# Ebay fraud! Already won Paypal claim. Now, police report or small claims court?



## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

Got a guitar off Ebay a little while ago. Guy advertised it as flawless, but turns out it had extensive play wear. He agreed to take it back and refund me. So I sent it back, but then he refused to give me a refund. I filed a Paypal claim and won. Paypal gave me $200 as part of their buyer protection program, but the punk bitch still owes me $195.

So which should I do, file a police report or take him to small claims court? I have 3 possible addresses for this shady mofo--the address he had me send the money to, the address from which he shipped the guitar, and a whitepages search result. So I'm thinking a police report would be best, unless you can sue a guy and have notices sent out to multiple addresses.

My priority is to get my money back.


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## sworth9411 (Jan 15, 2009)

For 195$ small claims court wont be worth your time, as it will cost you more in time and energy than the 195 is worth. A police report will honestly do very little as it will become a he said she said thing. If i were you (unfortunatley) I would be happy you got the 200 back in the first place and move forward and just warn people of his scam.....


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## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

Even though Paypal decided the case in my favor? He even appealed it, so Paypal brought in a 3rd party (I think) to review the case, and a month later officially closed it for good in my favor. How on earth would this guy have a case? Even without all that, I have clear evidence that he took back the guitar but did not refund me. Sounds like a slam dunk to me.


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## Rick (Jan 15, 2009)

I had a similar situation happen to me. Paid $205 for a power amp that was never sent. Paypal recovered $50 for me and the rest I'll probably never see again.


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## darren (Jan 15, 2009)

Why did PayPal not refund your full amount? Or was the $195 for shipping costs that were not on the original PayPal invoice?


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## D-EJ915 (Jan 15, 2009)

that's pretty lame and half-assed, fuck paypal


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## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

Their buyer protection program covers a maximum $200. So Rick, that really sucks they only gave you $50. In my case, the guitar was 350 and shipping was 45 = 395. Of course, I think the $45 for shipping was a ripoff. So after the 200 from Paypal, I'm still out 195.

There's some second tier buyer protection that covers I forget how much, I think up to $10,000. But you gotta be some sorta super duper power merchant or something.


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## darren (Jan 15, 2009)

That's ridiculous. If a seller defaults on their sale, PayPal should be able to suck the entire amount back out of the seller's account.


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## hufschmid (Jan 15, 2009)

Tell the Hells Angels to go visit him.....


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Jan 15, 2009)

darren said:


> That's ridiculous. If a seller defaults on their sale, PayPal should be able to suck the entire amount back out of the seller's account.



i totally agree, that sounds fishy to me, i'd try to call and keep asking for a manager untill there isnt a higher manager to talk to, then tell them the speel and tell them you not asking for free money, your asking for what their business should do, THE RIGHT THING!


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## Neil (Jan 15, 2009)

Thats B/S that pay pal dont protect the entire amount of every transaction, they make so much money its the least they could do really.


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## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

If the guy were smart, he would've transfered the funds to his bank account. At that point, I doubt Paypal has the authority to dip into someone's bank account without explicit permission from the account holder. Of course, in cases of fraud it would be nice if they could just yank the funds.

I do know that Paypal is still after him. After all, he not only owes me 195, but he now owes Paypal 200. They told me that they typically will block someone from using Paypal or Ebay until the debt is paid. They may also send collections after him. Not sure how effective any of that is though.


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## El Caco (Jan 15, 2009)

Every Paypal user has given Paypal the right to remove funds from their bank account when agreeing to the terms and conditions. Some banks will even allow Paypal to draw money from an account if the funds are not available which would then have to be payed back to the bank with additional fees.

Even a Visa debit card does not always protect someone from this, I was warned by one particular bank that Paypal could and some other organisations would be able to take money out of a Visa debit even if I had a zero balance.


