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Stolen Book Alert!!
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37 posts in this topic

46 minutes ago, jason4 said:

I did this and Ebay paid for the return to the buyer and they messaged me and said it would be on my next invoice. If I don’t pay invoice Ebay suspends your account until you do. I would never sell high dollar anything on there either like others stated 

I would much rather have them suspended an account than coughing up the four or five hundred dollars that is wrongfully theirs because of their stupidity.  If they close the eBay account so be it, you would open another one.  Same goes for PayPal.

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2 hours ago, HENRYSPENCER said:

No, they don't. I make immediate payment withdrawal on a daily basis after an item sells.  I've been doing it this way for years.

I wonder if it's because I don't buy/sell on eBay that much so they count me as a "Limited User History".  When I've sold stuff recently, there's a section in my seller portal that says "Funds available by" and it's 21 days out.  The funds either become available when the tracking is marked as delivered or 21 days, whichever comes first (which in this case, is always when the item delivers).

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I have had a similar experience *non comic related*.  Unfortunately eBay will never side with the seller as long as the buyer maintains innocence.  That's all the scammer has to do to game the system.  If they don't admit to any faults, the seller will 100% lose the case and they will force the seller to refund the buyer including the return shipping cost.  eBay states that they are only a 3rd party and can only go by the evidence presented within the messages within their system.  They cannot verify what the seller sends to the buyer and will not look at anything else or consider any evidences outside of that scope.  Judging from the responses I am reading, it seems most people don't realize that seller protection on eBay is barely existent.  Again, if the buyer does not admit fault, the seller will lose the case flat out.  Bottom line, DO NOT sell anything you can't afford to lose on eBay.  As screwed up as this sounds, cases like these don't happen that often, but you will eventually run into this if you're a power seller.

As for the OP, your only option now is to gather as much evidence you have and determine if you have a case to take it up a notch to authorities or bring the culprit to court for dispute if you think it's worth the time and effort.

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On 7/16/2018 at 6:19 PM, HENRYSPENCER said:

The bait and switch scam has long been a problem on eBay.  Granted I haven't heard it quite this bad.

So let me get this straight when the buyer opened up a dispute against you the funds in your PayPal account immediately went on hold, correct?
Then he or she uploads the bogus tracking information for the hardcover inside... 
Upon the hardcover being delivered, the funds that were on hold were automatically sent back to the buyer...

Interpreting the situation this way, the buyer has committed mail fraud and depending on if the parcel crossed state lines it could be on more than one count.

Have you tried googling or running a search using the buyers supplied personal contact information to see who/what you are dealing with?

You should carefully explain to PayPal what's gone on and how you are the victim of a scam.  PayPal should side in your favor because as a general rule one of the two parties in their resolution disputes can't have it all -that is both the money and the item at the same time.  In this case, the buyer now has both the comic you sold him and the money that was returned to him for the price he paid for the book which is still in his possession.

Yep. I had already withdrawn the funds because I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I ended up with a negative balance in PayPal. It really sucked. After talking to 4 people, I got my money back, but it was like they wouldn’t listen to me when I explained the details and the messages we’d sent back and forth. It was infuriating, but in the end, I got the money back. 

I did google the guy. He doesn’t have much of an internet presence. There was a picture, but he just looks like some regular guy. What kills me, is that he has 100% positive feedback on eBay after more than 1000 transactions. 

It’s so crazy, that I still can’t get it out of my head. I feel like I was assaulted. I am DONE selling on eBay

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22 minutes ago, J2 said:

Yep. I had already withdrawn the funds because I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I ended up with a negative balance in PayPal. It really sucked. After talking to 4 people, I got my money back, but it was like they wouldn’t listen to me when I explained the details and the messages we’d sent back and forth. It was infuriating, but in the end, I got the money back. 

I did google the guy. He doesn’t have much of an internet presence. There was a picture, but he just looks like some regular guy. What kills me, is that he has 100% positive feedback on eBay after more than 1000 transactions. 

It’s so crazy, that I still can’t get it out of my head. I feel like I was assaulted. I am DONE selling on eBay

glad you got your money back.

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On 7/17/2018 at 12:59 PM, Escaflown41 said:

Also please out this buyer's userID so the rest of us sellers can add it to our block list.

I Feel weird about about posting it publicly, but feel free to pm me.

