Deal gone bad!

lshay · Jun 26, 2001

I really thought a lot before amking this post as I've made a lot of really great deals on BF and made some friends, but at this point I'm out a knife I paid $125 for plus shipping to China

A in April I had a MT Signature Edition plain/tanto/silver mini-SOCOM listed in the FS/T Forum at $85. I got a series of emails from Victor Huang/Vampor. The tone of the emails was kind of odd, but I chalked it up to a language difference. I was kind of surprised that a link in his email took me to a site in Chinese that appeared to have MT's for sale? I would get 2-3 emails in a day insisting I do a Pay pal money request and then nothing for a week. I finally got my money from Pay Pal and took the package to the P.O. the next day. At Victors request I was to mail the package to a 'friend' of his in Hong Kong and not to him in mainland China (mistake). The Postal Clerk recommended Air Letter Post and gave me a reciept with what looked like a tracking # on it (my mistake). I immediately emailed Victor/Vampor with the shipping info.

The next thing I heard was a post in the FS/T Forum by Victor complaining (8 days after shipping!) that he had "Paid money and no knife". The day after that I was notified by Pay Pal that the transaction was in dispute and since I had not mailed it to the verified shipping address listed with Pay Pal I essentially had no recourse. I went to the post office to attempt to track the package and was told the number on my reciept was not a tracking number but I could fill out a form to attempt to have the package traced. I did so and emailed scans of the USPS reciept and the USPS trace form to Vistor and to Pay Pal. Victor told me he would wait for USPS to attempt to trace the package. During this time I asked him repeatedly if his friend had checked with customs in Hong Kong and never got an answer. I also noticed that he was posting on KF attempting to buy knives and listing his address in Canada. In the last month I have sent him 5 emails asking again if his friend has checked with customs and never got any answer.

Well, yesterday I was notified by Pay Pal that the money has been taken out of my account, the same day I got notification from USPS that they had traced the package on the plane to Hong Kong

I guess the lesson in this is that I will never accept Pay Pal from anyone overseas. I will never ship anything paid with Pay Pal to anywhere but the verified shipping address. I will also not ship to anyone overseas who will not accept responsibility for the package once I've shipped it.

I guess the thing that bugs me the most is this guy never even apologised for my being out a $125 knife and shipping. That and the fact that I pretty much feel like my mini-SOCOM is either sitting in Customs cause it's too much trouble to pick it up or sitting in his knife case

I guess after 40-50 great deals on BF having one go bad is not the end of the world but...

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"Don't get even, get odd"

Kodiak PA · Jun 26, 2001

That is really a sad story. I agree, I won't do overseas sales when I sell on the forum.

Perhaps the gentleman would like to eloborate?

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~Greg Mete~
Kodiak Alaska
Buck Collectors Club-Lifetime Member
JKM-Chai
KnifeKnutt@aol.com

narruc1 · Jun 26, 2001

I'm sorry to hear about your problem Ishay. It's a damn shame that had to happen!

I will never send anything overseas, because it's a big hassle. Other countries have different laws about knives, so when it gets on that end, customs comes into the picture. England is the worst place to send knives!

I hope your problem gets straightened out Ishay... Good luck to you!

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Click Here, and Check Out Florida Custom Knives

BC... For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know... Semper Fi!

PsychRN · Jun 27, 2001

I think there's a few exceptions to every rule. Keninshiro of Malaysia is very reliable. People have raved about Bagheera of Holland, and I am awaiting an order of glowrings from this fine gentleman. I myself considered overseas, and I trust me

. I believe that Ishay innocently walked into a fishy deal and got burned. I think that this whole mess has less to do with the deal going overseas or that person being Chinese or anything like that, than a fishy request to redirect a package elsewhere. Just my two cents.

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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.

David1967 · Jun 27, 2001

Guys,

I am sorry to hear that such thing happen but.... Please do not say "I will never ship to overseas" just because of this one incident. I have bought many knives from States in last two years and only one shipment got lost. The customs office here is no problem if the sender follows the instructions. Even if the package gets caught by Customs, it is not seized. If the recepient of the package does not agree with the TAX, he can have the package sent back. I have done that too.

David

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DIVERTI NESCIO

---------------
My Photopoint pictures

Mikov Knives

Joe Chen · Jun 27, 2001

I'm sorry to hear about this.

