I was scammed. Is there anything I can do?

[almel777]

I bought an item that arrived broken.

The seller immediately offered a refund but had me jumping hoops for months. Looking at their negative feedback, it is clear they do this regularly. They keep putting obstacles in front of the buyer until they give up or at least until the three month deadline for raising a dispute expires.

Most advice on the Web says that Ebay will not do anything against fraudulent sellers.

Is there anything I can do?

almel777

[janeababe]

The jumping through hoops involves asking you to try different things to get the item working. Then asking you to investigate the cost of getting the item repaired at the seller's expense. Then asking you to get a quote for shipping the item back and finally shipping the item using the cheapest method ( with no tracking ). They then claim that the item did not arrive and say that it can sometimes be delayed in transit for a long time. When you have had enough of waiting, they ask for the non-existent tracking number. By taking their time to reply to each message they can stretch the whole process out.

What put me off guard is that the seller was so polite and apologetic about what had happened and assured me that he would take full responsibility.

In the end, I learned a valuable lesson and it did not cost me too much money. In the future I will give the seller a couple of days to refund the money and then stop wasting my time. I will then ask eBay/PayPal to refund the money and when they fail to do so ( according to most people, they do not honour their guarantees ), I will file a complaint against eBay/Paypal with the Financial Ombusman. 

Im sorry you have had this experience. It was a tough and drawn out experience by the sounds of it. 😞
I also hope there isnt a *next time*... but if there is, dont hesitate to quickly open an case against the seller FIRST. 🙂 
Good luck with it all  🙂

WAVES TO FOXY OLE GIRL!!   (((waves)))  
Hope all is well in your world mate xoxoxoxo

[davewil1964]

I bought recently from a high volume seller with 99.1%. Almost all the negs were about slow/no delivery. I was prepared to work with that as I know the rules.

I bought on Wednesday, they posted Friday and it arrived Monday.

[yodablu]

Leave really bad feedback & mark all stars low.