Ebay - rogues or just don't care?

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Discussion

lowdrag

Original Poster:

13,025 posts

219 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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I've spotted something for sale on Ebay and as a journalist am fully aware of what has gone on with this vendor before. Parts sold recently for nearly £8,000 were completely false and the seller says "he hasn't the means to reimburse the purchaser". I send an email to Ebay about the guy - no reply. Now the parts are for sale again on Ebay and bidding has hit £500 even though I have told Ebay the guy no longer has the items - the purchaser still has them until he is reimbursed. I send an email to Ebay telling them about it and that the vendor hasn't the parts (same photos) and that they are really excrement. The vendor has already ripped people off to the tune of £15,000 and no matter what they don seem to care at Ebay. This time the vendor says he won't accept Paypal - I wonder why? I send a message via Ebay to the vendor and he says "the sale has fallen through". I report all of this and still Ebay let it go - the items are still for sale. I am going to write a full article on this in the fullness of time. The vendor gives the impression he is a private guy but actually has a restoration company in Gloucestershire.

Hell, what do you do to try and get a fair deal?

Deva Link

26,934 posts

251 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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lowdrag said:
This time the vendor says he won't accept Paypal
Shouldn't that on its own be enough to get the listing pulled?

RW774

1,042 posts

229 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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Hi Tony, I would have thought this blatant fraud, because the seller is deliberatly misleading the public, especially if it can be proved the seller is knowlegeable .

a8hex

5,830 posts

229 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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Tony, a couple of years ago I spent some time letting eBay know about obviously fraudulent classic Jag listings. There were such listings every day. It was a pain to find the right bit of the site to make the complaint and they kept moving it!
A couple of times I got response from them after about a week, but after a while they'd take down the ads within a day or so. Then they stopped and so I gave up.

In this case I would have thought that the best plan would be for the purchaser of the carbs (I assume) to contact the police and to have them investigate.

The purchaser should also have a better route into the complaints bit of the eBay site.

If this was the set of carbs you were talking about here before then they don't seem to be listed there now. Either that or I'm looking in the wrong place.

lowdrag

Original Poster:

13,025 posts

219 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
quotequote all
Then look here:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

When I sent him a message via Ebay about them, asking if they were the same set of carbs, this is the reply I got:-

"Hi, yes they are - but the sale fell through. They would be the perfect setup for a D type project. Kind regards".

This is completely false. The "purchaser" has them in his possession until he gets his money back, not the vendor. Someone else is about to get crucified. Even the photos are the same. You'll note that Paypal is exclude to avoid comeback.



Edited by lowdrag on Monday 22 June 18:31

a8hex

5,830 posts

229 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
quotequote all
lowdrag said:
Then look here:-

...
Sorry, I'd search for Weber Carburettor and they didn't show up. Searching for just Weber brings them up OK.


One thing is that his original ad "200328105857" mentioned that he had two sets.

Down the bottom of a listing page there is a link to "Report this item" and Fraudulent listing is one of the reasons for reporting.

I assume the problem is that first time round he'd said they were originals and now he's saying they are 80s copies.

lowdrag

Original Poster:

13,025 posts

219 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
quotequote all
Ah, he sold one set to the USA and one to the UK. Both were downright fraud and both sets are at the same garage now in the UK. The seller has said he hasn't the money to reimburse the customers but is still running a classic car garage in the west. I am at my wits end as to how to get Ebay to take out this listing to prevent further fraud. I guess the only thing to do is to send copies of all correspondence to the fraud squad and to Watchdog.

eccles

13,791 posts

228 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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lowdrag said:
Then look here:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

When I sent him a message via Ebay about them, asking if they were the same set of carbs, this is the reply I got:-

"Hi, yes they are - but the sale fell through. They would be the perfect setup for a D type project. Kind regards".

This is completely false. The "purchaser" has them in his possession until he gets his money back, not the vendor. Someone else is about to get crucified. Even the photos are the same. You'll note that Paypal is exclude to avoid comeback.



Edited by lowdrag on Monday 22 June 18:31
The way I see it is that he's selling them again as 80's replicas. He sells them, pays off original buyer with the money, gets carbs back off him, and then posts them on to the second buyer. In theory everyone is happy......

One way to call his bluff would be to ask to see if you can pop round to see the carbs before bidding on them....

DickyC

51,301 posts

204 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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An eBay vendor wouldn't wait for money to transfer from my bank account to PayPal and launched an Unpaid dispute and sold the items to someone else - through eBay. He wouldn't communicate, he had my money but the goods were gone. When I gave him negative feedback he emailed to say I shouldn't have done it and gave me my first negative feedback. Colourful negative feedback it was, too. Nice.

All that I could cope with. What I could not stomach was eBay's reply to my explanation when I asked for the strike to be lifted. I forget the wording, but the gist of it was, "We'll let you off this time but if ever you don't pay again you'll be banned."

eBay clearly don't give a stuff and, as a consequence, I don't do much eBaying any more.


lowdrag

Original Poster:

13,025 posts

219 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
quotequote all
[quote=eccles]The way I see it is that he's selling them again as 80's replicas. He sells them, pays off original buyer with the money, gets carbs back off him, and then posts them on to the second buyer. In theory everyone is happy......quote]

Fine, I like your idea but.............
Sells them now for £500. How does he pay back the £15,000 he owes which he says he's spent? Last time he advertised them as genuine DCO4 carbs pretending to be the innocent private vendor who had had them in his garage for 20 years. The underneaths are plain and simple 45DCOE's which fetch £1,000 a set with carefully made covers and false DCO4 plates. Clever photography concealed the fraud. Get real; this man is a car restoration "specialist". Thank god I never sent a car near him in Gloucester.

a8hex

5,830 posts

229 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
quotequote all
This sounds like a case for the fraud squad or at the very minimum trading standards to sort out.


