WARNING: Buying gear online, please be aware!!!

[rockjock3]

It's hard to believe that this isn't more common knowledge.
For instance ... http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Yes, but you can type in almost any business in the world and somebody has has a bad experience with them and created a www.?????sucks.com. I am not saying that things like this happen, but when you consider how many 10s of thousands of people do business through ebay and paypal everyday then the problem is a little more in perspective. Let's see, over 100,000 transactions a day around the which comes out to over 3 million transactions a month and if there are even 10,000 complaints a month then you still have a 99.97% customer satisfaction. That type of customer satisfaction great in any business.

I do understand you had problems with a seller. Thank you loads for letting us all know about him/her. The problem is with him, not ebay or paypal. The seller taking advantage of the system is the problem on all counts. Ebay and Paypal are the leaders (ebay actually owns paypal for those of you that didn't know) in the industry and the models for online auctions that everybody follows. Their rules have been created to protect themselves as much as possible given that they literally millions of transactions take cross across them. They did not create their rules for anyother reason than to protect themselves.

I don't work for either storefront but have done thousands of $$s of business as both seller and buyer without every as much as a hiccup. I know a few people that have had problems with them but that is the exception. As a business goes there are far more satisfied customers and dissatisfied ones. I say their probably doing pretty good. I just think that focus should be kept on the guilty one, the seller. Remember it is not the gun company that came to the guys house and gave him the gun and told him to go kill all the kids in his school.

Step down off my soapbox.
It is the person (in this case the seller you dealt with) that makes the choice not the institution. And I have never heard any case of either Ebay or Paypal purposely holding fake auctions or anything else the like to purposely cheat people.

 

[pants!]

Paypal does have a multitide of issues and one is well advised to take heed of them before doing a large amount of business with them. It *is* dangerous.

However, this thread should probably be tited "WARNING: Buying anything on eBay, please be aware!!!" since it applies to anything bought on eBay, not "gear" bought "online"

 

[rottielover]

I just wanted to let those on the fence know, that I closed both my ebay and paypal accounts.

They are just too reif with fraud, and too heavily attacked by phisher's and scam artists.

Using ebay and paypal has become a minefield, no matter how carefully you may tred, there is the chance that your gonna get blown up. Since paypal has direct access to your credit cards AND checking account, that risk is WAYYY to great for me.

In my 8-5 job I'm a Systems Administrator, I know how computers work. Personally for me the risks were far too great. I highly doubt that paypal/ebay is going to clean my records out of thier database, so I'm going to have my account numbers changed as soon as possible.

If you want to use paypal/ebay, my suggestion would be to start a 2nd checking account (usually banks have "free checking" if you start an account with $100 or more) and use it if you must register a checking account with paypal, otherwise only use your Credit Cards (DON'T EVER USE A DEBIT CARD ONLINE!)... Even then, if you read the PayPal agreement carefully, you'll note that in there you agree to wave your rights under your credit card company's protection policy's.

IF (and I highly doubt I will) I ever want to buy anything off of ebay again, I'm going to get a certified check and send it thru the USPS, cause if I get scamed, at least that falls under mail fraud.

Otherwise, any online shopping I do will only be with my credit card, and only on websites of legit company's that use SSL encryption. (If you want to verify that a website is legit and using SSL, I would use WHOIS database to see how long that website has been registered, and check for the little "lock" icon at the bottom of the browser window).

Maybe I should start my own website LOL

 

[alo100]

I looked on ebay, and he's there all right, but I don't see any negative feedback from YOU after this transaction ?

D

I have filed a case yesterday with Paypal. It takes 10 days for the other side to response, during this 10 days, I do not want to give feedback. Then I talked to my bank
today and they wanted me to talk to eBay.
After 10 days, if I am not satisfy if what eBay and Paypal. I will quit my account.
I am not saying that every seller is bad, just when the system has flaws in it, I don't
want to use it anymore. If I use my credit card for regular shopping there are protections they I can rely on.
If you go online and check "eBay feedback" you will see comment about how eBay handles negative feedback.

 

[alo100]

Did you try to contact the seller? I have been doing business on ebay for years, thousands of transactions both buying and selling. Most scams are very evident. I looked at the seller of your item and some of their auctions, they have an ebay store, lots of items listed, and their auctions are very well put together. At first look, it doesn't look like a scam. Could have been an honest mistake. If you have tried contacting them without a response, I would start worrying. If you haven't tried contacting them directly, you need to do so. Chances are "midwestscubadiver" is one part of a larger organization selling many other things. They probably have a UPS shipping account under another name (which I do as well) that they use for all their businesses. It could have been as simple as the wrong shipping label being put on your box and someone who ordered 2 rolls of string getting a scuba mask. Give them a chance to correct the mistake. If the don't, leave them some nasty feedback and file a complaint.

