Hello,

As some of you may have known I bought a Roland Fantom-S about a month ago. I payed Via paypal but the guy never sent it. I filed a claim against him in attempts to get my money back. The claim ended today and I only got 34.26! Heres the e-mail they sent me...

"After careful review, we have concluded our investigation of the Buyer
Complaint described below.

We have decided in your favor, however, we were unable to recover any funds
from the seller's account. As stated in the PayPal User Agreement, recovery
of funds associated with a Buyer Complaint cannot be guaranteed.

We will make our best effort to recover the funds in question if they
become available in the seller's account in the future. Please be assured
that we will also take appropriate action against the seller's account,
which may include limitation of the seller's account privileges."

Have any of you guys encountered a problem such as mine? I didnt pay through Ebay so i cant do anythign with them. Any help is appreciated. I really would like my money back, and a new KB.

Thanks,

Phil

From 1999-2001 I must have purchased 50 items from Ebay, sold about a dozen items all using paypal, and the internet, and all without issue. Problem is today online scams are getting so slick that you are more likely to get taken then ever before. In 2002 I closed my Ebay and paypal accounts and now only do business locally-in person, because I felt at the time-and still do that it is not worth the risks. You must realize that Ebay, and Paypal are set up in such a way that either buyers, or sellers take the hit for faudulent transactions. You should go into each transaction with the realization that it is 50/50 whether or not you will be taken, and there is no recourse.

Ebay has escrow services available[over $500].Both the seller and buyer are protected..The seller will ship the product knowing the money is paid and escrowed...the buyer knows they will recieve the product and inspect , before funds are released..

I thought that paypal provides security for both - buyer and seller!?!
If your dealer tells you that no money of yours has reached his account then I guess your money is lost on its way. But it is IMHO the liability of the paypal banking system to follow the path your money went, isn't it? You lost money - anyone got it! Try to go the way of justice then maybe the system will come in motion.


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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

it was on ebay right? But you didn't pay through ebay?
Did the auction come to an end? were you the winner?
And the guy lived close enough to you to deliver it?

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 03-13-2005).]

The item was on ebay, and i e-mailed the guy my offer and he accepted. He took it off of ebay as soon as I payed him.

Paypal doesnt do jack for you for security, its all false advertising.

Ive already taken several actions, got police background checks ect. I will be able to get my money back, just not any time soon.

Thanks,

Phil

Phil...I use E-Bay quite a lot and have only had two problems, one is getting resolved now and the other I will turn over to the FBI Mail Fraud Unit to go after the seller.
However, I must say that E-bay states that if you go out side the system and offer ar boy from someone outside of e-bay they will not asssist you because you choose to go ou of the system....if you had followed the auction until the end and it had closed with you being the winner, you would have had recourse through E-Bay buyer protection....I
believe this is the case here....turn them in to the fraud unit and see how fast they want to make the claim go away.....good luck

Phil,

Your big mistake was in conducting this transaction outside of Ebay, thus depriving yourself of any financial or legal protection they could have offered. Been doing business on eBay since 1998 and have never chosen to transact outside of eBay during an active auction (as a buyer or seller). Several times I have made sales after an auction ended because the buyer missed out, and sometimes this has resulted in an even bigger sale because the buyer will buy an entire collection instead of just the single item! I have received numerous offers during an auction but always graciously decline (eBay now offers a "Best Offer" feature). You really have to protect yourself in every way possible! Very sorry that this happened to you and hope you're able to fully recover the funds...

Michael

[This message has been edited by ocomain (edited 03-14-2005).]

Hi Guys. I have done a lot of business on Ebay and lately, w/ non-paying bidders, it's become harder and harder to get paid for a auction item sold, so I have went the "Immediate payment required" route. I was took for $430 by some creep who never sent the item and he had about a 100 positive feedback's w/ no problems. He said he had shipped via Fedex through Kinko's but tracking showed Kinko's never got the item, so in the end Paypal and Ebay kicked him off. I did get about $140 from Paypal that they grabbed from his account, so I guess I should consider myself lucky for even that. I have filed w/ the Internet Fraud site but will probably never see results as they are concerned w/ the big ripoff's. If you bought outside of ebay then you don't have much recourse.

I think this way of purchasing is born to be full of problems. The only way this kind of a system could work is that ebay gives money to those who lose their money. It's as simple as that. You should not be able to use a service in a way that makes you lose money for nothing. I'm sorry that you lost your money, next time think about what the reality is like before you send money somewhere. I'm really sorry that you lost your money and keyboard!

Best regards,
YamahaAndy

It's a pity you're not living in Germany because I could help you much more as I can do now. The banks provide us the possibility to cancel a credit transfer within smallest two weeks. So, if my money were transfered then I do not wait any longer than 2 weeks for my bought wares. It will cost the bank's assistences only a little smile and I'll get my money back. NO chance for SUCKERs!!!

Hope, you'll get back your money as soon as possible. Good luck, again!!!



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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

SOMONE PLEASE CLARRIFY:

What recourse would Phil have had, had he actually bought it through eBay? Would eBay have refunder the money? All of it?

I've started selling off some of my unused equipment on eBay, and don't want to ignore Phil's mistakes!

Thank you,
Chony

Yes....if Phil had gone with e-bay all the way to the end, he would have recpurse and buyer protection...search e-bay's pages for
more information about buyer protection... there are many options for both the seller and buyer....

