Oooh, and it's a good scam too!

Basically on October 3rd I won a lot of D&D books, which never showwed up. After no response from the seller I filed a Paypal Complaint on 11-17. The seller then entered an USPS delivery tracking number on 11-26. Lo and behold a week later I recieved a single Magic the Gathering card in the mail from the guy. Now Paypal wont give me a refund because the guy offered proof of delivery and Ebay won't cover it because it is less than 25 bucks.

My only recourse now is negative feedback and threats of filing a mail fraud complaint. Fortunately this scam wont work more than once or twice, as long as the other pople like me file a complaint.


So anybody want to buy a Magic the Gathering card for $20.00? It's Uber-Rare and much sought after. [img]tongue.gif[/img] ;) :D

Oh yeah If forgot to add The moral of the story is to always pay with credit card, no matter how hard Paypal tries to discourage it. That way you can do a chargeback in this type of situation. I failed to do so in this case and now I'm paying for it.

<font color=skyblue>I am sorry to hear that this happened. It reminds me of the time I bought a textbook from a lady, and she had the picture posted of edition 6, but I received edition 5 in the mail...and my professor would not let me use it, so I told the girl that sold me the book that I was minoring in business law and knew my rights and I also quoted to her from the ebay website for the legal rights of the consumer...and I scared her enough that she immediately apologized and returned to me my full cost. It was easier than I had expected it to be, so I guess she was a bit nieve.

Anyway, I hear Clark Howard talk about this all the time on the radio on how to protect oneself, and you are right...he says to use a real credit card for charge-back like you said.

HEY! That link that was on here a few weeks ago that led to a website where this guy bought some truck parts...and the guy cheated him...remember that one? They mentioned on there how to go about filing for mail fraud. I say continue pursuing this guy, even for $20.00. Or send him a bomb in his mailbox. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

There's always someone out there looking to make a fast buck for nothing...sad but true.

Sorry you got scammed, Chewy! Hope you can recoup a bit more of your losses!

That would be great to fart in a ziplock and send it his way! Thats my kind of bomb! :D

There is an easy online mail-fraud complaint form to fill-out here:

https://www.usps.com/postalinspector...dComplaint.htm

I doubt my small change loss will get any attention, but if others also file a claim against the guy...

Thanks Cloudy! I sell and trade old D&D books on Ebay, so I'll make back that $20 over time anyway. The real bummer to me (besides the principle of the matter) is that lot had some books to complete a set I have been after and at a bargain price too. Now I'll probably have to pay retail. On the upside, I get to go treaure hunting for them yet again, which is always fun. [img]smile.gif[/img]

To bad chewy on your luck. I wounder what the percent of people getting ripped off on ebay really is. Compared to the good buys from there?

Well, I've bought and sold quite alot of D&D stuff and this is my first rip-off. I thinks it's because D&D 'geeks' are all mostly birds of a feather. Some of the rare, expensive stuff sometimes attracts scammers, but I deal mostly with the common stuff since that is what I currently collect. Since it is a smaller community, most scammers get called out pretty quickly as well.


Some categories, particularly high-end electronics, laptops, and cell-phones are supposedly more supceptible to frauds than others. A friend of mine, inexpirienced on Ebay, sold a PS2 and got ripped-off completely with a fake money order and a fake fed-ex account. He learned the hard way!

Anyway, I think the odds of getting scammed are not great, but caution is still warranted.

Check you pm box, Chewy - if I can complete a set, I will help you. I have a few at home just collecting dust. Let me know. I just bought some stuff on ebay and now I hope it shows up...sigh... :(

Later,

BK

Sorry you got scammed Chewy. I know the feeling! Last year I got lazy (won't ever again!) and decided to order CompUSA gift cards over the net at the CompUSA website. I still kick myself that I didn't just drive up to the stupid store myself and get them there, it ain't that far. Anyways, 2 days later I get the FEDEX, which I thought odd cause I clicked on the 3-5 day mail option, not FEDEX. But I think "whatever it's already here great." I open the very flat FEDEX package and inside is an envelope. Inside the envelope is just some piece of paper that has a CompUSA logo on it. This paper also looks like it was copied over in a Xerox machine ten thousand times over it is so blurry with black splotches all over it. Oh, there wasn't anything else in the envelope. I spent $80.00 on two gift cards. Yeah.

So I call the CompUSA number on the website, "Customer Service," wait 20 minutes on hold. Finally I get a guy and explain to him my problem. He puts me on hold for 10 minutes, sheesh, comes back and says he's gonna have it taken off of my credit card bill, but it will take a week or two, or something like that. So I figure all is OK, but heh, they didn't take it off my credit card bill. I also tried to email their Customer Service area on the net, several times, never did get a reply. Now on reflection I should have just called my credit card company and had them put a stop on it or however you do that (never have). And since I never had I just ate it. I just didn't think calling CompUSA again would get me anywhere, who knows who the thieves are, they could be in that very office I was calling eh?

And of course with these sorts of incidents they get away with it, cause as you said Chewy, they have receipts of the postage and delivery. And in my case it was even FEDEX. And weight wise two cards would weigh nothing, so trying to find the weight of the package to prove nothing was in it was an impossibility in my case. And on another note, there probably are thieves of a different sort who actually DO get their package complete, but try to lie and say they didn't to get a freebie. So when I called them I kept thinking "man I hope they don't think I'm some scammer and realize I'm telling the truth." Blah. Bastaids.

[ 12-14-2005, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]