Yes, it's hard to tell, but the seller is not responding currently. By this time Paypal has already requested them to give an explaination within 10 days.
When you looked online, they call themselves a diver shop, but according to the shipping record, it's "OfficeMax Retail". Why would "OffcieMax Retail" selling dive mask?

 

[alo100]

If you are intelligent. There are ways to know who is legit and who isnt. It sounds to me like you simply didn't do your homework. Also, it sounds like you responded and bought something outside of Ebay... you responded to an email offering additional product. These are never legit and often do not even come from the actual seller... they come from Ebay copycats.
Ken

No really, all of the messages took place within eBay, and they are having case filed.
If the system is not reliable, you can still use intelligent guess, but, the result may
not be optimum. That's why online shopping is known to be more risky.

Don't know for sure what happened in this case, but I think if you wise up... you'll do better. I've been buying and selling on Ebay since year one... and I've had a few problems with buyers... but never with sellers... I did my homework... checked feedback... never bid on high dollar items where the feedback looked even a little bit funny... and oh...
Ken

Yes, I wanted to be as intelligent as you do ;-) how about that?
Thanks for your message anyway....

I shut down my PayPal account because it is wrought with fraud... Usually from the buyers end... people claiming they never received items they did receive... then PayPal gladly issuing them refunds. The system is by far stacked in the buyers favor... so you should have no problem getting a credit.
Ken

There is no full refund policy according to what I have seen.
If there is any way, I'll keep you guys posted so that, if anyone is being trapped,
they can use the info. BTW, the scuba board staff is giving me some good advice,
then some good advice from all of you too, thanks!

 

[Land Locked]

I just wanted to let those on the fence know, that I closed both my ebay and paypal accounts.

They are just too reif with fraud, and too heavily attacked by phisher's and scam artists.

LoL,
My e-bay and paypal accounts are always being closed or threatened
to be closed weekly.
I've never had an e-bay or paypal account, but you would never know
it reading my e-mail. The internet is not what it used to be. I used to
have fun tracking the phiser's address and Ip down and it was amazing
where some of these came from. But, I grew tired of reporting these to
e-bay and paypal, always just got the typical boring e-letter back
from them.

Sometimes the good guy's do win though,
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index.html

 

[lhpdiver]

Let me take advantage of having so many ebay-savy people in one place...

What does "As is" really mean ? Does it mean if you bid and win (and pay) it's yours period ? What if it arrives and you don't like it, or it isn't quite what was presented (say a 2 gauge console and loose compass sold as a 3 gauge console, or a gauge which looks much better online due to the flash of the seller's camera) ? What about condition (my VERY GOOD means just short of like new - what does yours mean) ?

Do you just take a deep breath and live with it ? Do you leave bad feedback to the seller who does not respond to your emails ? Do you turn around and put the same item back up for bid yourself (hot potatoe) ?

 

[midwestscubadiver]

I am the seller and was just made aware that there was a problem by the buyer filing a compaint with ebay, he had not contacted me. I in turn, after being alerted by someone that read this post on ebay was made aware. I just shipped another Mantis mask to another buyer recently and he left good feedback and recieved the mask just fine, check my feedback report on ebay. I am researching this dispute to make sure its valid and will be contacting DHL to make sure the package was indeed delivered.

I think what might have happened is that another person who ordered 2 270ft wreck reels got the wrong tag on it at the shipping center, so someone else who should have gotten the reels, which are not balls of twine but black and yellow dive reels, but instead received the Mantis mask instead. I am contacting the other person to see if that was indeed the case. I ask the buyer to please contact me directly about any errors so that I may address them before posting nastygrams all over the internet. I assure you that we will get to the bottom of this and resolve the situation. If you did recieive the reels then you will need to ship them back to us, and we will get you another mantis out to you or provide you a refund. Thanks, and I will let you all know how this pans out.

 

[H2Andy]

I think what might have happened is that another person who ordered 2 270ft wreck reels got . . . instead received the Mantis mask instead.

sounds like this could happen to anyone. thanks for letting us know your side
of the story.

hope you guys work it out