Desperately Needs Some Advice Guy's?

[RandyRhoads]

Ok, first off, this is Ebay related (I can imagine the eyes rolling already) but it's not guitar related so I didn't think it was a good idea to put it in the Efraid of Ebay section.

Ok, almost a year ago exactly I purchased a pair of tickets for last years V Festival for my friend for her birthday (they weren't for me because I'm not really an Indie guy which seems to be what the V Festival caters largely for). Anyway, I bid on a pair of full weekend with camping tickets and won the auction for £380 and then immediately sent the money over to the seller via PayPal. They guy (his name is Ben) was really grateful and said he'd mail me the tickets as soon as he received them. About a week later I noticed he'd sent half the money back via PayPal saying that PayPal wouldn't give him access to the rest of the funds until he could prove he'd sent the tickets. Obviously, he didn't have the tickets yet so I just send him the remainder back via a bank transfer. Everything else seemed in good order... he kept in regular contact leading up to the festival (which took place in late August) and then messaged me on the Tuesday before the Festival, which started that following Saturday, informing me that he had received the tickets and would mail them to me first thing the following day. I then got to Friday afternoon and there was still no sign of the tickets so I went to email him (the only form of contact I have for him) and there in my inbox was a message which I will paste a copy of here:

Kris!!



Apologies for the delay in getting back!


Basically things have been crazy the last two days and I've been well aware of the fact I needed to sit down and contact you ASAP. Sorry it's been so late.


Basically on Thursday morning on my way to work my case/sachel got stolen from the train I was on - well this is what I assume happened as it dissapeared without trace! This sadly for me had 4 envelopes with 8 V Festival tickets. NIGHTMARE.


The last two days have been dealing with police/train company involved, seeing if I can claim on my insurance for the tickets and also the possibility of See Tickets reprinting the tickets. It's hard with the insurance as I don't have physical proof of ownership on some sets of the tickets and See have been fucking useless with the possibility of getting them reprinted - especially with it being so late in the day.


Anyway. I appreciate I will have to fully refund you for the tickets and hope by some method you get to V Festival over the weekend. Please give me any time you can on this.


All the best and once again I'm sorry, I'm just GUTTED.


Ben

Naturally I was horrified. Not so much for me (as I wasn't going) but more so for my friend who had been really looking forward to it. As his email said that he was going to fully refund me, I didn't get into too much of a panic. I gave him time to try and come up with the money but over the course of the next couple of months I received these two emails from him:

Thanks Kris for your kind words!

Was worried with the news that I'd have a very pissed off buyer and that it'd of been a nightmare sorting out.


Thankfully it looks my insurance SHOULD pay out as I had extended cover for outside the home, although they are putting me through the mill with proving ownerhsip etc etc. Some clever dick said how do we know you did not send the tickets and then just claim they got stolen.


I have all my Crime Refs though so that is helping. It is likely I'll only get refunded Face Value though which is understandable.


As soon as I get my money I'll forward it on, but if you need money ASAP which I can understand maybe I could send it in installments or a bit now and the rest later??


Let me know.

And:

Hi Kris.

Yeah I did. Still having a nightmare at my end - it's getting LEGAL and very complicated.


Anymore time you can give me is greatly appreciated.


Thanks

This then ran into Xmas time and being the nice guy I am (a little too soft in all honesty) I left him be over Xmas as I figured it was probably the worst time of the year to be hassling people for money. Then in early January I emailed again asking why I still haven't received anything back from him and got this email:

Hi Chris.

I've been emailing for sometime now and just kept getting these non delivery emails back!!


Maybe sending through a reply will be fine though or do you have a phone number I can text/call on?


Things have been shit at my end. Do you think we could sort paying you back in some installments perhaps??


Or are you planning to go to V this year? That could also be an option to sort this out!


Thanks

Personally, I would've rather had it all back in one sum, but seeing that installments was the only way I was going to realistically get my money back, I agreed. We arranged for him to set up a Standing Order of £40 a month. It was a little lass than I would have liked but it seemed the best he could manage. So, I then sent my account details for him to begin the process and I heard no reply. I then mailed him again a few weeks later and also got no reply. After several emails with no response I sent him another about two weeks ago which was this:

Hey,

I'm not sure what's been happening since I last emailed but after going through my bank statements (I went as far back as mid December), I noticed that there hasn't been any money transfered over into my account. I'm not really sure what's going on but hopefully you can appreciate that I'm starting to get a bit annoyed. This seems to have gone on for far too long now. I've tried being as patient as possible but in reality, it just isn't getting me anywhere. I know we spoke about paying in installments but in all honesty, I've just reached a stage now where I just want my money back. Installments would take too long to pay me back and because I'm moving soon, I need it all back a.s.a.p.

Kris

Surprise, surprise... STILL no response from him. I'm now starting to get really worried as the longer this goes on, the more I begin to feel that there's nothing I can do to get my money back off him. I know my cover on the transaction from Ebay and PayPal would have expired a LONG time back so I don't know what else I can do. £380 may not seem like much to some people but I'm on a farily poor wage (I saved for ages to afford those tickets) and I dread the thought that I'm not going to see it again.