 And maybe I’m naive, I probably am, my wife certainly thinks so, but he had 100% good feedback with a LOT of transactions buying and selling. I believe he planned a scam from the beginning, but I don’t KNOW that he did. what if it actually was tampered with as he suggested? It’s extremely unlikely that someone along the line opened it and had a shatner book about nimoy ready to pack in... but... what if I was outing someone who was actually telling the truth? I don’t know.

I feel more like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person than anything else. I made a HUGE, stupid mistake. Because a few sellers have done this for me, I made a buy it now auction so he could get it without someone else snapping it up first. It had a silly picture and a vague description. I know. That was stupid. But he had such great feedback that I thought it was a nice thing to do for him. He seemed so excited. So in a way, I almost blame myself... or at least I feel really stupid about it. 

Luckily, every move I made , and every single detail of what I was selling and what I was going to do was well documented in our eBay messages. That’s probably why they gave me my money back, but I had to go through 4 eBay people to get to a senior supervisor who agreed with me. 

Part of me wants to find out what really happened but the other part of me just wants to be (expletive) do e with the whole mess. 

Big lesson learned. As someone else suggested, I’m going to register it in case someone else tries to register it. 

Im so done with eBay. Most of the people I talked to gave me the worst kind of corporate scripted, “I understand that you are unhappy with the transaction and feel that the buyer scammed you, but...”

anyway, rant over. I got the money, but I’m sad that some jerk has a really cool book and got it for nothing. 

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1 hour ago, J2 said:

I Feel weird about about posting it publicly, but feel free to pm me.

 And maybe I’m naive, I probably am, my wife certainly thinks so, but he had 100% good feedback with a LOT of transactions buying and selling. I believe he planned a scam from the beginning, but I don’t KNOW that he did. what if it actually was tampered with as he suggested? It’s extremely unlikely that someone along the line opened it and had a shatner book about nimoy ready to pack in... but... what if I was outing someone who was actually telling the truth? I don’t know.

I feel more like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person than anything else. I made a HUGE, stupid mistake. Because a few sellers have done this for me, I made a buy it now auction so he could get it without someone else snapping it up first. It had a silly picture and a vague description. I know. That was stupid. But he had such great feedback that I thought it was a nice thing to do for him. He seemed so excited. So in a way, I almost blame myself... or at least I feel really stupid about it. 

Luckily, every move I made , and every single detail of what I was selling and what I was going to do was well documented in our eBay messages. That’s probably why they gave me my money back, but I had to go through 4 eBay people to get to a senior supervisor who agreed with me. 

Part of me wants to find out what really happened but the other part of me just wants to be (expletive) do e with the whole mess. 

Big lesson learned. As someone else suggested, I’m going to register it in case someone else tries to register it. 

Im so done with eBay. Most of the people I talked to gave me the worst kind of corporate scripted, “I understand that you are unhappy with the transaction and feel that the buyer scammed you, but...”

anyway, rant over. I got the money, but I’m sad that some jerk has a really cool book and got it for nothing. 

When you add it to the registry, I would put a description that says the book was stolen and give some details about what happened.

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3 hours ago, J2 said:

I Feel weird about about posting it publicly, but feel free to pm me.

 And maybe I’m naive, I probably am, my wife certainly thinks so, but he had 100% good feedback with a LOT of transactions buying and selling. I believe he planned a scam from the beginning, but I don’t KNOW that he did. what if it actually was tampered with as he suggested? It’s extremely unlikely that someone along the line opened it and had a shatner book about nimoy ready to pack in... but... what if I was outing someone who was actually telling the truth? I don’t know.

I feel more like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person than anything else. I made a HUGE, stupid mistake. Because a few sellers have done this for me, I made a buy it now auction so he could get it without someone else snapping it up first. It had a silly picture and a vague description. I know. That was stupid. But he had such great feedback that I thought it was a nice thing to do for him. He seemed so excited. So in a way, I almost blame myself... or at least I feel really stupid about it. 

Luckily, every move I made , and every single detail of what I was selling and what I was going to do was well documented in our eBay messages. That’s probably why they gave me my money back, but I had to go through 4 eBay people to get to a senior supervisor who agreed with me. 

Part of me wants to find out what really happened but the other part of me just wants to be (expletive) do e with the whole mess. 

Big lesson learned. As someone else suggested, I’m going to register it in case someone else tries to register it. 

