Seller/Custom knife maker has scammed me. What to do next?

H

Holmes7891

Feedback: +0 / =0 / -0
Joined
Apr 14, 2014
Messages
3
Sorry to the Mods and community members if this is in the wrong forums section. I tried to find the best area to put this but if there
is a better place for it please relocate my thread to the proper area.

I am hoping to get some personal experiences and/or advice from community members here on how to deal with a seller is who is a scam / fraud.
My situation is as follows : I purchased a knife on eBay roughly a year ago which was a Buy-it-Now and the transaction was processed though
PayPal. The knife was a per-order basis so once knife was bought, crafting would begin. Original lead time 4-6 weeks. After next to no updates
from the seller on my order after 6 weeks I began to ask questions on when I would receive my knife. He explained it would only be a few weeks
longer and I would have it.

Well this same song and dance continued for the past ~12 months, "It will only be a few weeks more. Your knife is almost done" and here I am today still knife-less.
The seller is now unresponsive and I have a feeling both eBay and PayPal will not help me out in this situation.
They usually have a set time frame for customers to complain and get their money back.
I am never going to see the knife I paid for and was promised by this seller so I am left with little direction or choices.

So where do I go from here? Will my bank back me up here or because it was a eBay/PayPal deal that happened 9 months ago are they going to
say "You took too long to act."? Is there some where else to turn in this situation? Does this fall into the category of credit card fraud?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Calling my bank, eBay and PayPal will be my next step if nothing else turns up.
Thanks
-Holmes7891
 
If you paid by credit card through Paypal you may have a very slight chance your credit card company may help you even though most would consider year a bit past their claim time limit, but ya he strung you along till you ran out of recourse. Yes you waited way too long to act and even this forum thread is late in the game. You can't even leave him negative feedback on eBay. There really isn't any reason to be paying in full before a knife is made, I wish people would stop getting sucked into that scam. In any case good luck with your issue, see also if you can report him to eBay.
 
This seems to happen quite often with so called "knife makers". They agree to make a knife for you at said price, you pay said price or a part of it beforehand and then after several months he keeps feeding you BS excuses about how he had a family emergency or how he fell ill and that he will still make your knife or refund you, and then more months pass and he magically disappears.

I don't know why but it's starting to happen more and more now. If you're going to have a knife made for you in the future try to get the maker to agree that you will only give him a down payment of 20% (AT THE MOST) of the knife's cost, until the knife is finished. Then obviously have him send you pictures when he claims that the knife is finished before you pay him the rest of the money.

I feel sorry for the OP in this case. Did you at least try to reason with paypal? Give them a shot and you may still have a chance of getting your money back. If I may ask, how much did you lose out on?
 
Last edited:
Is this an on going routine? Meaning is same seller on ebay still doing this....or was it a one time scam? Thanks.
 
I lost out on $600. I have not contacted PayPal yet but I will be trying them this evening.

Yes this is on going. I can confirm that I am not the only person to be stuck in this situation with this seller.
I closely watched eBay and 2 other knives were sold of similar value (one identical to mine). Like me, neither of them have
left the seller feedback so I can assume they never received anything either.
 
This sounds like a job for Paypal, eBay, and your bank. Not much can be done on our end unfortunately. If I were you, I'd be writing a summary of events, make sure you have any and all communications saved, printed out wouldn't hurt, and turn it all over to Paypal/eBay. Sounds like bad business all around. Lesson here is not to prepay for a knife unless you know and trust the maker, the maker has a track record of on-time delivery, and good communication. Seems like these crooks don't even have to try to separate people from their money these days, people just keep offering it up based on a promise. Sorry for your hassle holmes.
 
$600 is quite a bit I know for stealing once it hits $400 or $500 it gets knocked up to a felony and I believe the statue of limitations may rise a bit more for the time frame. Very rusty on this subject, and I am not a lawyer. It's a bit different than outright stealing in this case but I imagine you still have legal actions you can take against him if he can't prove he is making the knife, and even if so he still broke the contract when it came to the time frame. But I go through paypal, ebay, bank as other recommended first and let them be your attack dog for you and if they fail you can hopefully still pursue legal actions on your own.

Best of luck to you and take what I say as an uneducated best guess advice, I am no expert in this field nor do I pretend to be.
 
Had a similar issue with a knifemaker. I just filed a small claims action locally ($75) and when he got served all of the sudden he delivered I then called him and said I would continue the action unless he paid my costs for the small claims. He paid up. The knife is awesome so I have no complaints except I would never buy from him again.
 
Under the current PayPal policy, they would still have your $600 until you've acknowledged a valid completed sale and you'd be able to get your money back fairly easily. As they are holding it in escrow, they would not be giving back their money. I'm not sure what policy was in place 9 months ago. If they've already paid the money, it's likely to be an uphill battle.
best of luck
 
What is the maker's name or eBay handle? Any chance they're a member on here?
Someone here may know them, but not unless you say who it is.
 
I just got into knives and I'm already very concerned with ordering customs because of the protection limitations. It seems to me these scam makers know if they drag out the dates to months-year you can't file a claim. I was lucky with my first order from Jason brous, he sent my t4 within a week. I would be very hesitant to put any deposit down for a custom knife.
 
I just got into knives and I'm already very concerned with ordering customs because of the protection limitations.
Click to expand...

Many makers won't charge money until the knife is completed and ready to mail.
Or there's always the For Sale By Maker forum section, where you buy custom knives that are already completed. No wait!
 
Bob W said:
Many makers won't charge money until the knife is completed and ready to mail.
Or there's always the For Sale By Maker forum section, where you buy custom knives that are already completed. No wait!
Click to expand...

This is always the best route.
 
Bob W said:
Many makers won't charge money until the knife is completed and ready to mail.
Or there's always the For Sale By Maker forum section, where you buy custom knives that are already completed. No wait!
Click to expand...

This is always the best route.
 
Report it to Ebay. Their fraud team does an awesome job. the length of time may be an issue, but if they see the original listing was for something that was going to be delivered several months after purchase, they may extend the timeframe for you. In any case, the guy will be reported to Ebay fraud team and can't rip off others. Doesn;t solve your problem, but saves others and stops the guy from repeating the scam.

The only guy I have any experience with on Pre-Orders is Jason Brous, and he just takes a small deposit up front (like $50.00) and then you pay the balance when he has the product ready to deliver. That's legit, and what you should look for. A legit business person treats your deposit as a LIABILITY on their books, not an asset. They OWE YOU THE MONEY until they have delivered product to offset the deposit liability. In contrast to that, a scammer just wants your $$$ ASAP so would ask you to pay a large deposit or in full.

Sorry you got tangled up with someone who is not holding up their end of the deal. That sucks.
 
Don't EVER pay full price for knives that aren't complete and ready to go. A small deposit is okay but at your discretion.
 
Years ago there was a knifemaker named Norfleet that was taking full payments for knives he was making and selling on eBay and very slow to deliver...always had excuses.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I definitely learned my lesson when it comes to custom knives, and I hope everyone else becomes educated before it happens to them.
I am going to contact eBay and speak with their fraud department to see if anything can be done. Then I will go for PayPal, then my bank. Is small claims court really effective as a last resort to get my money back? I hope at the very least the sellers eBay account is banned and their names are put on some sort of "watch list". Same for PayPal.
I will update in the next day or so on the progress.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top