It's GONE!
Speaking of fraud stories......
Man, have I got an EBay fraud story for you. It's amazing how many DIFFERENT angles there are out there! This one was really smart!
The long & short of it is that I've been (actually, my wife has been) buying and selling on E-bay since 1998 with no problems at all.
UNTIL..........
I've been looking for a certain Rickenbacker bass for about 4 years. In the rare instance one popped up, they were always out of my price range. Ric basses are my other love. ONE of these days, when I hit the lottery, I would love to have a custom, what I call, an ALEMRIC bass made. I've been dreaming about it for years, the basic RIC shape, but with exotic woods, Series 1 Electronics, two ebony and one purple heart stringer.....sorry.....I got lost daydreaming again!!
Back to the story....
THEN it happened. A mint natural one showed up with a BUY IT NOW from a seller who had over 450 Positive feedbacks and was a seller for many years at HALF its normal value. The antenna went up so my wife contacted the seller.
The part that was strange was that this seller normally sold antiques, and she was a POWER SELLER at that. Also, the basses that were for sale were PRIVATE auctions while the antiques weren't. She figured a stolen account. Nope, all checked out. She was selling the basses for a friend. So, my wife purchased it for a surprise Anniversary gift.
To make this story short, after almost FOUR weeks of BS stories, sick, out of town, computer down, etc, etc.....my wife brought me into the picture. I get an email about a truss rod breaking, and the neck warping making it un-sellable. I offered to take it damaged, but she never replied. She offered a refund which took ANOTHER 3 weeks to obtain. BUT I DID GET IT! This was a $1200.00 sale.
I mentioned this story on another forum and come to find out; this isn't the first time she has done this.
After a lot of research, we found others with the same story with many different brand basses. It was usually an expensive one, selling from 1/3 to 1/2 the average price with a BUY IT NOW.
Everyone got their refunds after WEEKS of waiting and for some reason; she was not and hasn't been getting negative feedbacks. Even if she did, being PRIVATE, you couldn't read them anyway!
What we unofficially found out was that she was allegedly using these funds to finance her EBay business! Just a couple of sales, about 3 or 4 a month, enough to fund her purchase her antiques. She'd then sell her antiques make a profit, then refund the money to her bass buyers!
One of the guys actually got her phone number and spoke to this woman.
AMAZING.
After this fiasco, I've really try to only purchase from board members, it is a much safer way to go.
(Message edited by ajish4 on March 02, 2006)
(Message edited by ajish4 on March 02, 2006)
