Word of Warning to anyone selling on ebay/paypal! Read my story! dont let it happen to you!

[bacc.vap]

The problem is you have no proof, sad fact. What should be done with these types of transactions is to make a video showing the package unopened with the labeling clearly shown, all the way through opening it and seeing what's inside and what shape it's in, then there would be proof. It's screwed up, but that's the situation your in when buying and selling these days.

 

[supermarket]

Ok so Long story short, I ordered a mech mod clone off of FT and in the month it took for me to get it, I ended up buying another mod. So when I got the FT clone mod I decided to sell it on Ebay. I have been selling on ebay for the past year so my feedback is 100% positive as a seller and buyer.
I take it out, take pictures and wrap it back up.
I end up selling the mod to a guy, he pays me via paypal, and I ship it out.
As soon as he gets it he claims it is scratched up and it is used. I tell him that I only took it out for pictures and sent it to him, nothing more. HE then starts telling me it wont even fire and that I sold him a bunk mod. Ok, maybe it was a bad mod. I tell him to send it back to me and Ill refund his money, no problem. HE replies" no man im going to report this, youre not ripping me off twice." So he opens a case with Ebay. Ebay gives me a few options, one of them being refunding the money when he sends the mod back. I choose that one. They say to wait until the item is delivered to refund the money, so I do.
Well last night I received the package and open it. What do I find inside? yep, NOT the mod, but a piece of metal!!!! It weighs about the same as the mod, and he even wrapped it up in bubble wrap.
SO I immediately report it to EBay and message the guy saying I wont be giving him his refund. Well he sends back some smart remark and escalates the case with Ebay. They(Ebay) emailed me some canned message saying the case was decided in favor of the buyer and they refunded the buyer because tracking shows the item was delivered back to me!!
Now im out my money and no mod! Thank goodness it wasn't a $200 high end mod, but still.
So basically Ebay will always side with the buyer! Be careful sellers! Im sure most buyers and sellers are honest but be careful if right away someone starts claiming broken/used item.I wish I would have opened his package in the presence of a postal employee or someone "official"
am I allowed to post this guys ebay ID? I don't want him to do this to any of you guys selling here because he is obviously interested in mech mods and E cig stuff....

That doesn't make ANY sense. I would CALL and contact eBay. Get a REAL person, to talk to.

Take pictures of the metal he sent you. Call eBay, and be PERSISTANT. Offer to send the pictures to anyone who needs to view them.

Considering your high feedback rating, I would assume eBay should work with you. If not, I'm sorry

 

[Myrany]

Honestly I would be super careful about contacting ebay or paypal. Given vaping stuff is not allowed to be sold you could lose both accounts.

 

[bacc.vap]

If you can get the police to take the situation seriously, there may be finger prints on that socket, if you did'nt disturb them, that could be considered proof. I doubt they'll want to go that far though, for this kind of value.

 

[supermarket]

I had a recording/live show gear, guitars and bass store on ebay for years, 100's of sales always stayed at 100% positive, this exact BS happened to me right after they made some policy change, closed the store and never looked back, I refuse to even look at something on ebay anymore, if ebay is the only place to buy something, then I will go without. Hate that place now.

Glad I read your reply. I was going to say....I have an account that is around 10 years old on ebay, and I've sold plenty of stuff..and bought stuff too. Any problem I ever ran into, I was able to work out via eBay....even when I had a few people try to rip me off.

I was wondering if some major policy changes have taken place in the past few years, because I hardly use ebay now. In fact, I've used ebay recently, about 3 times, all for e-cig related stuff in the past month, but besides that, I haven't bought/sold anything in over a year.

Anyway, that is a shame that ebay has gone downhill. Back in the day, they were actually pretty decent with fighting fraud. You would ASSUME with as long as ebay has been in the game, they would KNOW how to spot fraudulent activity, and would at least be willing to listen to BOTH SIDES of the story, and come to a fair conclusion.

Best of luck OP.

Whatever you DO, DO NOT GIVE UP. A HUGE reason why frauds are so successful in the business world, is because the victims of the fraud usually give up fighting before the fight is over. GIVE THIS GUY HELL. Threaten to sue. Contact the police and see what they can do. It is time for you to turn into an ...........that is what it takes sometimes....I've had to do it PLENTY OF TIMES. Lol.....the trick is to make sure no one else can rest until your case gets resolved. EVENTUALLY, someone is going to get tired of you not letting this go, and they will make a decent effort to fix things (hopefully). It will probably be ebay.

 

[supermarket]

If you can get the police to take the situation seriously, there may be finger prints on that socket, if you did'nt disturb them, that could be considered proof. I doubt they'll want to go that far though, for this kind of value.

Yea, the police won't get involved......but I would DEFINITELY contact them, because they MIGHT do something that can be documented, and it will show you made the effort to get them involved.

Even if they write up some BS police report, and don't do anything after that....you can still request a copy of it, and it will be useful in pursuing this guy.



Others are saying e-cig related stuff isn't allowed on ebay.....if that is the case, you are skating on thin ice OP. I've never sold stuff on ebay that is against the ToS(Terms of Service), for OBVIOUS reasons (exact situations like THIS). One thing is certain.....if you are selling stuff on ebay that is against their ToS....you have a LOT, LOT, LOT less room to work with in situations like these. Best of luck.

 

[peterforpats]

Sorry that happened to you.

I'm surprised ebay didn't close your account because it is e cig related.

e-bay has literally thousands of e-cig products -does anyone believe they don't know? they are hypocrites and I will never use them for anything.....