I have very little ebay experience, I only bought a sound card a few weeks ago and I didn't even used Paypal, I sent a bank draft to a guy in Germany.
Actually the amount was small, 80E, but it is money none the less.
Anyway here's what I did, it is not the path of wisdom, but may give some ideas:

Positive feedback means nothing to me. If you look in the items sold before, you will find sometimes that the seller has maybe 200 positive feedback but all for items like "my mother's wedding photo" costing 1 dollar. So, I am a sceptic when a guy who has sold "assorted candles" for 0.99$ 200 times decides to sell a PSR-9000 pro all of a sudden.

Sometimes you can see other strange things: A guy was selling some studio monitors, and you could see that he actually had bought them in a past auction. So far so good. A closer examination of the dates revealed that he bought them in an auction ending the 18th and had them up for sale on a 10 day auction on the 16th of the same month, and the guy selling them was a 0 feedback guy, in another city in Germany. Germans may be efficient but not THAT much!

Anyway, try to look at the seller's past. It will tell you enough things. The guy I bought the card had a musical instrument past and was selling 4-5 similar items at the same time, replied in emails, and generall did everytjhing right, so he got my money. I hope I am that lucky everytime.

and last, someone said it before ..."If it is too good to be true, most probably it's a scam."
My 1 cent.

This guy has good feedback and all of his items were all thousand dollar items such as AKAI music stations, Triton Rack ect, all for very cheap, but not too good to be true. Every said "great contact", "fast shipping" ect.

Yes Ebay would have refunded my 800 bucks, however I find it false advertising of PayPal to claim to have a safe and easy money transferring system. Honestly what difference would it be if I had bought something from an online store and never got the item. Paypal is owned by Ebay and basically run as one. I dont see why they couldnt refund the money.

I found some more info on the guy is bought the board from. He is a somewhat large name producer and I contacted a musician where he was the executive producer for his album. The guy stole a ton of his stuff costing him thousands. He has gotten several attorneys and is even going to hire a PI. He says he will suply me with any contact info he may uncover.

I will soon have to file a small court claim against him. But will be very hard because he is out of state. Im just really really bummed because im 15 and that literally was my life savings, im flat out broke!

Thanks,

Phil


[This message has been edited by Pennywizz6 (edited 03-16-2005).]

Now that sucks...

Fornicate Under Consent of the King
that's what should be done to him,
sorry about any offence, I tried to be as subtle as I could.

I am really sorry about this happening Phil, I can remember what life savings can be at this age, at any age actually.
Do what you got to do about it, but move on, you got a whole life in front of you. May this be the last time you get disappointed.
Theodore
Theodore

Penny,
Get this guys info and take him to Judge Judy Man she'd eat this guy alive. You'd get your money back in her court (granted you get all the information required to prove your case).

Squeak

Phil.....go to this site and follow the guide
to filing a Fraud Complant.... [URL=http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp ... e-mail]

[This message has been edited by Tony Rome (edited 03-17-2005).]

The bad laptop deal that I made a few months ago, that a few here insisted that I should pay for turned to crap. All I did was call VISA and they put it in dispute. That means they would not charge my card and seek the money returned from the vendor, (Seller). It worked perfect. I think they got the money from Paypal and then Paypal chases the vendor or seller.

I received correspondence from Visa saying the account had been settled and I got an email from Pay Pal asking me to try to reach a settlement with them and the vendor in the future instead of putting the claim in dispute with VISA. I think if I buy thought Ebay and Paypal and have a problem I'll just call VISA again. This all happened in about 30 or 40 days.

You'd probably have to deal with Paypal for a year and still not get your money back. I didn't know VISA would do this, but a friend said he used the dispute option before and it worked great. VISA is good people if you pay your bill. I've been with VISA forever, but we pay the VISA bill religiously.

It sure paid off for this bad deal.

Thanks Boo,

I had 580 dollars in my paypal account from my previous XP-60 sale. When I made the purchase it took 580 out of my paypal account, and took the remaining 200 from the credit place. I am able to recover the 200, but the other 580 is paypal to manage.

I contacted paypal, I must say they suck, over an hour on hold, got to a rep and I exsplained my problem, and they are like well we tried under best effort ect. Which means you sent the money, we have nothing to do to protect your purchase, your screwed, sorry. They say they limited the sellers paypal account so he has to pay before they will unlock it. But im like ok yeah how senseable is this, he owes 780 some dollars, do you honestly think hes gunna use paypal again if he owes that much? Hell no! I tweaked on them but they kept saying the same thing, i was pretty pissed when I hung up. Talk about getting shafted from every possible angle!

My grandpa is writing an article for the star tribune (minnesota paper) about how paypal has no protection to common online transfers and my story ect.

I hope something good will happen out of this thing.


Phil

This website www.paypalsucks.com exists for a reason. I ran a $6000 deal through them and a friend turned me on to this site in the middle of the deal. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much!

My deal went through fine, though. Lots of good info on action to take after you've been scammed.

Good luck. Sorry about your experience.

Tommy

Thanks for the link Tommy, I went ahead and posted a thread to see what they have to say.

Wish me luck,

Phil

HEY BOO......WELCOME BACK...WE MISSED YOU...
now lets have some of thoes witty posts of yours.....also glad that you recovered your money from the scamer....
Tony