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## poopyalligator (Jan 15, 2009)

That sucks. I think it is lame how you cant get the full amount back. Taking somebody to court is a lot of work though. I suppose that since you already have his email and address you could always sign his e-mail and address up for every single gay porn site there is so he will get a ton of junk mail. I know it is not quite as good as getting your money back, but it will sure piss him off.


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## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

s7eve said:


> Every Paypal user has given Paypal the right to remove funds from their bank account when agreeing to the terms and conditions. Some banks will even allow Paypal to draw money from an account if the funds are not available which would then have to be payed back to the bank with additional fees.
> 
> Even a Visa debit card does not always protect someone from this, I was warned by one particular bank that Paypal could and some other organisations would be able to take money out of a Visa debit even if I had a zero balance.



Hm. That sounds right. I just sent them an Email. But I hadn't thought of that. I guess if he were REALLY smart, he would've transfered all his money into a new bank account. 



poopyalligator said:


> That sucks. I think it is lame how you cant get the full amount back. Taking somebody to court is a lot of work though. I suppose that since you already have his email and address you could always sign his e-mail and address up for every single gay porn site there is so he will get a ton of junk mail. I know it is not quite as good as getting your money back, but it will sure piss him off.


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## Drew (Jan 15, 2009)

sevenstringj said:


> If the guy were smart, he would've transfered the funds to his bank account. At that point, I doubt Paypal has the authority to dip into someone's bank account without explicit permission from the account holder. Of course, in cases of fraud it would be nice if they could just yank the funds.
> 
> I do know that Paypal is still after him. After all, he not only owes me 195, but he now owes Paypal 200. They told me that they typically will block someone from using Paypal or Ebay until the debt is paid. They may also send collections after him. Not sure how effective any of that is though.



What Ste7e said - this is a big reason why I don't use paypal (not that I would ever fuck anyone; just that I don't trust some stranger not to try to fuck me). They can also freeze your account, pending a decision.  

Honestly, your best course of action would have been to keep the guitar and come to terms with the seller for an appropriate rebate to compensate you for the condition. How'd the guitar play?


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## Breakdown (Jan 15, 2009)

poopyalligator said:


> I suppose that since you already have his email and address you could always sign his e-mail and address up for every single gay porn site there is so he will get a ton of junk mail. I know it is not quite as good as getting your money back, but it will sure piss him off.


he may like that though
lol


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## sevenstringj (Jan 15, 2009)

Drew said:


> What Ste7e said - this is a big reason why I don't use paypal (not that I would ever fuck anyone; just that I don't trust some stranger not to try to fuck me). They can also freeze your account, pending a decision.
> 
> Honestly, your best course of action would have been to keep the guitar and come to terms with the seller for an appropriate rebate to compensate you for the condition. How'd the guitar play?



There were numerous scratches, nicks, and wide depressions on the back of the neck. There were also a number of grooves worn into the frets. Basically, whoever played it (I don't think the guy was the original owner), put a death grip on the thing, plus knocked it around a good bit. Not to mention there were dents on the body. And no, it wasn't damaged in transit. He shipped it in a hard case.

Your suggestion is good though. I'll keep it in mind for the future. Thing is, he AGREED to take it back and refund me. So of course, I'd rather have all my money back, than an abused guitar and just a little money back. It wasn't until after he had it back, that he did a 180 and decided to fuck me over.

What I really should've done is filed a Paypal dispute immediately. That way, there would've been a much greater chance that the funds were still in his Paypal account, and Paypal would've blocked any attempt at transferring them to his bank account.

Lessons learned.

Oh, and it turns out that to open a case in small claims court, the defendant must live in NYC as well. Which he doesn't. So there goes that option. I'll see what Paypal says. If the guy is still using the same bank account, I really see no reason they can't pull the funds.


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## DDDorian (Jan 15, 2009)

In my own experience, a fancy-looking declaration of intent is usually enough to scare most scammers into paying up. Send it as sign-on-delivery so that the guy named on the front has to sign for it in person before the post office release it, then if you really do feel the need to pursue it in small claims court you'll have evidence that they were being genuinely uncooperative.


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