 

[Myrany]

e-bay has literally thousands of e-cig products -does anyone believe they don't know? they are hypocrites and I will never use them for anything.....

Years ago there was a game called The Sims Online. It was against Maxis Rules and Ebay rules to sell currency for that game on EBay. People did it all the time. The tact EBay took was if a customer reported it they did a clean sweep of all TSO stuff. If Maxis contacted them about it they did the same. It was sort of a we are not going to be proactive just reactive. I suspect it the same with vaping.

 

[ryu1]

Thanks for all the advice guys. He has not responded so I'm going to follow through with a police report next week. Unless he has a change of heart. And yeah there is so much vaping stuff on there. I know some people label mods as battery compartments haha! It's just a fancy case for my battery eBay, nothing more!

 

[supermarket]

Thanks for all the advice guys. He has not responded so I'm going to follow through with a police report next week. Unless he has a change of heart. And yeah there is so much vaping stuff on there. I know some people label mods as battery compartments haha! It's just a fancy case for my battery eBay, nothing more!

Yep. He isn't gonna change him mind, unless he is scared, or worried of repercussions from eBay or LEO (law enforcement agency). Or being sued. Make sure you keep pressing the issue. Apply PRESSURE to the issue, because if you don't.....it will be easier for him to slip away from his mess. I've dealt with people like this my whole life, believe me

 

[Raycecar]

This is why I sell my stuff on Craigslist. They check out the item right in front of you. If they have a problem with the item, it's in their hands now. No refunds. No dealing with cases.

 

[patrao_n]

Whenever I buy on ebay I video the opening. I will always assume what I ordered isnt in there. I had a friend who bought a laptop from amazon before. He got a very large book. Amazon actually told him that it couldnt have been. It came from their warehouse. So he was out the money. Sucks but it happens.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 4

 

[Racehorse]

Well last night I received the package and open it. What do I find inside? yep, NOT the mod, but a piece of metal!!!! It weighs about the same as the mod, and he even wrapped it up in bubble wrap.

I had a buyer who tried to rip me off years ago when I sold on Ebay. Let;s just say that by the time I filed mail fraud charges against him, and about 20 other interventions, he was sorry he messed with me, since I fight back hard.

This isn't an ebay thing, you're dealing with a full fledged criminal, who has perpetrated a crime against you.

That said, you have no protections like I did, since you are selling ecig device on Ebay, which is clearly against Ebay and Paypal policy, so you will not be able to do anything. My item was fully legal to sell on Ebay.

Just a heads up, next time you are opening a return package like this, do it with witnesses, at the USPS counter. If you had done that, you would have 100% proof to file mail fraud, which is a federal offense.

If I were you, I would still pursue the mail fraud avenue.

BTW, once you have a deal on ebay you can request the customer's info, phone number, etc. Make sure this person's phone is valid (check it against white pages on the internet and his name) If it is non wowrking or not valid, you may also report this to Ebay and Paypal.

 

[AprilRain]

This kind of crap is exactly why I quit selling on eBay. I had several people rip me off and there really isn't a whole lot you can do about it. I'd rather give my stuff to family & friends or throw it away before I let some jerk steal from me. :/

 

[peterforpats]

Years ago there was a game called The Sims Online. It was against Maxis Rules and Ebay rules to sell currency for that game on EBay. People did it all the time. The tact EBay took was if a customer reported it they did a clean sweep of all TSO stuff. If Maxis contacted them about it they did the same. It was sort of a we are not going to be proactive just reactive. I suspect it the same with vaping.

ebay has "electronic cigarette" as a sub-title in their category list with thousands of results- how can they not know? they are the ones who put the title in there not customers. kinda stupid to pretend it doesn't exist....
type in
'e-cigarette" in the search box and 2995 results come up -starter kits ,etc. what policy are they talking about?

 

[Racehorse]

ebay has "electronic cigarette" as a sub-title in their category list

That perplexed me as well. Ebay created a category list for items they do not allow to be sold on their site?

I smell a lawsuit in the making........

 

[Myrany]

ebay has "electronic cigarette" as a sub-title in their category list with thousands of results- how can they not know? they are the ones who put the title in there not customers. kinda stupid to pretend it doesn't exist....
type in
'e-cigarette" in the search box and 2995 results come up -starter kits ,etc. what policy are they talking about?

It was the same with game currency way back when too. Yet it was still against eBAy policy to sell. Don't ask me why they make no sense in their dealings I do not work for them.

 

[Bombies]

Also never ship to a paypal buyer with an unconfirmed shipping address. All they have to do is file a complaint and they automatically get their money back no questions asked. Paypal provides no protection to the seller for unconfirmed shipping addresses. Its total BS. I lost a lot of money selling a bulk order this way.

 

[AttyPops]

Ok so Long story short, ...

Sad. If you could prove he sent the metal chunk back instead of your mod (prints?) you could take him to court. Would cost you more than it's worth and he knows it. IDK if you could file a report with the cops/feds for mail-fraud. Also, reporting to pay-pal in addition to e-bay since PP had to reimburse. Cops/feds/PP might at least investigate and ask questions. Could make him think twice next time.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

 

[vernhall]

Sorry to hear of the problem, man, but that's why I no longer sell on Ebay... Used to, in another life, have a little side business selling Amber with Inclusions that I imported from Lithuania... What a nightmare that turned out to be!!

As stated here incidents like your's on Ebay are why, if I'm going to deal in anything from other than a reputable online seller or a local B&M, it's going to be here on ECF where there's a verification process I trust!