turns out that UPS pays the SHIPPER (go figure). So guess what...
Well, the guy's upset at me because he thinks I ripped him off (hey, not my fault the item wasn't bid up!), and now he has told me flat out, sorry, bud, he's keeping hte insurance settlement funds (if any). CAN YOU BELIVE IT?
And get this, he's claiming that I *INTENTIONALLY* broke the item, which I paid for up front, and paid an EXTRA SIXTY DOLLARS for express shipment...all so I could claim a few extra bucks on insurance. Eeeegads! What a twit!
What can I do about this? I mean, good lord, this guy is *advertising* that he's going to rip me off! Is there any way I can force UPS to send ME the money? I mean, I *PAID* for the item, the shipping AND the insurance! I can't BELIEVE what a screw job this is! Do I have *ANY* recourse? Man, I have no idea how that guy can sleep at night. What a creep! If you're reading this, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOU!
By the way, for those that followed the Concorde incident last year, guess what...
After I reported the problem to the mail fraud division of the postal service, and made calls to her local post office and started probing around, the seller suddenly "FOUND" a four-foot-long package in her "neighbor's house" that had been sitting there for a month (y'know, if I accept a four-foot-long package for my neighbor, I make them pick it up right away!). Hmmm: I "call the cops", and the item suddenly pops up. Coincidence? You...be...the...judge.
For those that read the thread, she protested her innocence over and over again...which, given the circumstances that came to light in the final days of the incident, seemed to be hollow protests of innocence.
I have the community here at AuctionWatch to thank for helping out with a slight nudge to the seller to finally get her to come clean and be an honest citizen. Hopefully, the same can happen here...after all, he IS a government employee (looks like they don't pay them enough).
All in all, though, it's been a rough few weeks on eBay, and I'm swearing to stop buying stuff for the umpteenth time :^)
posted on July 29, 2000 08:27:51 PM new
What a bum seller, hope you left negative feedback. We are sellers on eBay and a simililar situation happened to us, we paid our buyer and received positive feedback. Hope you win this, you deserve it.
posted on July 31, 2000 12:15:13 AM new
I certainly thank you for your warm wishes.
Unfortunately, I do believe this seller to be quite literally unstable (I honestly think the guy's paranoid, especially given the bizarre and unsettling e-mails he's sent me), so I think I'm out the money.
One question I have is, if he leaves inappropriate feedback as revenge, can I have it removed? Who KNOWS what this guy is capable of?
Dejected, downhearted, and thinking yet again of kicking the eBay habit, thanks to creeps like this guy,
posted on August 11, 2000 05:26:00 PM new
I have had the exact same problem with UPS not paying me because I was the buyer of the item. I now buy my insurance from this company www.webtradeinsure.com
Their insurance pays me, the buyer, even though I had nothing to do with paying for the shipping itself which was arranged by the seller. So far they have done the best job in handling all of my shipping risks.