David1967 is right, please don't stop have International deal because this incident. I too have many great deals with forum members and knife dealer and had no trouble at all.

I don't know other place but if you have a deal with guys from Taiwan. If you don't know him you can ask him send the cashier check to you then after receive the check, you can send your stuff via USPS EMS to him.

In this way you can have the money first.
The cashier check is just like cash.
Then if you ship the stuff via EMS, the EMS has tracking system at http://www.usps.gov/ you can track it when the package is in US, then you can track the package if it left US to Taiwan at this site.
http://emstrack.post.gov.tw/emstrack_e.htm

You will know where the package is, when the package arrive and is the package delivered or not.

If our customs keep the stuff you will know from the tracker, the buyer can ask our customs send the package back to the seller if our customs don't think the knife is legal here.

That's the most reliable shipment in very resonable price (about $20 to $25) I believe. Normal delivery time is 4 or 5 days from US to Taiwan.

Say, if I can trust the seller and send the cashier check or even the cash to him first, I don't think there has any problem the seller can't ship the stuff via realiable shipment to me. Right?

Many great guys here, we don't live in US but we love knives and we are honest people.

Just my 0.02 cents

[This message has been edited by Joe Chen (edited 06-27-2001).]

Santi · Jun 27, 2001

Originally posted by Joe Chen:
Many great guys here, we don't live in US but we love knives and we are honest people

All my deal, I have NEVER ask the shipper to take responsibility if things got lost.

Donald · Jun 27, 2001

Off to work so I did not manage to figure out all the sordid details. Ishay, sorry your deal went bad.

Just posting to say Joe Chen is a great guy, and I had a fine transaction with him. Joe is a good sheath maker too! So if there is some concern, just follow his steps, and you can have a safe foreign deal.

Donald.

Brian C · Jun 27, 2001

lshay, I'm sorry to learn about your bum deal; however, I wouldn't write off all international transactions just because of one individual. I have had many international transactions over the past couple of years, both as seller & buyer, and the worst that happened was a delayed delivery to the Philippines. (IIRC, DannyC had to help them find the package in his local PO.

) In fact, a recent transaction with Ruddy in France (thanks again) was as smooth as the best of domestic deals -- both funds & knife reached their destinations within about a week.

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Cheers,
Brian

He who finishes with the most toys wins.

NOTE: My old PhotoPoint site is no more. Follow the "toys" link to my new site.

Knife Outlet · Jun 27, 2001

I have very little experience buying overseas. We've done a little of it successfully. I have lots of experience selling overseas and we had to give it up.

I don't think the real problem was fraud. Sure there was fraud but we get that with domestic business as well. It was just delays in the mail. Typically, an overseas customer won't accept UPS because it is expensive overseas. They want mail and mail can't be tracked and, for all practical purposes can't be insured (it can be insured but getting a claim paid is close to impossible so we never pay the price for insurance.) If there was ever a delay, I would get a chargeback from the credit card processor. That meant I had lost the product and not been paid for it. Nothing I could do. At the height of our international shipping (Fall of 1999) our international business was generating a run rate equal to a $20,000 net loss. Since we sell with skinny margins, it doesn't take a very large percentage of losses to put the whole business in the red.

When we stopped international shipments our profitability jumped quickly. It's really a shame because it is either too risky or too expensive to do international business by credit card and I wish it weren't that way. We get $1000's per day in international orders and we reject them all. It hurts but it's necessary.

The person who can put together a business that makes it safe for other businesses to do consumer sales internationally could have a very viable business. If the business is done with some instrument other than credit cards I think might be doable. There's something for a budding entrepreneur to work on.

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Fred
Knife Outlet
http://www.knifeoutlet.com

NCBlades · Jun 27, 2001

I have sold knives to people overseas (Ferret, Clay, etc....) and never had any problems. Heck, I have even bought a few from overseas. I wouldn't hesitate selling or buying from other countries. I hope this mess gets straightened out.
michael

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"For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword."
Heb. 4:12

Usual Suspect
Its an Emerson thing. You wouldn't understand.

My Emerson collection:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1526731&a=12341786

Boris · Jun 27, 2001

My condolences as well; however, I completed 2 transactions in the last month, one to Taiwan and one from Japan, that were two of the best transactions I've done recently.

