Way OT: an ebay question

[TAandy]

The wife bought a Band of Brothers DVD boxset from a person on eBay for £23.00 through paypal.
It arrived today, 2 ordinary recordable DVD's in plastic sleeves.
The problem is that this a$$hole is no longer a registered user with eBay.
Any ideas on how to go about getting her money back (if at all possible)?
I emailed him earlier asking what happened to the boxset. I know he read the email (I use MSGTAG) but he hasn't answered.
I know it's not an awful lot of money but I hate letting people like this get away with it :|

 

[GeoffS]

Dispute the charge with Paypal citing that the seller broke international copyright laws in mailing illegal copies of the product. Also threaten the guy with going to the authorities... in the US this would fall under mail fraud and would involve the FBI. Got get 'im!

 

[Wiz]

Yeah, get Interpol on the phone.
(heh... last time I called the FBI about real crime involving interstate abuse of an internet server - mine - they pretty much laughed me off the phone saying if there's less than $250K in damages then my case would never see the light of day)

Seriously, you can dispute the payment but that's about all the satisfaction you're going to get.

Did he not have negative feedback, did your wife even check?
People, you gotta check the feedback. If it's negative or zero then don't buy - period.

 

[Unforgiven]

paypal is absolutely worthless. i got screwed by a fraudulent buyer and lost over $700 and ebay and paypal were basically worthless. in fact a guy at paypal told me that i shouldnt even bother and just learn from the experience. i learned alright and closed my paypal and ebay accounts that day and only have friends purchase things for me on ebay

 

[networkman]

Originally posted by: Unforgiven
paypal is absolutely worthless. i got screwed by a fraudulent buyer and lost over $700 and ebay and paypal were basically worthless. in fact a guy at paypal told me that i shouldnt even bother and just learn from the experience. i learned alright and closed my paypal and ebay accounts that day and only have friends purchase things for me on ebay

Was this recent? I also had a questionable experience, so I went back and started reading the fine print of the user agreement.. needless to say, I closed my PayPal account as well.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

I don't know about paypal and ebay in the US but in Germany, they are subject to a normal police investigation if something like that happens. Closing the ebay account won't help a guy like that, 'cause the German ebay requires a hell lot of identification to let you in, including address, phone, and so on. Ebay keeps these infos for at least 6 months after an account gets cosed. So yeah, he might be off ebay but he's not off their database. I'd assume it's the same here in the US but then again your different states may have different laws for a case like that.

:beer:

 

[Unforgiven]

Originally posted by: networkman

Originally posted by: Unforgiven
paypal is absolutely worthless. i got screwed by a fraudulent buyer and lost over $700 and ebay and paypal were basically worthless. in fact a guy at paypal told me that i shouldnt even bother and just learn from the experience. i learned alright and closed my paypal and ebay accounts that day and only have friends purchase things for me on ebay

Was this recent? I also had a questionable experience, so I went back and started reading the fine print of the user agreement.. needless to say, I closed my PayPal account as well.

this was about 3-4 months ago i would say. the bottom line is that things are great with paypal when transactions go true to form, but if you get off the beaten path and there is some fraud involved, you are on your own. i will never use paypal again!

 

[Wolfsraider]

thats why I use my debit account. it takes 90 days, but its saved my butt 2x on ebay (being able to contest the charges helps a lot).

Mike

 

[TackleDummy]

I had a dispute and paypal took about 10 days to refund my money. This was about 4 months ago, so I guess YMMV.

 

[TAandy]

Thanks for the replies :beer:
I'll have to see if I can make myself a pain in the ar$e with some people (shouldn't be hard, according to the wife )
"Did he not have negative feedback, did your wife even check?"
She didn't check