Considering going to police and/or small claims court over Ebay scam

[D22]

I had posted a thread on this a week or two back the recap:

1. Bought $1000 of walmart GCs off ebay for $890
2. Won the PP claim, only got $231 back.
3. Emailed ebay asking for seller's personal information for police action, no response yet.

I want to do the following if it has ANY chance of doing any good:

1. File police report with my local police department.
2. Contact authorities in sellers area
3. File lawsuit in small claims court

Even if I cannot get my money back, if I can at least damage this SOB as much as possible, it will be worth it to me. He claims someone hijacked his account which as we all know may or may not be true. At the very least I want to put the ball in his court since I am the one who got scammed...

I also fired some shots at ebay in my email, basically asking why sellers with under the 98%/50 feedback are even ALLOWED to sell items worth more than $200...because now any item more than $220 I will refuse to even bid on, not to mention bid with my credit card only. At the very least they should have some sort of final acknowledgment that you agree to before you do the final "pay now" button on paypal to ensure the buyer is indeed aware they could get RAPED on the transaction.

But anyway, bottom line, if nothing else I want the satisfaction of taking out this SOB.

Also, if I file a lawsuit, how is the venue determined, can I make him come to me?

 

[RU482]

why only $231 back?

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: redly1
why only $231 back?

 

[D22]

the guys feedback was under the 98% and 50 feedbacks to get the $2000 in protection...even though I know he wasn't far off but since his account is banned I can't check it now. He had something like 30 feedbacks with a 95%+ rating...including some large enough transactions to not bring up a red flag...

But yea, let's see...paypal acts as a credit card even though they "aren't a credit card company"

Any legit credit card company would investigate the fraud and refund the money, even if you bought from a shady outfit.

Ebay owns paypal....so basically its as if the credit card company perpetuates a scam that they are unwilling to back up. Ebay and paypal suck and I will forever treat them now as if I am going to WAR if I ever use them again either one

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: lupi

Originally posted by: redly1
why only $231 back?

Because paypal sucks.

 

[Ns1]

Are you guys in the same state?

If not then you're more or less SOL

 

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: NeuroSynapsis
Are you guys in the same state?

If not then you're more or less SOL

Either way, you're screwed.

 

[RagingBITCH]

No offense, but the AG has more pressing issues on their plate than one guy and eBay. Send it in, but I wouldn't expect to hear back. They might get some jobber fresh out of law school to look into it as busy work.

 

[lozina]

Why stop at the Attorney General's office? Take it to Arnold himself! He will brandish his broadsword and by the power of Crom he will CRUSH those girly-man scammers!!!

Kidding aside- wish you best of luck.

 

[halik]

Should've used your CC. /thread

 

[CatKillaZ]

You are probably SOL, because you will probably have to hire a lawyer which will cost more than its worth

 

[D22]

Raging: One guy, yes, but am I the only one? What if everyone took it to the level that I am? That is my hope, that maybe mine is the 20th packet this week and they say, wait a minute, ebay looks like a criminal enterprise here...

That's what I am hoping for. I feel it is my responsibility to do my part. What we really need is a company like google to knock ebay out because they have the resources to do it EASILY, within less than 12 months I am sure they could destroy ebay if they really tried to. On any given day just check the gift card section of ebay and you can see these types of scams go on every single day. Hopefully we can all unite and slay the monopolistic criminal dragon that is EBAY

 

[AmpedSilence]

I lost $150 to a GC scam. PayPal paid me nothing; now i have this HUGE red bar above my account saying that i have a 'pending' settlement. i have not purchased on eBay since. If eBay wasn't the only option I would close my account; but unfortunelly they are no reasonable alternated out there.

 

[biggestmuff]

Bwahaha! Good luck.

 

[D22]

This is a continuation of this thread http://forums.anandtech.com/me...060983&highlight_key=y

where I was scammed out of $890 and paypal only would refund $230 and refused to give me any of the seller's info. Basically the situation broke down like this:

1. I could prove I sent the money
2. It was admitted that I received no goods by seller
3. The seller claims his account was taken over
4. I make the point the seller could just be making this up, and I should get his information since it should be HIS responsibility if his account was used for illegal activities.
5. Ebay/paypal continue to tell me to F myself (more or less)

I just got all my money back through an ACH dispute with my bank. I have filed a police report and will pick that up early next week. Wachovia essentially said that it should be easy to follow the money trail through paypal and to an individual, even bank cameras if needed to find out who the money ended up going to, I am hoping for an arrest in this case.

Now I am about to send an entire manilla envelope packet to the Attorney General's office of California outlining ebay/paypal's intentional siding with a scammer, and how they are basically participating in these scams themselves... On another note Clark Howard slammed ebay just last week on his radio show about the new trend of seller's boosting their ratings then suddenly selling high dollar items.

BOTTOM LINE - ebay knows about the scams and how to stop them, but does NOTHING and does not care about anything other than making money. It would take a minimal amount of evaluation and implementation to eliminate 90% plus of all of their scams yet they refuse to do anything about it. Hopefully my bank will blast them a good one and the AG's office will to.

I've been a loyal customer for years ebay. Screw me? I'll Screw You!

 

[D22]

bump for combined thread

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: halik
Should've used your CC. /thread

QFT.

 

[D22]

/thread?

I don't think so. Ebay actively encourages you to keep a balance in your paypal account and to pay through their method. It should not be up to the consumer to assume that they will be scammed and be happy when you are not, which is more or less what you are implying.

Should have used a CC translates into - Ebay is full of scammers so you better use a CC so you can do a chargeback which you will inevitably need to do because Ebay perpetuates and promotes scammers...

That's what you meant to say, right?

 

[NogginBoink]

Read the User Agreement from PayPal:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/...SUA-outside#biz-policy

 

[Vette73]

Anything that cost more then $100 or so I use my CC just for this reason. Maybe others will do the same from seeing your story. GL

 

[D22]

well luckily Wachovia has my back, I was really surprised that they were so prompt it returning my money. And hopefully they will subpoena the information out of ebay or whatever they have to do because I doubt they enjoy giving up $600+ for something that isn't really on them.

So yea, lesson learned for me and hopefully others also

WACHOVIA FTW!! best bank ever

 

[KK]

i'd like to know what ebay scam percentage is. i bet its pretty high, personally i'd like to see them shutdown along with paypal.

 

[Jeffwo]

I changed my email address on EBAY and they requested I update my PayPal and creditcard info.

Immediately they withdrew 2 amounts ($15.03 and 30.50) on my debitcard.

My bank disputed the charges and they returned the money.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Hopefully google creates their own auctioning site.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
Hopefully google creates their own auctioning site.

what makes you think the scammers won't flock to that as well?