After 12 years of shopping ebay, I finally got ripped off. Seller going by the name of ph-train-store. I won an item the end of May, promptly sent payment and have not received the item and the seller has not responded to many emails. My advice is to keep away from this guy, he’s a crook.
Toys Bezuur did the same thing to me. I bought a Faller model from them back in April - still haven’t rec’d it and the guy stopped responding to emails, etc. Stuff like this happens, even from people with really good feedback ratings.
My main advice to everyone is this: Use PayPal to pay, when available. But, if you need to file a complaint, make sure you do so within 30 days of your purchase! I think PayPal’s policy is 45 days, but I’m saying 30 here just to be safe - please check out Paypal to make sure of the cutoff… Don’t make the mistake that I did, when the guy I bought from said he was sending a replacement product, which I stupidly waited for, thus allowing the PayPal complaint period to expire… This guy really knew what he was doing…
If you have an issue with any Ebay transaction, open a dispute. It can always be cleared if there was a miscommunication or other problem rather than fraud but, my experience is that it normally prompts a quick response from the other party. Of course, if it’s really someone who has stolen another member’s account and has no legitimate goal, it’s not really going to help. It just improves the situation with lackadaisical or border line sellers and buyers.
My e-Bay “policy”:
-
Never buy from anyone with under a dozen sales
-
Never buy from anyone with a rating of under 99.8
-
Always read the feedback, even if the above two criteria are met.
I have 30+ good transactions - either my rules work, or I’m lucky !!!
gbailey,
I agree with you about reading a person’s feedback. Upon reading them sometimes it becomes obvious that the person leaving the negative is being unreasonable (“I paid for the item on the 1st and still haven’t received it” - the feed back being posted on the 4th). Other times you will see a negative feedback but in the comments will be a “buyer never said there was a problem” and the buyer will then comment “seller quickly fixed the problem - great guy” but once a negative is posted it can’t be taken back.
Of course some negative posting show clearly that the seller is probably not that great of a person to deal with (not necessarily dishonest - but sloppy in his/her record keeping, not the best packer etc etc).
I’ve also seen some sellers that, for example, have a 90% feedback rating. Upon checking the feedback I saw that the person’s negatives were all over a year ago and that he/she had a couple hundred of positive feedbacks over the last 12 months with no negatives or neutrals. I chalked that up to in experience and stupid mistakes when the person started. I won his auction and was totally impressed by his speed of shipping and excellent job of packing (I’ll also add that he ate about $2.00 on the shipping).
Food for thought George. If you have a feedback rating of 30, if for some reason your next transaction runs into a problem and a non knowledgeable person gives you a negative, then your rating won’t meet your own criteria of 99.8. After getting to know you through this forum I would still buy from you 'cause I feel you’re a straight up guy.
I’m not slamming anyone’s criteria on how to evaluate a seller, each person has to do what they feel comfortable with. My criteria is to take a case by case basis. With over 400 transactions I’ve only been disappointed once.
Just my opinions
Dave
There was a story on the news last night that e-mailers claiming to be ‘ebay’ get ahold of your information and send you a confirmatory e-mail that you have won the auctioned item. You are directed to send money to an address. A woman spent $2000 for an ATV and never saw it, had no replies to her inquiries, and finally called ebay. They replied that she did NOT win the auction, and therefore she was outside of their reimbursement policy. Their advice: use a proxy for payment.
Thanks for the warning! gbaily, I just started selling stuff on eBay, so you will be ok buying from me! I would not rip you off, or would I? Nah, just messin’ with you! [(-D]
I always check sellers feedback. ph-train-store seems to have had a problem, 13 negatives in 6 months. Not good…
I’d like to add my 2 cents
I’m not going to defend these undesirable sellers, but I feel this needs to be said. I think we need to keep in mind that some of these sellers, like the rest of us, end up in situations where they can’t fulfill the transaction in a timely fashion. and by that I mean a medical problem arises or something else along those lines.
I have only been stiffed once. And I sort of think that the seller passed away. I won the bid for an old card game and then paid the seller. Time passed but no game. Some time later, I did a seller search…no luck. There had been no activity from that seller for quite awhile.
I mean think about it, are YOU going to relay your passwords to a trusted family member so they can finish your Ebay transactions if you can not? In this internet world we live in, we are all anonomous to one another. Sometimes we need to try and put ourselves in the other person’s shoes before we get all fired-up.
But I do agree with the other posts. I also use the feedback method for weeding out the rotten apples. And if they have thousands of feedbacks, I really check them out. After awhile it becomes easier to spot the good ones and the bad.
I’ve got to agree with onetrack - sometimes things happen. I’ve only been ripped off once, but then not really. (I’ve thought I was ripped off several times, but after re-reading the item description, I reailized my problem was that I had bid on clearly defined junk!) Anyway, after wiinning an auction, and receiving an email from the seller, I sent a money order for my stuff. It never arrived. I sent several unanswered emails, and even got the guy’s phone # from information (disconnected). By the time I finally accepted defeat, the ebay deadline had passed, so I chalked it up to experience. Besides, it was only around 20 bucks, so I wasn’t going to starve or anything. After another couple of months had passed, this guy emailed me, said he was sorry and had had personal problems, and did I want my money back or the item. I took the item. (Should have taken the money - another case of my bidding on junk!) He never said, but after thinking about it, it was about 100 days that had elapsed. I think the guy was in the slammer!
David
I got a VERY real looking e-mail from E-Bay saying I had to update my account. You could even shop and browse from this link. I reported it to E-Bay scam line. They tell you to cut and paste the link to their site for investigation.When you perform the paste function, It unlocks the routing code of the e-mail and lets you see where it came from. This one listed almost every terrorist country in the middle east and south africa. I guess the talibahn is in the E-Bay biz these days, so watch out. You might want to try this to track your purchase.
Thanx for the heads up.
Just forward these e-mails to spoof@ebay.com
Likewise if you get the same sort of scam e-mail from Paypal forward it to spoof@paypal.com
The more of these they get the more likely they can trace the source.
This is what you get back if you forward to spoof@paypal.com I got a very realistic looking phishing scam yesterday.
Thank you for contacting PayPal. We appreciate you bringing this
suspicious email to our attention.
Commonly referred to as phishing, these emails are sent by fraudsters
in an attempt to collect sensitive personal or financial information
from the recipients. PayPal takes phishing threats seriously our fraud
prevention specialists are working 24/7 to help protect you and enable
the community to stay safe.
After review, we can confirm that the email you received was not sent by
PayPal. Any website which may be linked to this email is not authorized
or used by PayPal.
Our fraud prevention team is working to disable any website linked to
this email. In the meantime, please do not enter any information into
this website. If you have already done so, you should immediately log
into your PayPal account and change your password, as well as your
security questions and answers. We also recommend that you contact your
bank and credit card company immediately.
If you notice any unauthorized activity on your PayPal account, please
report it to us by following the instructions below:
-
Log in to your account only from the PayPal website. Do not use
links provided in any email. -
Click on the Security Center link at the bottom of the page.
-
Click on the ‘Unauthorized Transaction’ link under the Report a
Problem column. -
Follow the instructions on this page in order to access the
appropriate form.
Lastly, we recommend taking a few steps to protect yourself from
identity theft:
" Download the SafetyBar, a toolbar for Outlook and Outlook Express,
which identifies known spoof emails.
" Get eBay Toolbar with Account Guard w