Im so done with eBay. Most of the people I talked to gave me the worst kind of corporate scripted, “I understand that you are unhappy with the transaction and feel that the buyer scammed you, but...”

anyway, rant over. I got the money, but I’m sad that some jerk has a really cool book and got it for nothing. 

I’m relieved to hear you got your money back. 

And again, I appreciate you’re making an effort to give the benefit of the doubt. 

However...

The title of this thread - the title you chose - is “STOLEN BOOK ALERT!”

Not “POSSIBLE HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING!”  Not “MORALLY AMBIGUOUS DILEMMA!” 

You used the word “STOLEN” which got everyone’s attention, and you used it for a reason: despite all the well-meaning hair-splitting, in your gut you know that’s what this guy did. 

Not only did he try to steal your book but he did it after you did him a favor by altering the listing so he could have a lock on the book. 

He’s got 100% feedback because Positive feedback is the ONLY feedback seller’s can leave for buyers. Negative-within-Positive feedback get’s removed. The worst the seller can do is leave no feedback. And he’s smart enough as a seller to keep his nose clean. 

You origianlly asked all of us to help you out by keeping an eye out for the book. Several of us were willing to offer that help. I was too; I live in CA and I collect Star Trek comics. 

All we’re asking is that you now help us: help us protect ourselves so he doesn’t pull the same scam on us. I have some CGC Star Trek comics up know, it could easily happen to me. 

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12 minutes ago, Number 6 said:

I’m relieved to hear you got your money back. 

And again, I appreciate you’re making an effort to give the benefit of the doubt. 

However...

The title of this thread - the title you chose - is “STOLEN BOOK ALERT!”

Not “POSSIBLE HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING!”  Not “MORALLY AMBIGUOUS DILEMMA!” 

You used the word “STOLEN” which got everyone’s attention, and you used it for a reason: despite all the well-meaning hair-splitting, in your gut you know that’s what this guy did. 

Not only did he try to steal your book but he did it after you did him a favor by altering the listing so he could have a lock on the book. 

He’s got 100% feedback because Positive feedback is the ONLY feedback seller’s can leave for buyers. Negative-within-Positive feedback get’s removed. The worst the seller can do is leave no feedback. And he’s smart enough as a seller to keep his nose clean. 

You origianlly asked all of us to help you out by keeping an eye out for the book. Several of us were willing to offer that help. I was too; I live in CA and I collect Star Trek comics. 

All we’re asking is that you now help us: help us protect ourselves so he doesn’t pull the same scam on us. I have some CGC Star Trek comics up know, it could easily happen to me. 

Yeah. I get that. And I thank you for offering to keep a lookout, truly. The book itself has been stolen. There is no doubt. But... I can’t prove who did it. That’s what really sucks. That’s why I said pm me. I’m sorry if it’s not enough; I just don’t want to put someone’s name out for the entire world, but I’m happy to let you know. 

I’m new to this experience, sorry. 

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13 hours ago, J2 said:

Yeah. I get that. And I thank you for offering to keep a lookout, truly. The book itself has been stolen. There is no doubt. But... I can’t prove who did it. That’s what really sucks. That’s why I said pm me. I’m sorry if it’s not enough; I just don’t want to put someone’s name out for the entire world, but I’m happy to let you know. 

I’m new to this experience, sorry. 

Someone asked you to create a phony feebay listing so they could get your book with no competition (underhanded act #1)..... AND THEN, that same person immediately asks for a refund&return (underhanded act #2).... AND THEN this same book gets "lost and replaced" with garbage....gee, what are the odds that yet ANOTHER person (Postal carrier??) got involved and SOMEHOW knew that a valuable Shatner/Nimoy book was inside the box and opened it after it left your buyer's hands, AND just happened to have a similar but worthless Shatner/Nimoy book handy to replace it, packaged it back up and delivered it!??

Yes, you are extremely naive and you are exactly how people like this crook get away with stuff like this over and over.

Do you really think this was the first time this thief ever pulled this on an unsuspecting comicbook seller?

Do you really think it will be his last time?

This is not a court of law where you have to prove anything - but the fact that feebay gave your money back is a clear sign that even THEY identified this as a scammer.

You said your book was "stolen", and you said you believe he started the scam from the very beginning, and it sure sounds like it was a shady feebay transaction from the very start.... and yet you don't want to name him to potentially protect his NEXT victim - maybe even someone on this board?

At this point, you kinda deserve what happened to you.

