First and last experience with E-Bay.

[Professor]

I was the high bidder on Saturday during the final hours of a sale on E-Bay for a rare Benchmade, pearl-handled Mel-Pardue model 850 (I think).

As the bidding neared its last two hours, I received an email from someone pretending to be the seller telling me that the knife had accidentally been dropped and the tip broken off about a 1/4 inch. The email's author, pretending to be the seller, urged me to retract my last bid since the item had been damaged.

The email address was different than that of the original seller's, but the email stated that he was using a work address (though the name far from matches up).

The original seller, after I forwarded the email supposedly sent by him to him for review, told me that the same email had fraudulently been sent to several of the bidders on this particular piece. I have known the original seller through correspondence with a certain knife company for years, and I know him to be very reputable and an all-around nice guy.

The fraudulent emailer was apparently not the person who ended up buying the knife (as far as my powers of investigation lead me to believe) that I really, really wanted. I have since reported the incident to E-Bay, but I'm not holding my breath.

The email in question was the following address, and had the following name attached:

SeekU2000@yahoo.com (Richard Bigg)

If anyone knows someone by this name or if you happen to recognize this address, please post here or email me with and info you might have. It could be that the emailer in question used this person's address. Whatever the case, the search is on, and I'm quite tenacious when someone burns me like this.

This was my first bid ever with E-Bay, and it will be my absolute last as well. Thank you for any help you guys might provide.

Professor.

 

[nifrand]

Do not let an isolated incident sour you on something as far reaching as Ebay.I have had a lot of fun and entertainment on Ebay.Also it is a good medium for the purchase of knives.IMHO

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have a"knife"day

 

[Gollnick]

If the seller had inadvertently damaged the knife, he should have withdrawn it from the auction himself.

eBay is actually quite concerned about all kinds of fraud and "funny business" involving their auctions. A lot of their value is based on the fact that people feel comfortable buying and selling on eBay and incidents like this degrade that public trust. So, my guess is that eBay will do everything they can to resolve the issue. What this fellow did is actually illegal (fraud if nothing else) and he could face criminal charges.

Thanks for posting this. A lot of us do buy/sell on eBay and being aware of this sort of scam will help us all. Furthermore, spreading the word about this sort of scam will put these undesirables out of business.
If you receive e-mail supposidly from a seller like this, reply suggesting that they withdraw the auction. Forward the e-mail you received immediately to eBay and to the seller too.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com

 

[Cougar Allen]

Notify yahoo. They don't like people abusing their service like that.

They're the only ones who can identify the dork. You can be sure his name isn't really Richard Bigg.

-Cougar :{)

 

[Professor]

Thanks guys, I'll give Yahoo a go with tracking down this GDMFSOAB. Already reported it with Ebay and forwarded them a copy of the email sent to me. You guys have made me feel better about this, and at least I didn't lose any money. If that had been the case, I would've had to quit my job and hound this varmit to the ends of the earth.

Richard Bigg, whatever your name is, if you're out there, I'm calling you out!

Professor.

 

[HarlowJ]

Thanks for sharing your experience. That really sucks. My experiences on EBay have been positive, so far, except that I have paid too much at times (and if I find out who's at fault for that I will kill myself). I wish you better luck next time.

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It's always darkest before the dawn. So if you plan to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

 

[fracmeister]

Richard Bigg ...hmmmmm I guess casually and on the typical fashion of roll calls that would be

Bigg, Dick ?

I bet.

 

[copper]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience prof. You all may remember I recently posted a thread complaining about ebay. Well, since then I have learned how to "work" it, and weed thru the BS (there's a lot of it out there.) I have won two auctions and had no problems, it just took a while to get used to "swimming with sharks". But take heart! NPR just ran a huge story about fraud on ebay and even the FBI is cracking down. Not on ebay, but at the root of the problem - fraudulent bidders. They went on to say that ebay was one of the best and most diligent companies as far as fraud investigation. You did the right thing by reporting it, and if they can catch the person they will do as much as they can to them. Plus there's always the auctions here too (of which I also have one win!)

 

[Professor]

Yeah, that's his pen name. Must be an overcompensation thing. I found his profile on Yahoo, and it's pretty rough. I'm really surprised Yahoo lets people list profiles like that, but with free email, it's like a proverbial finger in the dyke I reckon.

Professor.

 

[Spim]

Professor,
It's too bad you had a bad first eBay experience.

It works GREAT!! for me and lots of my friends.I have a buddy that has sold over 500 Cameras and photography related items,with VERY few problems.

I have purchased Cameras, Knives,a new 19" computer monitor, computer parts, Daguerreotypes,Georg Jensen silver jewelery,Mexican Silver Jewelery....etc. Never a bad deal.

It does work if your careful...That troll coming in from the 'outside' was NOT a common thing,IMHO.

Caveat Emptor "Let the buyer beware"