While the shipping scheme is different and emails sometimes get garbled between various country servers, the deals came off fine. They just took a bit longer to complete.

I agree that you should never ship to a different address with PayPal. In my experience, they are great on followup if you follow their rules.

I urge you to try again to contact the buyer and keep trying. Perhaps a friend of his will read your post and help clear this up for you.

Good Luck!

Brian_T · Jun 27, 2001

lshay,

I think Joe's plan helps take lots of the headaches out of doing business with the "out-of-towners."

EMS isn't prohibitively expensive but it'll cost you a little more than something like Priority but it'll cost lots less than replacing a tool that's gone missing. Plus, EMS packages are delivered on Sunday too--no more waiting till Monday if a package arrives over the weekend.

Don't give up on our International brothers and sisters because of this. There are LOTS of folks out there who are worth your trust--a few specific names have been mentioned above.

I hope this all works out for you in the end.

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Brian_T
brianthornburg@home.com

Double Edge Dave · Jun 27, 2001

I won't do any transactions with overseas persons unless I have previously done so. I have had great transactions with Ferret and Bagheera, and will happily do so again.
David

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AKTI# A000150
NC Custom Knifemakers Guild member
NC Knife Knuts member

narruc1 · Jun 27, 2001

I would like to make a public apologize to all the formites outside of the US That I might have insulted by my reply to this post.

I, by no means meant that I don't ship overseas because I don't trust the people, especially the ones that have been mentioned here. I would not make a blanket statement that crude about people for no reason, because I know that there are many members of this forum that are very trustworthy, and honest individuals, that also live outside of the US. I also realize that you can ripped off just as easy shipping in our own country, not just outside of it.

My statement was just my own feeling about sending overseas parcels... Not because of the people that I would be dealing with, but the hassle, and consequences dealing with customs. I say this also because I deal a lot with auto's.

Again I apologize!

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Click Here, and Check Out Florida Custom Knives

BC... For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know... Semper Fi!

[This message has been edited by narruc1 (edited 06-27-2001).]

[This message has been edited by narruc1 (edited 06-27-2001).]

Frank Castle · Jun 27, 2001

Originally posted by lshay:
I really thought a lot before amking this post as I've made a lot of really great deals on BF and made some friends, but at this point I'm out a knife I paid $125 for plus shipping to China

A in April I had a MT Signature Edition plain/tanto/silver mini-SOCOM listed in the FS/T Forum at $85. I got a series of emails from Victor Huang/Vampor. The tone of the emails was kind of odd, but I chalked it up to a language difference. I was kind of surprised that a link in his email took me to a site in Chinese that appeared to have MT's for sale? I would get 2-3 emails in a day insisting I do a Pay pal money request and then nothing for a week. I finally got my money from Pay Pal and took the package to the P.O. the next day. At Victors request I was to mail the package to a 'friend' of his in Hong Kong and not to him in mainland China (mistake). The Postal Clerk recommended Air Letter Post and gave me a reciept with what looked like a tracking # on it (my mistake). I immediately emailed Victor/Vampor with the shipping info.

The next thing I heard was a post in the FS/T Forum by Victor complaining (8 days after shipping!) that he had "Paid money and no knife". The day after that I was notified by Pay Pal that the transaction was in dispute and since I had not mailed it to the verified shipping address listed with Pay Pal I essentially had no recourse. I went to the post office to attempt to track the package and was told the number on my reciept was not a tracking number but I could fill out a form to attempt to have the package traced. I did so and emailed scans of the USPS reciept and the USPS trace form to Vistor and to Pay Pal. Victor told me he would wait for USPS to attempt to trace the package. During this time I asked him repeatedly if his friend had checked with customs in Hong Kong and never got an answer. I also noticed that he was posting on KF attempting to buy knives and listing his address in Canada. In the last month I have sent him 5 emails asking again if his friend has checked with customs and never got any answer.

Well, yesterday I was notified by Pay Pal that the money has been taken out of my account, the same day I got notification from USPS that they had traced the package on the plane to Hong Kong

I guess the lesson in this is that I will never accept Pay Pal from anyone overseas. I will never ship anything paid with Pay Pal to anywhere but the verified shipping address. I will also not ship to anyone overseas who will not accept responsibility for the package once I've shipped it.

