Getting ripped off on eBay.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been bidding and selling on eBay for 5 years and have never had a bad experience…til last friday.

I only lost just over 10 bucks, but still I’m mad over it. The seller refuses to refund my money, saying that she’s a single mom and “depends” on her eBay income. I told her to take my money and buy some food with it. Then I told her I hoped she choked to death on it. Seller is SO unreasonable. She horribly mis-represented the item in question. Funny thing is, her feedback is pretty good, but she does have a few negs. Besides leaving a neg and reporting her to eBay, is there anything I can do?

I have saved her e-mails in which she admits to selling crap and that if I’d asked her, she’d have gladly told me the item was not worth bidding on.

Any eBay horror stories you’d like to share?

Eric

2

There’s the eBay Fraud Protection Program, which others on this board have tried and have had success. There are some other threads with eBay stories in the board’s archives.

You could fill out the United States Postal Serivice’s Mail Fraud form. It’s a mail fraud case if she sent the package by postal mail instead of UPS or FedEx.

It’s really frustrating. I was furious when I got ripped off once. I tried to take the high road and go through the proper channels, but I’m pretty sure that my money is gone.

3

What did you buy? (Just curious?)

4

It was (what I thought) a really nice white dress shirt, Ralph Lauren. It was described as in “like new” condition. Even the picture looked good. I got the box on friday and when I opened it, I literally almost vomited. The strong stench of urine was overwhelming. I took package outside and dumped it out on the ground. It looked as if it had been used to mop up massive amounts of urine. The shirt also had several small rips in it.

I e-mailed the seller immediately and asked for a refund and told the seller that she had some gall to sell such an item on eBay. She wrote back, “you should have asked questions, and you should have thought something was up since bidding started at only 1 dollar”. So I wrote back and said, “should I have asked you if the shirt had been pissed on?” Seller told me to go fuck myself.

I’m thinking about using the shirt (which is still in my garden) to pick up some doggie poop and then mailing it back to her.

Eric

5

Excuse me? She blames YOU when she was a fraud?

Report her to eBay, and try and get her on mail fraud.

6

I would take the box back to the company (FedEx, USPS, etc) who shipped it. I’m pretty sure that it’s illegial to ship anything soaked in Biohazard. (And that whatever shipping company might be able to better deal with her.)

7
  1. that’s really disgusting and you ahould report her to whatever authorities you can.

2)On another message board i frequent, one of the members told us about a fraud he got burned on.

Basically, he won an auction on an item, then he immediately got an e-mail giving him payment info. He neglected hhowever, to check if the e-mail address was the one for the seller. He sent the money order the next morning and that afternoon (after he sent the money order out) the real seller e-mailed him.

He stopped the payment on the money order the next day (bank was closed) but I’m not sure how it ended.

8

I’ve only had one, sort of bad experience, that had to do with shipping. Before I bid on a pool table I called the seller’s number to ask for a quote on shipping one to my house. He told me over the phone $250.00. After I won the auction, he jacked u- the price to $375.00. I bitched, but even wit the extra $125.00 it was a hell of a deal.

Even so, I negged his feedback for this little bit of chicanery.

9

Ebay has some forums you can discuss this on but this is really weird…stinky clothes? Yuck.

Yeah, give her some feedback.

Usually you return the item & they give you a refund.

10

I only got ripped off once. I bought a USB-to-serial converter for $12 or something, which I thought was a hell of a good deal. I sent my payment via PayPal right away. About 2-3 weeks later I get a note saying they never received my payment, so I sent them a note back telling them I’d paid weeks ago and gave them the PayPal info to prove it. They never replied after that, and I never received my device. By then the details of the auction were over 30 days old and had disappeared from the eBay web site and there was nothing much I could do about it. I would have contacted them earlier (before they sent me the non-payment notice) but the first week was reasonable shipping time for UPS ground and I was away on business for the next two weeks.

I may still have the info on the seller tucked away in my e-mail somewhere. If I ever find it, I’ll be sure never to buy from them again, that’s for sure. Those f**kers (I know, relax, this is not the Pit…) I still swear by (not at :wink: eBay, though, and I’ve gotten many good deals there.