Replying to the various people saying that paypal fee is best paid and then you have a better chance of recovering your money. I think I now have to agree with this. Also using your debit card as an additional protection is a wise move. Paypal is generally paid using direct debit so if you can’t get paypal to give your money back the bank may well do it for them.
Do not send money to advertisers on gumtree using bank transfer. Gumtree tells you not to do this in its site guidelines. More fool me for my cleverness!
What a total wanker.100% the same bloke from worchester. I asked the next day on my wife’s account and he said he still had it for sale until I asked for his phone number then again it was sold.sorry to hear this mate.what a scum bag
Yeah, its pretty dark that people are out there purposely targeting other peoples goodwill in order to steal from them.
Robbing people on line is much safer than say, aggravated burglary, and carries next to no penalties. If you think about it like this you kind of wake up to the realities of on line fraud.
Gumtree are completely useless and are very unhelpful. Action fraud is a joke. Having looked into it I find it pretty alarming how easy it is to just rip people off with near impunity.
These scams always seem a little bizarre to me. I can sort of understand the motivation/logic if it was a high value and in high demand item that you could con a number of people simultaneously and very quickly as a one off then attempt a runner but to run the risk over something that is only likely to attract one, maybe two, firm buyers at a time who will likely flag and chase via Paypal/credit card/etc seems bonkers.
Anyway, my rule of thumbs is to only buy via Paypal’s invoice/goods route for protection. I am happy to sell using F&F but have begun to hear stories of sellers getting stung incorrectly by dodgy claims. Probably just easier to set a price that includes the 3.4% protection fee to be honest.
Agree, if you were going to do something like this you’d go for the latest iphone, macbook, or something of the sort.
The shame of these kind of scams is that the ‘sellers’ actually know about the hardware and therefore are knowingly ripping off fellow producers and musicians. Total bullshit!
I’m guessing from his gum tree ad he could have scammed about 5 or 6 people. I nearly fell for it but in the end I said I was gonna pick it up and then it was already sold.scumbag
please … you are so misguided in your contrary opinions and attitude here it beggars belief - it took this gentle persuasion to get a realworld result - there were many many ways this could have played out without intervention which was sadly required and the buyer had been overly patient by a long long way
There is no innocence here, there’s restoration and massive contrition (which i’ve seen) - the guy had read his messages and wilfully ignored them and all responsibilities to the sale (he wasn’t dead or hijacked as you fancifully suggested) - so please have some sense of what’s happened here in reality on this occasion and stop trying to play the self righteous card
there was no mistake the seller was accused of failing to fulfil any reasonable obligations in time - if you don’t have all the facts nor are directly involved why not just accept that it’s best to see this as a fair way for it to come to an end - this isn’t about you, this is a good news moment, don’t sour it
Frankly - this kind of inciting language coupled with the previous stirring is not helpful wrt the guidelines, so go and re-read those please
A big lesson from What???. So after 4 weeks of a item not being sent you would just think “oh it’s Ok,the seller might be having personal problems leading to my item not being sent, so I will just sit back and do nothing”. Somehow I don’t think so. I’m happy the seller as decided to send the item and makes this forum a safe place to buy and sell
@Stumm42 adding fuel on the fire is of no use at all, let’s not do this.
@sabana you have no reason to antagonize users, after all it seems to end rather well.
This was IMO solved in the smartest way, with patience and respect for both parts.
I guess some lessons were learnt, let’s hope we won’t see such problem arise anymore.
Stuff like this makes me feel better for my trust issues.
Edit: Even when I sell stuff I give the option: “+ 3% for PayPal fees or if you feel like trusting some random guy on the internet you can pay me via friends and family”
It’s my way of giving them the option to pay less while also informing them that it’s a super bad idea
you have your own responsibility to help moderate the forum if you see posts that you believe shouldn’t exist unchallenged then do what you have to instead of pointing the finger - i don’t see that you’ve issued any flags so presumably there’s none that troubled you - there wasn’t any pitchforks either afaicr just justifiable anger and that hasn’t changed - note this is a broad thread discussing many accounts of scamming
Sorry the OP has gone through this… sucks. No way around it. I haven’t read every reply and I’m sure this has been covered, but just adding my $0.2c having been involved with Ebay since '2000 and owning my own retail and ecommerce store as well:
Never use PayPal “Friends and Family” for something you’re buying. Ever. Even if it really is from a friend or family member. Only use this when you’re donating money. If the buyer has a problem with that it should be a red flag right there. They should have factored in that cost into the selling price. If I have to and I want the item enough, then I’ll give them the extra 3% or whatever is to cover it in the selling price. It’s absolutely worth the piece of mind IMO.
Never use a debit card. Debit cards are completely covered from fraud (unauthorized charges) just like credit cards, but credit card companies generally (in my experience) will “fight” for you more and you will not have had the money withdrawn from your account yet at that point. American Express is particularly good in my experience with disputes (I’ve been on both sides of the fence having had a retail business). Amex can be an absolute MF’er to deal with when you’re on the wrong side of them.
Always ship fully insured with a tracking number. Offer to pay the seller extra for shipping if needed. I just bought an Avalon Bassline a couple weeks ago where the seller said “shipping included”. I completely reimbursed him for the shipping costs (all of it) due to how well he packed it, made sure it was insured and sent me the tracking number. He sent me a photo of the Fedex receipt for verification.
Buying online especially person to person takes a risk and involves trust, but there’s definitely some things you can do to mitigate some of it and at least put yourself in a position where they’ll still be hassle and disappointment involved, but you remain covered when something doesn’t work out.
I like what you represent in this matter, but the fact that the seller just came forward right after I shaked my pitchfork after a month of silence just tells me a different story than the one you are telling. Also mods were all over this as there was some wrong doing. Nothing of the personal stuff we found was posted.
