The inevitable finally happened...got defrauded on eBay

[mithrandir2001]

Ah, well, at least it took over 100 eBay transactions before I ran into some slimeball. I bought two Dreamcast games from a "nutec" on eBay for $9.99 each. I should have heeded the warning light when this individual asked for paypal to a hotmail email address. Because of the relative low value of the transaction ($19.98) I sent him payment...on 11/21. But I still have not received the games. I looked up this person's current feedback for clues (it was 17 at the time of my purchase) and it had sunk to 4, the name had changed to "superficial_pimp" and the person was "not a registered user", likely from a suspension. All the comments in the last week were negative and people complained about fraud. A LOT of people probably got defrauded because this seller had at least 200 auctions last month and many were Dreamcast games for $9.99.

Unfortunately, eBay won't get involved unless the dollar amount is over $25 and who they heck knows what paypal will do (it was an EFT from checking account, not credit card). It rather sucks that this person may get away with their crime and many people like me are stuck on the other end with nothing to show and little available recourse.

 

[Adul]

time to hunt down this troll and put some scre into him.

 

[ATLien247]

Is that $25 a cumulative amount, or per auction?

Methinks you could possibly get eBay involved if there are several similar fraudulent auctions by the same seller...

 

[BDawg]

I never use a checking or savings account on EBay. If you use a credit card, you have somebody to bat for you.

 

[Beau]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This is why I don't use ebay.

Sorry to hear about your being screwed 🙁 People really suck some times. Though, I have to admin, I half expected to hear that you were one of those sad folk who bought an empty XboX box for $400+ 🙂

 

[dave5317]

This is bad, sorry for u. Try gather all info, contact egay and paypal to see what they can do!

 

[kranky]

Not that it will make you feel any better, but maybe you'd like to comment in uncJIGGA's thread about P2P payments.

 

[mithrandir2001]

I believe it is $25 per auction, up to $250. The $25 is essentially a deductible. But even if it is cumulative, I don't qualify.

eBay may have less reason to get involved because the payment method was paypal, not Billpoint. If they took payment through Billpoint, this may be a completely different situation. Paypal offers no security or protection, unless you use a CC and win a chargeback through the issuer.

If you really wanted to get investigative, you probably could get MSN to retrieve the IP address of the PC used to access this person's hotmail account and perhaps be able to backtrack that way...but they probably wouldn't do that short of a court order.

 

[hevnsnt]

Man that sucks.. Try and track him/her down.. I thought I got scammed on eBay also, but I tracked down the guys phone number and personal email account. After a nice phonecall, I magically got all my stuff.. hmmm..

 

[swayinOtis]

i almost got screwed over a radar detector.

the guy sold me one detector but shipped another, cheaper one. i eventually got what i ordered because i told him about the ebay fraud policy. i had him over a barrel, but it was a major hassle.

like you said, the auction has to be for $25 or more before their insurance kicks in, and, the seller can not have any negative feedback! as a rule i never buy from anyone who has negative feedback.

 

[mithrandir2001]

How ironic! When I came home today I found a package from Nutec in the mailbox. Finally after 3.5 weeks, I get something. So I opened it up and found two jewel cases. However, they sent me illegal, pirated games on black CD-Rs. :| The games work and have been made self-bootable, but that's pretty low. All Nutec has to say in the feedback responses is "We deliver!"