It looks like the original purchaser took some time to realise that they'd been done. They left good feedback.


I've been ripped off on eBay. I bought a computer (not a PC) from someone in Melbourne, they wanted paying by bank transfer, silly me! It arrived in bits and never worked. Since then I've only ever bought things using Paypal and a credit card. That way I'm buying from the credit card company so I've got someone tangible to complain to if things go wrong again. Touch wood, that was the only time.

eBay's cost model doesn't allow them to validate all the ads and all the sellers. If they had to make sure that everything was legit there would be no eBay. I thinks it is very much a case of buyer beware. I think that most of the time eBay can be a great thing. I've bought all sorts of stuff from all sorts of places. I've sold things I no longer have a home for but I didn't think should be just thrown away. When my interest in old cars was that I couldn't afford new ones. There were lots of convenient hardware shops around. If I needed a few 1/16" grub screws I could pick up the yellow pages and find somewhere. Not many of those shops left now, but many of that sort of shop that does exist does most of it business via eBay. Sadly eBay is no different to the rest of life, there are a few bcensoredds out there who screw things up for the rest.

I hope you are able to stop someone else being ripped off and the original purchasers manage to get their money back.

eccles

13,791 posts

228 months

Monday 22nd June 2009
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lowdrag said:
eccles said:
Rachel Riley Get real; this man is a car restoration "specialist". Thank god I never sent a car near him in Gloucester.
Easy tiger! I was just saying maybe, just maybe the seller could be trying to put things right.

RW774

1,042 posts

229 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
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Awful situation that this is,regulation against this kind of thing is difficult . In this instance, I would have thought it is fraudulent deception . But,` caveat emptor, buyer beware` will protect the seller. I certainly do not condone this kind of thing but It is up to the purchaser to assure himself that the goods are genuine. As a kid, I used to collect WW1 military cap badges.I still have my collection(sad that I am) but now the market is flooded with very good Indian copies. They are aged and all very legal. Now I now see copies of german spiked helmets on the open market ,put out as originals , so it goes on....

DickyC

51,301 posts

204 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
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RW774 said:
As a kid, I used to collect WW1 military cap badges.I still have my collection (sad that I am) but now the market is flooded with very good Indian copies.
Me too, but both wars in my case. In an idle moment, after years of no military cap badge activity, I ran an eBay search and found a Long Range Desert Group badge. "Popski's Private Army?" I thought. "Ah, ha! I'm having that," and dived straight in.

A Popski's Private Army cap badge for ten quid?

Twit. Terwit. Complete and utter twittypoos.

Once bitten and all that. But relevant to all sorts of articles is how to convince people that the original badge collection (carbs, painting, coins or whatever) are genuine because you've had them since just after the flood. Is it that you should make your case to an old established auction house and avoid on-line auctions altogether? Someone with a reputation to protect, I suppose I'm saying.

Edited by DickyC on Tuesday 23 June 10:51

medieval

1,499 posts

217 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
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If you can prove that a vendor is aware that an item they sell or are selling is counterfeit, fraudulent etc and you have been a victim of the deception, then you do have the right to report it to your local police.

Please do not dismiss this as pointless as my local force, West Midlands, were very interested on an ebay sale in which I was defrauded for a reasonably sizeable sum of money and they pursued the vendor in the UK and my money was returned. (Issued a caution on the agreement that the funds would be reimbursed)

They are particularly keen to pursue these matters now as it is a growing area of crime where it is perceived that there will be no repurcussions but the key factor is having that proof.

Kind regards all.

RW774

1,042 posts

229 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
quotequote all
Hi Dicky, I remember speaking to ex Sgt O`leary in the day, he was a very humble, unassuming man and a relative of a customer. What an honour. MM winner I believe.

DickyC

51,301 posts

204 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
quotequote all
RW774 said:
Hi Dicky, I remember speaking to ex Sgt O`leary in the day, he was a very humble, unassuming man and a relative of a customer. What an honour. MM winner I believe.
An honour, indeed!

Unassuming, that's the word. Two old boys selling Poppies locally a while ago, one very talkative about his exploits, the other very taciturn. The talkative one had a beret with the badge of the Army Pay Corps; the taciturn one had a red beret with a Tank Corp badge.

As he handed me my Poppy I asked, "Is that Tank Corp and Paratroops?"

"Yes," he said, and that was all he wanted to say on the subject.

New project, re-read Popski's Private Army.

Sorry, hijacked another thread...

Nick_F

10,271 posts

252 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
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Royal Armoured Corps Parachute Squadron, mostly 2RTR. Use of the term 'Tank Corps' may have caused mild irritation...smile

DickyC

51,301 posts

204 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
quotequote all
He was well into his eighties, tall and straight and I bet the local yobbos would still have left him alone and mugged someone else.

RW774

1,042 posts

229 months

Tuesday 23rd June 2009
quotequote all
Hi Dicky, will re read Popskis PA very soon thanks for that. I have it at home, heroes?we have had lots of them but mostly now forgotten. What ever happened to the `Victor?`that was the only way youngsters could find out about them,sorry off at a tangent here...very enjoyable non the less.
Mine is a Royal Marine gunnery officer who closed the magazine room door of HMS Lion at Jutland,after Q turret had been hit. He died as a result of injuries but was awarded the VC . His action saved the ship, my grandad was in the engine room !