Bought some scrap on ebay, got ripped off

Bought an auction on ebay for 25 lbs of scrap boards. Thought I might get a deal since it was listed rather poorly and I stumbled upon it. Auctioneer said that the gold fingers had been removed, but l thought that was ok since looking at the small pictures included with the auction, it was mostly motherboards, CD rom boards etc, and I only saw a few items that should have fingers.

With shipping I paid about $60 which was the most I was willing to pay, but I figured I'd make money since I'd just add it to the next lot of stuff I delivered to my buyer and should still make a good $25 minimum for little effort. Had someone not bid at the last second I would have paid about $35 for everything. Oh well.

Turns out that 'fingers removed' meant almost anything gold bearing from the boards had been ripped off. All the slots where cards plug into, CPU slots, etc were ripped off and in addition he included a lot of keyboard, and other mid to way low grade boards that were not originally pictured.



Ohh... and all the items in the boxed weighed 23lbs before I even opened it.

I wrote him demanding a refund, will see if he writes back. He had 1600+ feedback.

That sucks. Makes ebay sellers look bad and I hate it when that happens.

File a claim with ebay, paypal and/or your credit card company if used. Complaints almost always favor the buyer.

post the seller's info so we know who to avoid.

File an Item not as Described complaint with Paypal...they'll withhold the funds from the seller while its being investigated. The down side is you may be responsible for return shipping costs to receive the refund. The 23lbs vs 25lbs thing should pretty much nail it in your favor.

The annoying thing is that I paid about $30 for the stuff and shipping is about $30... so if I pay to ship it back and then only get the $30 price I paid back, I'd be out $30 and not have the items. I'll have to see what the seller says to me, I threatened getting paypal/ebay involved if he didn't write me back. So far, nothing.

Partial refund is also a great idea as wdaddy said. How much volume does the lot take up? Could it squeeze into a Large Flat rate priority box? They're only $14 to ship and have unlimited weight.

How much do you think you can sell the stuff he gave you? And yes try to get a refund without shipping it back.

did you use a credit card to fund the purchase? if you did, file a snad with paypal, NOT ebay. will take about 30 days, but you will get a refund and there will be no requirement to return the item. you should file with your credit card at the same time. they will put the charge on hold so you are charged any interest on that amount.

if you paid with an echeck you are at the mercy of ebay/paypal.

Thats too bad about your deal. It is so exciting to get a package in the mail and really sucks when it is not what you expected. I use to buy allot of 10k pins and other karat gold/sterling on ebay (a long time ago). I gave up on that, people started to leave out 1/10 or gf on the back or would flat out lie about the weights. I've pretty much given up on ebay, it use to be fun, but not anymore.

Originally Posted by easyrecycle

Its not unlimited...you can only put up to 70pounds into the flat rate box....but good luck trying to get all 70pounds to fit lmao.

LOL i knew someone would say that! The most i got in one was 56lbs of cast iron...had to wrap completely with priority tape so it wouldn't split

Well, you are getting a lot of advice but here are some facts that I can relate

Your biggest trump cared is to pay with a credit card and then contest the payment. You will not lose. You may however be kicked off ebay and paypal as that flies in the face or what you actually agreed to before they allowed your membership to activate.

Do not threaten or even mention feedback at this stage, it does you no good. Letting the seller know you are not happy was a good first step. Let them suggest a remedy as they will certainly lose 1 round of shipping on the item, maybe more.

You will have to return the item 99.9% of the time. Highly unlikely that ebay/paypal will side with you enough to both refund you and let you keep the item. Use flat rate envelopes/boxes or whatever, you just need to have a delivery conf to prove you sent it back, but you can send it however you want. $30 will ship you 6 flat rate envelopes..........you have to check it out and see what's best.

As for the whole open it up in front of whomever stuff, to try and make a mail fraud case.......forget it, ain't gonna happen unless by some chance the scamster is chronically ripping people off via the mail system. And if you are a seller who would feel that the returned goods are not what you sent originally, well the proof of that is limited to the pictures that were in the listing. It doesn't matter how many other more detailed and ****ing pictures you have on your hard drive. Ebay's stance is pics in the listing only.

Settle for a partial if that will make you happy. If the seller is nasty and uncooperative, file your claim with ebay within 45 days (no reason to go past two weeks however) and paint that suckers feedback several shades of red.

what I am telling you above is stuff I have been through and it seems to me that whenever I end up with a problem as a buyer or a seller...........ebay sucks. But hey, it's the only game of it's kind worth playing. The shame is they know it.

I tried searching for the listing. Unsuccessful. Care to share it?

lol. how would anyone know what was in the box originally. scam buyers get away with the brick in a box all the time. you have no proof that what you received is any different than what you sent. there are numerous threads and posts on ebay detailing how many sellers have gotten ripped off. i can give you some personal experiences i have had. the cops are not going to do anything. but, you can always ask your post office or da and see what they tell you.

do not sell anything on ebay that you can not afford to give away and pay for the shipping. which is why i quit selling on ebay.

ebay and paypal can not and will not kick you off for a chargeback. they have agreed to the credit card merchant account terms when they signed up for the service. just like all of the rest of us who have merchant accounts. the ebay seller is not the merchant of record. paypal is. if a return was required, you would have to return that item to the merchant of record. paypal can not accept the return because it was never their item to begin with.

what that means is you are covered by the terms of your credit card provider. regardless of any terms set by ebay, paypal or any other internet seller.

if you wonder why paypal is so quick to refund the money, a charge back carry's a $35 fee. a refund does not. too many charge backs and paypal has to pay higher fees per transaction and could lose the right to accept credit card transactions.

know the laws, rules and regulations pertaining to any transaction. your best defense to adversity is knowledge.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm a former ebay powerseller, and I've been selling on ebay since 1997 (it wasn't even called ebay then) so I have a pretty good idea how to handle the situation, just sucks that it had to happen. I havn't heard back from the seller yet but I'll give him 24 hours before I file my grievances with ebay and paypal. I maintain a balance in my paypal account from selling so the funds came from that not from a credit card.

The lot takes up way more room than a flat rate box, more like 3 or 4 and the seller spent $29+ to ship to me parcel post. I havn't had time to sort it all out and see what I can probably get from the lot as is, but at best I'm thinking like $2/lb for the motherboards and maybe mid-grade for some of the other stuff if I"m lucky. Maybe $30-35 total value there if I'm lucky. If the seller works with me and I get a halfway decent partial refund I'll be happy but who knows. The seller only had like 2 negs in last year and one was for not responding to a bidder who wanted to return an item, so we shall see. They sell lots of stuff but this was first and only escrap lot I saw.

you remember when paypal was free and always will be?

Originally Posted by rbrooks715

you remember when paypal was free and always will be?

I was paid $10 to sign up for paypal, I helped beta test it! LOL