AS90 Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I thought I would post this here as a warning to those who sell on ebay, its from my post in the 'trading post' section of the forum... http://forums.epiphone.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=9630 The guy who bought it pretends to be a girl called Laura who "knows nothing about guitars", 'She' demanded I post it that evening as it was a present for her brother and she was going on holiday a couple of days later. So, 2 days later I get a call from her 'brother' saying the guitar was broken but he really likes it and has already got a quote from a luthier to repair it, he demanded I pay him £200 by paypal in the next 10 minutes as he needed to forward it to the luthier to get it repaired in time for blah blah blah! I said no and that I would claim from Royal Mail and would refund the money once the guitar was returned. He then said he worked for paypal and unless I sent him the money he would empty my bank account!! I asked for a pic of the damage but he said he couldn't take one, so I said no pic no money! 2 days of threats by text followed then he said he had a solution, he would send the guitar back to me insured for twice its value and claim it had just been broken and split the money with me, all I had to do was refund the money and trust him to honour the deal... yeah right! I recieved this pic... You can see marks just above the break where he has hit it with something!! Idiot!! So this confirmed my suspicions he was a scammer. I decided to do a little digging around in 'Lauras' feedback, I noticed a fresh follow up comment saying "do not deal with this person" so I emailed the guy who left it. It turns out the day before 'Laura' had gone to a concert and phoned the seller after midnight, after the show demanding he returned his money straight away by paypal because the tickets were seating and not standing (not true), he also pretended to be a police officer!! Further investigation found a comment by 'relic guitars' from over a year ago saying something like 'sorry royal mail smashed it up'. I emailed relic guitars and he told me he had done the same thing with him over a broken fender neck, have you ever seen a fender break at the headstock?!?! He realised he had been scammed a few weeks later when he noticed impact marks around the break but put it down to experiance. Both these people agreed to speak up about this idiot, so I confronted him with my evidence. He got nasty and threatened to call the police LOL! I turned the tables on him and requested we amicably cancel the sale through ebay meaning I wouldn't have to pay a final value fee and negating me from any further action and to never contact me again or I would call the police. He new the game was up and agreed to call it a day. I doubt this is a one off as all scams seem to get copied and shared with other scum bags. So how the scam works... - You panic and send the repair money right away (even though the guitar isn't really broken) - You trust him and refund all the money before he sends the guitar back (which wont happen) - You trust him and decide to go through with the insurance fraud (which you wont see a penny of) The worst part of all this is you cant control who bids on your items, so if you are a seller make sure... - all your items are fully insured - only deal with problems through the dispute system NOT over the phone - report any threats immediatly - never send money for repairs unless you are sure the item is really broken, its easy to find pictures of broken Les Pauls on the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvarsel Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I guess we can modify P.T. Barnum's famous saying, "There's a scumbag born every minute." Sorry to hear about your dilema AS but kudo's on the excellent information sharing. I suppose we also have to change "Buyer Beware" to "Seller Beware". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulsaslim Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Your only mistake was not calling him out when he threatened to call the police. I would've said "right on, Pal, I'm sure they will be interested in hearing what I have to tell them about this and other transactions you've made on Ebay". That would've stopped him in his tracks and exposed him as the p.o.s. he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acewarslave Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 thanks for the heads up AS90 hopefully with all of our stories of being scamed or of people in this case trying to scam us will make us all a bit wiser,and make these scamers think twice next time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryM Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 What is their Ebay name? Tell us so we can block her as a bidder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkuss Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Yeah. And you can cancel bids from bidders that you don't want to deal with for whatever reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwalin Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 So he ended up breaking a guitar on purpose that he had paid for still not being successful at the scam? AWESOME! I had a guy a few years ago buy a Peavey Deca-1200 power amp from me....he got it and thought he could tell me that screws were rattling around and that it had a loud noise coming from it when turned on. I asked for pictures of shipping damage, he couldn't take them. Then I said send it back to me, he said he would. I told him I had the serial number and after making sure it was the same amplifier I would refund the money. I'm still waiting for his response. I also sold a computer to a guy, it was damaged in shipping. He had pics of the box and all, and I shipped it through a service. I told him I would refund, but he would have to send it back. He said he wanted to keep it, but just wanted a partial refund. I told him that I won't pay for damage that the shipping company is responsible for, that he had to send it back so I would make a claim. He threatened negative feedback, so I turned him into ebay. I never thought I would have so much trouble selling on ebay! Sometimes I think it is a bigger risk that buying! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 13, 2009 Author Share Posted May 13, 2009 Your only mistake was not calling him out when he threatened to call the police. I would've said "right on' date=' Pal, I'm sure they will be interested in hearing what I have to tell them about this and other transactions you've made on Ebay". That would've stopped him in his tracks and exposed him as the p.o.s. he is.[/quote'] I wanted to get him to cancel the sale through ebay first before I scared him off, that saved me £42 in final value fees! Once he had done it I ripped him to pieces over the phone - it felt great!! This is him, they have removed the follow up comments left by me and the ticket guy calling him a con artist! ebay really are spineless... http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=laurag3333&ftab=AllFeedback&myworld=true&seeallfeedback=See%20All%20Feedback Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jozluck Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 ASK HIM FOR HIS FEDERAL TAX BUSINESS #...lol...REPORT HIM/HER. PROBABLE DOESN'T PAY TAXS.... THERE WAS AN EBAY OUTFIT WHO CHANGED THERE NAME LIKE FOUR TIMES IN ONE YEAR, BUT SAME PEOPLE: SCORPION MUSIC..ETC. They don't know squat about guitars, are not where they said then became Long Island Music and now claim they are someone else. Every quarter it seems they suddenly don't ship and claim to move or sell to someone else...and start over with this outragious claim of 97% + sales...how they start back up with over 2,000 sales is beyond me....a family store on line told me about reporting them as they can't come close on their parts prices sometimes and know something is not right....drop shipper sitting on their butts knowing nothing and making money or laundering money....LOL! If you have a local store: SUPPORT IT... