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

[foxette-in-sox]

JMO but I wouldn't bother for the simple fact you let her walk away before you had checked all of the DVD's.I don't believe you would get anywhere with small claims or anyone else.

You can obviously leave neg feedback & put it down to experience.

Probably not the answer you wanted but just being honest.

[nardiabythelake]

It's not good that you found 62 of them were illegal or missing and whether you report it is up to you.  However, on the bright side, at least you're still left with 218 that are presumably okay.  That's just $1.40 per DVD and she delivered them to you.  Quite a bargain. But I do understand that's not your point.  Giving the seller the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she had no idea that some were pirate copies as not everyone knows how to spot the difference.  Whatever the case, I don't think small claims court would be the way. 

[phorum_junkie*]

You would have been no better off if you had used Paypal as there is no buyer protection for items that have no proof of posting.

It would be your word against hers in any court proceedings and I am sure they would just ask why you did not insist on counting the disks and sampling a random selection to make sure they were OK before you paid. Do you even have a receipt to prove you paid her anything?

[bsal6160]

As fox has already said - you had the chance to decline the sale when you noticed several non-conforming DVD's. You could try reporting her to ebay and leave appropriate, factual feedback.

[ekrabappel]

I am also wondering if the 'friend' actually exists and whether it was just the one woman using the friend story as an excuse. Yes, I try to look at it that I got a bargain at $1.40 a DVD although about 60 of the DVDs are Flashback Entertainment which I think you can get for $2-4 from bargain shops like The Warehouse etc so paying $1.40 for a second hand disc that may have cost $2 new is not such a bargain. OK, you are probably right and I should do nothing even though I was lied to and too trusting when she said she would swap them and that her son had chesked to make sure they were all in the right cases.

I will however leave negative feedback. Should I also report the seller for having a non-operational Paypal Account? I wanted to pay via paypal but couldn't. If I did, this wouldn't have happened.

By the way, when she dropped them off she said she had an appointemnt so couldn't hang around. I could hardly keep her waiting for an hour while I checked 280 DVDs? 

[nardiabythelake]

You could certainly let the powers that be know what happened.  I would phone ebay and have a chat with them, just see what they have to say about it (not that they'll say much), but I wouldn't expect a satisfying outcome, if you know what I mean. 

It's one of those things we have to put down to experience I guess.  I certainly understand your frustrations and understand why you didn't go through all the DVDs prior to her leaving your premises.  If you're like me, you expect people are going to be honest and above board when selling, but we live and learn, hey?

All the best.

[foxette-in-sox]

As someone else has already stated,paying via Paypal would have made NO difference as no protection for pickup items.

Leave appropriate neg feedback & move on-really,some things just aren't worth the hassle IMO.

Hopefully you will enjoy watching the DVD's anyway.

[nardiabythelake]

I can only recommend that you ring Ebay and speak with them.  They're easy to get hold of (I always request a call back so that I'm not waiting on hold).   

[digital*ghost]

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If I wanted to, I could enter anyone's email address into a listing I created so that PayPal payments are sent directly to their account - the address doesn't have to be registered on eBay, or even actually exist (there's no verification process, hence why a typo in a proper address can cause a lot of problems). I could set up 100 different listings with 100 different addresses, so that alone isn't enough reason to suspect she doesn't have any friends.

Because it was a pick-up, I'm not 100% sure of what your options are. As there were obviously fake DVDs in the lot, you could try reporting that to the appropriate authorities. Also make some enquiries with the online fraud department to see what they say.