Yes I agree, hindsight is a good thing but doesn't improve matters. As for his actions being illegal or legal. My bank has investigators on staff and one was consulted by our local manager and he assured her the actions were illegal if I had never been informed of such a deduction or fee. As I was never shown any documentation with the fee clearly shown on it, and I had never signed any documentation regarding it. Any deductions were illegal. The seller told me his 20% was mentioned on the Ebay TOS and I should have read it is really strange, because a close examination of everything associated with the computer showed nothing at all about the fee. He must have made a big mistake there. Anyway I never purchased the computer through Ebay, the seller made sure of that.
The female I spoke to at Fair Trading NSW asked me if I had any knowledge of such a fee, Of course I said no and that was the truth. She laughed and said he can't touch my money. Why, when I informed the seller early this morning that I wished to cancel the sale for the 4th time, hasn't he returned my money? It takes just seconde to transfer, I'm fully aware of how things enter and leave my account. He is simply being bloody minded and rubbing salt into my wounds. He's no doubt having a big laugh at my expense. What reason can he give for withholding all $2148.00? I've told him he is actually stealing if he refuses to return it but he has closed up shop and is totally ignoring me. No doubt using the excuse that his emails aren't looked at until Monday morning. I wonder how many other people running a business from home actually walk away from their computers for the entire weekend. Especially when they have a few million possible suckers clicking on their hundreds of items.
Normal business ethics can be forgotten in this case. Simply misrepresenting the computers and purposely misleading people who pay for his bread and butter is a good indication of fully blown scammer. As for Ebay, I can forgive them for not acting but only if nobody has complained about him in the past. Where do ethics stand if they have been told. Surely they have a duty of care to protect their buyers. Steps have to be taken to investigate such complaints, I know they always mention they cannot let us know the outcome of their investigations. Are they really saying, "we don't give a **bleep**, so we will sit on our hands" I simply can't imagine it happening. By doing so would have to make them accessories to everyting bad on their site. Knowing a law is being broken and ignoring it is making them to be as bad as the person they ignore.
I have received a dictated, not a form letter from Ebay. It's too exact to be a form letter. They have assured me the seller will be investigated but as usual that could be cop out sentence was included. I don't think a respected company could possibly turn a blind eye to one of it's members blatantly breaking not only their rules but the Laws of Australia as well. I've seen many complaints littering the Internet from people this person has scammed and all appear to happen off Ebay or if it was on Ebay they didn't complain to them, only wherever they reported the matter. Why people allow themselves to be ripped off and then only complain where it does no good is rather confusing. In my case it didn't happen on Ebay but I still complained about it. I can only hope it stops him from sucking anyone else dry.
He's clearly at the stage of thinking he's untouchable. He's been doing the same thing for some time. Nobody seems to make many waves over it so why should he worry. I know I'd be dead worried if a buyer accused me of any wrong doing. Hopefully it would never come to that but if it did I wouldn't be able to sleep until it was put right.
I think everything I could say I've said so thanks for your input, at least you didn't have me crucified from the start. I know it should have been handled through Paypal, I've been in this racket for 10 years and I think I've learned a lot. But unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control I lost the chance of doing it safely. Rather an expensive lesson but I'm convinced I'll win in the end.
