Advice on fraudulent transaction

[ekrabappel]

Hi all,

I am debating whether to take a seller to small claims court and how to go about getting information.  I recently purchased around 280 second hand dvds for $305 dollars.  The photos supplied were not the best so I asked the seller how many DVDs there were and whether there were many cheapies such as one buys from Crazy Clerks etc. The seller responded that she was selling the DVDs on behalf of a friend and that there were about 280 DVDs and there may be about 10 cheapies but they were otherwise bought from stores like Target etc and sold as is. Based on this information I placed a bid and one the auction for $305. When it came to picking up the DVDs she said they had to be picked up ASAP as her friend was moving out of a house into the sellers house. As usual I went to pay by Paypal but was it was automatically declined. When I mentioned this to the seller she stated that her Paypal account did not work and that I would have to pay cash on pick-up. No bother as I knew I would be seeing the goods before payment. As it turns out her friend dropped off the DVDs at my house. She stated that her teenage son had sorted out the DVDs to make sure they were all in good order. I immediately noticed several bootleg DVDs (DTS sound system on the top of the case) and pointed these out. She told me that she had lots more DVDs than were put on e-bay and to let her know if I wanted to swap any of the non-genuine DVDs for other ones in her collection.  I told her to leave it for the time being as there may have been only 10 or 15 among the whole lot however if there were more I would get in touch.  Over the next few weeks I started processing the collection (removing rental stickers etc) and the number of pirate DVDs was adding up. I sent a message to inform her that I had found 20 pirate DVDs plus 10 empty DVD cases plus a couple of cases with bubble jet printed sleeves and DVD-R discs inside.  I pointed out that I was somewhat disappointed at the number of illegal discs and there were certainly more than the 10 stated in earlier correspondance and there were certainly not purchased from retail shops like target. I said I would do a faster sort through the collection and let her know. I have since sorted them all out and found 42 illegal pirate DVDs plus 15 empty cases and a further 5 reproduced sleeves with DVD-R discs inside. That 62 out of 280 discs that are illegal or missing! I sent her a second email expressing my disappointment and that I was still happy to accept her offer to swap them for genuine discs from her collection, I have recieved no response to either message so am now seriously considering taking the matter up with both the small claims court and the Caboolture police as this lady has commited offences on several levels. Problem is, how do I get her address to file a police or small claims case? I have numbers that just go to a message bank and e-bay contact information does not give an address? Thanx

[ekrabappel]

So it's OK to have a non-working Paypal account and insist on cash on pick-up? I guess so long as Paypal is an option on the listing E-bay doesn't care if it doesn't work. Less payouts by scammed items. Clever.

[digital*ghost]

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@ekrabappel wrote:

So it's OK to have a non-working Paypal account and insist on cash on pick-up? I guess so long as Paypal is an option on the listing E-bay doesn't care if it doesn't work. Less payouts by scammed items. Clever.

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It's not ok to offer PayPal and effectively refuse to accept it by intentionally having an invalid email address in the listing, but what is acceptable and what is possible are at odds here. 

Just a side not re: my previous post - the edits have removed certain details that have made the last line become purely an insult, when before it was primarily a qualifying statement for the information I related and the scratched friends thing was an opportunistic quip that fit in with what I was trying to say. I don't know how I feel about this. o_O

[ekrabappel]

I know it wasn't a typo because she admitted that it wasn't working and another buyer has left feedback that they couldn't make a payment. Deliberate avoidance of Paypal protection in my books.

[lyndal1838]

But in your case there was not paypal protection anyway....it was a pick up item.

[putney32]

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@ekrabappel wrote:

I know it wasn't a typo because she admitted that it wasn't working and another buyer has left feedback that they couldn't make a payment. Deliberate avoidance of Paypal protection in my books.

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as it was a pick up item, and there is NO paypal protection for buyers or sellers on pickup items, there was, in my books no avoidance. you cannot avoid something which is not there in the first place.

[thecatspjs]

Deliberate avoidance of SAFE payment method which includes paypal is reportable.

If a seller refuses or has "paypal" account problems - DING DING DING - its a sign something is not as it seems.

It is irrelevant whether pick up does not get buyer or seller protection - had the OP paid via paypal using credit card as back up a chargeback on the basis of fake goods may have been possible, in addition the OP would have more information to provide the police when reporting.

That being said, this seller saw the OP coming - no pick up address - selling for a friend - fake paypal address.

Hopefully you did not let the person in the door when they dropped the goods off in case they were window shopping for more things to sell on ebay for cash, and checked out what you had that might interest them.