 

 

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7 hours ago, jcjames said:

Someone asked you to create a phony feebay listing so they could get your book with no competition (underhanded act #1)..... AND THEN, that same person immediately asks for a refund&return (underhanded act #2).... AND THEN this same book gets "lost and replaced" with garbage....gee, what are the odds that yet ANOTHER person (Postal carrier??) got involved and SOMEHOW knew that a valuable Shatner/Nimoy book was inside the box and opened it after it left your buyer's hands, AND just happened to have a similar but worthless Shatner/Nimoy book handy to replace it, packaged it back up and delivered it!??

Yes, you are extremely naive and you are exactly how people like this crook get away with stuff like this over and over.

Do you really think this was the first time this thief ever pulled this on an unsuspecting comicbook seller?

Do you really think it will be his last time?

This is not a court of law where you have to prove anything - but the fact that feebay gave your money back is a clear sign that even THEY identified this as a scammer.

You said your book was "stolen", and you said you believe he started the scam from the very beginning, and it sure sounds like it was a shady feebay transaction from the very start.... and yet you don't want to name him to potentially protect his NEXT victim - maybe even someone on this board?

At this point, you kinda deserve what happened to you.

 

 

Wow.

First, he didn’t ask for that listing, that was me trying to be nice. I shouldn’t have even posted this. I’m still trying to be nice, I said anyone could pm me; I’m not interested in some F—-ed up retaliation from someone who could be a psycho for all i know. F this. This has been a s—- week. Sorry I’m such a jerk and “deserve this”. F. 

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37 minutes ago, J2 said:

Wow.

First, he didn’t ask for that listing, that was me trying to be nice. I shouldn’t have even posted this. I’m still trying to be nice, I said anyone could pm me; I’m not interested in some F—-ed up retaliation from someone who could be a psycho for all i know. F this. This has been a s—- week. Sorry I’m such a jerk and “deserve this”. F. 

Also, the supervisor “agreed” with his words, but he said the only way I could get the $ by signing and resending a pdf saying what I received wasn’t in the “condition” it was when sent. Because there wasn’t enough “evidence” to prove him wrong. He also said it was a one time courtesy. 

Look, I’m sorry if I did this wrong. I try to do the right thing. I’m just trying to take care of my family and I’m pretty %#^*>#% stressed out right now. Feel free to pm.

 

 

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8 hours ago, jcjames said:

Someone asked you to create a phony feebay listing so they could get your book with no competition (underhanded act #1)..... AND THEN, that same person immediately asks for a refund&return (underhanded act #2).... AND THEN this same book gets "lost and replaced" with garbage....gee, what are the odds that yet ANOTHER person (Postal carrier??) got involved and SOMEHOW knew that a valuable Shatner/Nimoy book was inside the box and opened it after it left your buyer's hands, AND just happened to have a similar but worthless Shatner/Nimoy book handy to replace it, packaged it back up and delivered it!??

Yes, you are extremely naive and you are exactly how people like this crook get away with stuff like this over and over.

Do you really think this was the first time this thief ever pulled this on an unsuspecting comicbook seller?

Do you really think it will be his last time?

This is not a court of law where you have to prove anything - but the fact that feebay gave your money back is a clear sign that even THEY identified this as a scammer.

You said your book was "stolen", and you said you believe he started the scam from the very beginning, and it sure sounds like it was a shady feebay transaction from the very start.... and yet you don't want to name him to potentially protect his NEXT victim - maybe even someone on this board?

At this point, you kinda deserve what happened to you.

 

 

Jeez JC. Chill out. 

The OP has offered to respond via PM as to who the eBay buyer is. Giving the name out via PM is a reasonable work around.  I think the OP is giving the benefit of the doubt where it is not due - but that's not an awful thing and it certainly doesn't warrant your "kinda deserve what happened to you" comment. 

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59 minutes ago, J2 said:

Also, the supervisor “agreed” with his words, but he said the only way I could get the $ by signing and resending a pdf saying what I received wasn’t in the “condition” it was when sent. Because there wasn’t enough “evidence” to prove him wrong. He also said it was a one time courtesy. 

Look, I’m sorry if I did this wrong. I try to do the right thing. I’m just trying to take care of my family and I’m pretty %#^*>#% stressed out right now. Feel free to pm.

 

 

Hey, sorry for causing you stress.

Didn't know you had other issues going on so, again, sorry that I hit a nerve.

 

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