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 13, 2009 Author Share Posted May 13, 2009 ASK HIM FOR HIS FEDERAL TAX BUSINESS #...lol...REPORT HIM/HER. PROBABLE DOESN'T PAY TAXS.... THERE WAS AN EBAY OUTFIT WHO CHANGED THERE NAME LIKE FOUR TIMES IN ONE YEAR' date=' BUT SAME PEOPLE: SCORPION MUSIC..ETC. They don't know squat about guitars, are not where they said then became Long Island Music and now claim they are someone else. Every quarter it seems they suddenly don't ship and claim to move or sell to someone else...and start over with this outragious claim of 97% + sales...how they start back up with over 2,000 sales is beyond me....a family store on line told me about reporting them as they can't come close on their parts prices sometimes and know something is not right....drop shipper sitting on their butts knowing nothing and making money or laundering money....LOL! If you have a local store: SUPPORT IT...[/quote'] Ok, not sure you read any of my post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkuss Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 "Your blocked bidder list has successfully been updated with the new information you submitted. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 14, 2009 Author Share Posted May 14, 2009 "Your blocked bidder list has successfully been updated with the new information you submitted. " This guy probably has multiple accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexygibson Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 Sorry to hear about your woes AS90. I have quit dealing with Ebay entirely. Not dues to buyers or sellers, but due to Ebays new Paypal policies. I have bought and sold several guitars on Ebay without incident but Ebay has gotten greedy and now I stick to Craigslist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkuss Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 It's like 10% ebay charges and a further 3-5% paypal charges these days. I alwasy advertise my guitars locally first. A lot of money given to ebay in the last year or so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 14, 2009 Author Share Posted May 14, 2009 Sorry to hear about your woes AS90. I have quit dealing with Ebay entirely. Not dues to buyers or sellers' date=' but due to Ebays new Paypal policies. I have bought and sold several guitars on Ebay without incident but Ebay has gotten greedy and now I stick to Craigslist.[/quote'] I wish we had something like Craigslist in the UK, there are obviously lots of free ads sites but nothing as popular as Craigslist. I ask buyers to agree to cancel the transaction once they have recieved the item, no one ever says no as they all agree ebay are too greedy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkuss Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 I often offer to buy guitars of people outside of ebay and am happy to sell outside of ebay because of the huge fees. I have good feedback that helps because people are more likely to trust me. Gumtree can be useful and obviously music/guitar forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 19, 2009 Author Share Posted May 19, 2009 Surprise surprise Larag3333 is now no longer a registered user! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaSTuS Posted May 19, 2009 Share Posted May 19, 2009 I wish we had something like Craigslist in the UK' date=' there are obviously lots of free ads sites but nothing as popular as Craigslist. I ask buyers to agree to cancel the transaction once they have recieved the item, no one ever says no as they all agree ebay are too greedy. [/quote']I thought the same about getting Craigslist in oz, but found out it's everywhere, just go to the home page and select your location from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzyFingers Posted May 19, 2009 Share Posted May 19, 2009 They don't know squat about guitars, are not where they said then became Long Island Music and now claim they are someone else. Every quarter it seems they suddenly don't ship and claim to move or sell to someone else... I had a tiff with "Long Island Music", thank heavens I used Paypal and was able to get the dispute resolved...! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted May 19, 2009 Share Posted May 19, 2009 I ask buyers to agree to cancel the transaction once they have recieved the item, no one ever says no as they all agree ebay are too greedy. So help me understand- if someone is selling a guitar I want but I think they are asking way to much and I go to their house when they are not there and take it, is that ok because he is too greedy, or is it just another kind of scam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 19, 2009 Author Share Posted May 19, 2009 So help me understand- if someone is selling a guitar I want but I think they are asking way to much and I go to their house when they are not there and take it' date=' is that ok because he is too greedy, or is it just another kind of scam?[/quote'] I dont think you understand, its a way to get out of paying ebay fees, not getting a free guitar!! Once the buyer recieves the guitar he has bought from me and is happy with it, I ask them to tell ebay they didn't want it so I dont have to pay a final value fee. Ebay now charge a fee of 10% of the final value and a further 4% to use paypal, its a rip off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted May 19, 2009 Share Posted May 19, 2009 I dont think you understand, its a way to get out of paying ebay fees, not getting a free guitar!! Once the buyer recieves the guitar he has bought from me and is happy with it, I ask them to tell ebay they didn't want it so I dont have to pay a final value fee. Ebay now charge a fee of 10% of the final value and a further 4% to use paypal, its a rip off. I know you're not getting a free guitar but you are getting what you want from E-bay and then not paying the fees you agreed to. Some would call that a rip off. Correct me if I am wrong but I think you are saying it is not ok for individuals to rip off other individuals but it is ok for individuals to rip off large companies. I might take advantage of a big company myself if the opportunity arose but I would hope I would not tell myself I was not committing my own form of scam. I'm not the morality police and I never use E-bay for many reasons including high fees. I only commented in the spirit of calling a spade a spade, and karma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AS90 Posted May 19, 2009 Author Share Posted May 19, 2009 I dont mind paying fees for small items or the 4% paypal fee but the service ebay provide is terrible, they never do anything to help small sellers like me, they know con artists operate on their site but do nothing about it. So I dont feel bad about avoiding larger fees at all. You seem to think someone avoiding a few pounds in fees is as much a crime as someone operating an insurance scam, impersonating a police officer, making threats of violence, threatening to take money and purposly breaking instruments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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