Let me just round this off by appolgising for the really long post, I just wanted to give you guys the whole picture. It's just that I'm aware people have had bad experiences on Ebay here too so any advice would be MASSIVELY appreciated.

Thank you for taking your time to read this,

Kris

[riffraff]

Kris, what was his feedback score at the time of purchase? Do you rememeber?

[RandyRhoads]

Kris, what was his feedback score at the time of purchase? Do you rememeber?

Yes, his feedback was 100%. Even the comments people have left him are really positive. You can check his profile out here (though I'm not sure when he was last active):

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/cornflake-ben/

The guy has always seemed genuine and not a scammer, but I'm just starting to worry now because he seems to have stopped contacting me and I have no other way of getting in touch with him.

Kris

[Forrest]

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble man. I just want to point something out, I don't know if it will be useful to you at this stage or not.

The best scammers -always- sound like the nicest and most sincere people in the world. I've dealt with people like this before. This guy could have been planning on this from the very beginning. Drawing something like this out as long as possible lowers the chance he'll face any consequences, either from the system you used to do business, or from you, as most people will give up and write off losses after a certain amount of time as passed. It's a very typical tactic.

It doesn't sound like you have any recourse at this stage, though. Did you try to use ebay's automated contact info form? It will give a buyer/seller the other person's address and phone number if you've won an auction or sold to them. It might have been too long since the transaction to use them. Still, I'm not sure what you could do, besides show up at his house with a bat. Even that's probably not worth the risk to you.

[Cygnus X1]

"but in all honesty",

Statements like that raise red flags.I was once involved in a deposition...nothing wrong mind you, but
the well experienced lawyer pointed out to "never use the term "to be honest, etc"".
Because even if you don't mean it, it implies you were not honest up until that point.
Even people that would not recognize the immediate impact of it take it to mean
you were NOT honest.

The seller uses that technique frequently, in too many different ways.

Either you get him, or someone else will.
Depends on how much time and money you want to invest.

[Spivonious]

I don't think he was scamming you, especially with all of the contact surrounding the event. I'd try looking up his contact info on Ebay (should at least give an address). It's possible he changed email addresses, no longer has regular access to the internet, is in jail, is super busy dealing with the insurance claim, whatever. I once had an amp buyer take 8 months to pay for an amp because his brother died a day after the auction ended. Scam or not, he paid me and once I had the total amount, I sent out the amp.

[lerxstcat]

You may not have recourse to get your money back, unfortunately. I'd find out who he is and check to see if he really did report a loss or robbery from the train. If not, then I'd contact whatever authorities in your country handle mail fraud or Internet fraud and report the incident.

That, or file against him in small claims court, if you have that in the UK. Bear in mind that even if you win you will probably have to follow additional steps to collect from him, the court won't actually make him pay you. It will just enter a judgment that you will have to enforce. If he doesn't have any assets that you can attach, perhaps you can garnish his wages.

[Rsmacker]

1. Send him another mail declaring that you'll drop in on him and discuss it with him in person very soon. You and some friends. Find the names of some pubs close to him, and say you will be having a few jars there first. It makes people think you are familiar with their locale and not just driving into their town especially to see them. (Note: If any of the pubs are called "The Blue Oyster", best not use that one)

2. Fill out a County Court summons and make sure you put on the interest. Send him the summons before submitting the real one to court. Sometimes when people see how much they will be summonsed for, they shit a brick and cough up straight away.

3. Post his whereabouts here, you never know. It's a small world.

4. His feedback is dismal - as a seller he received 4, and two of those he sold to had feedback of 1 and are no longer members of e-bay. He even bought tickets for a gig last July, could those have been your tickets? Maybe he got stiffed first (irrelevant though)? Festivals are fucked up in this country now, you are really up the creek if you buy tickets for something 6 months down the line then find your brother is getting married the same day, it's like trying to change airline tickets - nigh on impossible. Try transferring Glastonbury tickets, the place is like fucking Colditz.
Anyway, he sounds like a cunt to me, which is a shame, because you have been more than reasonable. I hate it when people get a bit of trust and then go and fuck others over.

5. I doubt it applies to you, but have a look on Radio 4's "You and Yours" site, they were getting on E-bay and Paypal's case not so long back after loads of people got fucked buying tickets online. Paypal's protection ran out after 3 months but the gigs were 6 months later, so PP wriggled out of dealing with the scammers. That was from booking companies, but you never know, someone there might be a spiteful old biddy with nothing to do but track cheats down, and be able to put you on the right track.
Try also "MoneySavingExpert.com", the forums there are helpful nailing slippery cunts who rip people off.

6. Never deal with anyone with the word "Cornflake" in his name. He means "Cornhole".

[Rsmacker]

7. I forgot, you made a bank transfer - they must surely have details of the cunt you paid? Unless he is that Nigerian prince who keeps mailing me, you might have a chance if you tell the bank you have been robbed.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

"but in all honesty",

Statements like that raise red flags.I was once involved in a deposition...nothing wrong mind you,

That thing you said not to do... You just did it.

Was there a sheep involved? Was she asking for it?