I guess the thing that bugs me the most is this guy never even apologised for my being out a $125 knife and shipping. That and the fact that I pretty much feel like my mini-SOCOM is either sitting in Customs cause it's too much trouble to pick it up or sitting in his knife case

I guess after 40-50 great deals on BF having one go bad is not the end of the world but...

Ishay,

I had sent out a knife to the same individual to China. A Microtech serial #219 Vector black serrated Manual.

I hope this isn't a trend.

I did look at the site listed and see a Vector Black Manual Serated FOR SALE. Funny huh?

After about 8 days I had an email that he never got the package. I had thought that strange. UPS takes 6 days to get from coast to coast. So I did send it via USPS.He also had it shipped to a friend.

Wei Huang
CHina

PAYPAL has recently put up a way to prevent the cash funds from being pulled so easy. Infact I just recieved a email from them.

I will let the US Postal Inspectors and or FBI know about any attempt at fraud charges if they are necessary. I will be in contact with you if this is the case. I hope that this is not what has happend.

[This message has been edited by Frank Castle (edited 06-27-2001).]

Bagheera · Jun 27, 2001

Ishay,

I'm sorry to hear about your loss but PLEASE do not think that overseas deals are all "suspect".

Over the last year or so I have send over many Firesteels and/or Glowrings to fellow Forumites in the USA, Canada, Philipines, Hong Kong, Brunei, Tsjech repubilc, Austria Germany as we did our Scouting groups fundraiser.

OK, I agree, we have a principle not seen often on the Blade Forums (and other places), that we first send the items and upon receiving we would like to receive confirmation and then prompt payment. But we only have been cheated out of our money ONCE (perhaps twice

as I'm still waiting for a reply from one BF individual who doesn't answer anymore) and had a letter with money lost in the mail a couple of times.

We now ask for larger amounts ($50+) to be send by REGISTERED Airmail and it works fine.

The only thing we really dread is the very eratic Postal delivery times, we pay good money for Priority Airmail to the US and a letter send to San Francisco takes only 3 days to arrive while the one to Los Angeles has been "on route" for more then 12 days.
The maximum time it took for a Priority Airmail letter to arrive was 31 days

.

Ishay, there are many fine "foreign" blade forums members that are honest and just adhere to the principle that valuable items be send by REGISTERED airmail it's worth the extra money and ANY reputable foreign Forumite would be willing to pay for the added security.

Best scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera

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lshay · Jun 27, 2001

First off I want to say THANKS! to my fellow Forumites for your moral support

I did not at all mean to sound harsh to any of the overseas Forumites. I would do a deal in a minute with Santi, Bagheera, Ferret, Ivan Campos, Clay or any of the regulars from across the big ponds

The purpose of my post was more as a warning about a particular individual, Victor Huang aka Vampor. And about the possible dangers of overseas shipping and Pay Pal. I had hoped that this post would prevent anyone else from having a deal go bad but it looks like I may have been too late in at least one case

I had gotten so used to the honesty and integrity exhibited by Forumites that I ignored the fact that Victor Huang had less that 10 posts when we made the deal. A mistake I won't make again

At least it was not one of my beloved Sebbies

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"Don't get even, get odd"

RGRAY · Jun 27, 2001

Ishay,

I have to tell you that I've bought most of my knives (over 75+) on the internet and have met a lot of very nice people with NO bad experiences.

I have just started selling some of them back (to buy more knives

).

Normally they're two or three E-mails before the deal is finalized.

I have been shipping the knives as soon as I'm told the check is in the mail.

I HATE WAITING FOR KNIVES so I don't make them wait to get theirs.

So far I have had no bad experiences.

This sounds corny, but I would rather get beat than not take the chance.

I do not advise this for everybody.

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Rick Gray - Left Handers Unite

[This message has been edited by RGRAY (edited 06-27-2001).]

RGRAY · Jun 27, 2001

Originally posted by narruc1:
I would like to make a public apologize to all the formites outside of the US That I might have insulted by my reply to this post.

Again I apologize!

Bob, people know that you talk a little rough, but are a great guy.

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Rick Gray - Left Handers Unite

Deal gone bad!

Moderator and Gold Member