Craig's List Scammers

I just bought a transfer case from ebay. It arrived broken in transit. I'm trying to get a refund from the seller who just found out he had a $3000 counterfit cashiers check sent to him. Wish me luck! Use good sense.

I always believed in getting insurance but lately I kind of wonder. I heard that unless you inspect the delivery from UPS, FedEX etc. and found the damage at the time of delivery and refuse it, you're in for a fight to collect off of the insurance. I insure everything that I sell via Ebay and send via USPS. Just had some damage during transit and USPS refused to honor the insurance because the box was undamaged and they blamed bad packing. The item was packed well and was steel, it had to either be dropped or tossed around hard for it to get damaged. I take the word of the buyer who says it came that way as he would have to take mine that it was in good condition when I sent it. Ebay says that the sellers responsibility ends when insured and sent because he has no further control over what happens to it be it during shipping or by the buyer. Luckily it was an inexpensive part and I just offered the guy his money back if he returned it. I looked at it as no fault of mine or his, just the USPS getting out of paying a claim. Just because the outer package wasn't damaged doesn't mean that the package wasn't mishandled.

Good luck with your dilemna.

Good info, Dennis.

These scammers are always coming up with new scams but they still like the old ones too. I recently started receiving the Nigerian scam enails. I guess they must still work!

"I'm going to send you a check for $5,000, send me back the change" is one of the original EBay scams.
It's amazing to me how many people still fall for it.
There was a guy here locally, trying to sell his boat, got one for $20,000.
Since he only wanted $10,000 for the boat, he was eccstatic.
He didn't have the money to "change" the 20 for a ten. He went to the bank to take a home equity loan out on his house to do so.
The bank manager suggested to check the check first before he sighned tha papers. Lucky for him.
Frankly, I just wish they would stop stealing my auctions and pictures from my auctions.
The last one the guy was able to steal the picture and post it with an earlier starting and finishing date then mine.
Ebay declared therefore that the picture must have been the other guys and that I stole the picture from him.
Amazing.

Take pictures of the item you are shipping before you package it. That can help you with your insurance claims.
Put additional shipping labels on the item inside of the package.

It is my understanding that once the item is accepted by the shipper, it is thier problem.
I had a bumper lost in shipping for four weeks.
It was picked up by the shipper who promptly dropped it off of the truck. Since it was apparently dragged down the street the shipping lable was torn off.

The bumper was found in the companies unidentifiable warehouse about four weeks later.
It needed to repainted again, and was in two pieces (couldn't fix that).

As long as we are airing our our horror stories:

Some time back I bought a used OEM Pantera pressure plate from someone on this BB. He tossed it into a flimsy cardboard box and sent it to me UPS. In shipping, someone tossed/dropped it on one of the mounting flanges, bending it in the process. Not wanting to try to hammer things flat, I instituted the claim process. The insurance money went to the seller, I spent the time to repackage it, and I got my purchase money back. Despite my suggestion that we split the loss on the cost of shipping, the bastard cut me a check ONLY for the item cost.

Bear in mind the insurance money always goes to the seller, not the buyer.

Heavy, bendable items like that need a wooden mounting plate or some other secure protection.

I worked for USPS for several summers back-in-the-day. If it is light enough to get picked up, it WILL get tossed. Package accordingly.

But the best shipping tale to date is the Italian that shipped me a set of supposedly NOS Carello GRP 4 lenses ---- in an envelope with ONE 1/2" piece of styrofoam. And then he refused a refund, and EBAY was worthless in fixing the problem. I placed a liar/stupid/thief feedback and Italy eBay rules allow such to be removed, which he did. eBay refused to allow me to enter a second, approved feedback BUT also refused to remove his negative feedback he left for me.

Anyone want a pair of nice, used, broken lenses?

Be careful out there.

Larry

According to Ebay, if the item is shipped insured it is the buyers problem after it is shipped. I sold some valve covers which were damaged during shipping. USPS insurance refused to pay the buyer claiming that the box wasn't damaged so they were not responsible. I guess that insurance is a waste of time unless the package is lost! I offered to take back the damaged item and refund initial purchase and shipping cost if he returned the covers. A-hole refused, left me negative feed back and claimed that I sold him smashed valve covers (even though the ebay photo shows them to be undamaged) and falsely advertised them. Ebay refused to remove the comments even though they are slanderous. Oh well, can't satisfy them all and he's get his one day.

Shipping got so bad via USPS several years ago that I had our shipping clerk start writing
"PLEASE THROW UNDERHANDED" on all of our outgoing packages! Actually has improved our incidences of damage since then.Maybe they really do read it??

The Ebay feedback system has been totally neutered nowadays. If you have a good rating, you can't leave negative feedback for the other guy because he will do the same to you and wreck your good rating. It's a real problem that protects the bad guys.

From my experience.... E bay (and PayPal) are horrible to deal with if there is ever a problem. Don't forget that virtially any one can buy or sell there so you never know what you are getting. Those two entities have become my source of LAST resort!

The Ebay feedback system is still valid, I have been buying and selling cars and parts on Ebay for the past six and a half years, I still have my 100% rating but would not hesitate to leave negative feedback if I were to be cheated or ripped off, even if it meant losing the 100% rating, it is that attitude that neuters the system, give the buyer / seller a break and leave the negative so we all will know if it was a bad deal.
But if not Ebay where else do you get international advertising for the low price of an Ebay auction, and which is free to the buyer.

I figure that you can't please everyone all the time and do my judging of who I'm doing business with based on total rating ratio. One bad out of a hundred transactions I would attribute to sour grapes on the part of the guy leaving the negative.