Ableton Forum

I bought a rare synth off ebay from a german with 100% feedback since '02 ... i transferred the payment by BANK TRANSFER (i think its safer by paypal, seeing as they can step in if you do get ripped off...I think) ...anyways, he didnt post it by the first weekend cos he was 'sick' , then it got posted the following thursday (he messaged me) , now expecting it to arrive today or tomorrow I get another message in my mail box. (Oh and paying by bank was my suggestion , he seems absolutely legit on the surface...but maybe paying by cash gave him an opportunity to rip me off ?)

"hi,
sorry, stupid German Parcel ... had a problem with the address. They said they'd send your synth to Ireland by today."

ya...so now I can expect the parcel by friday if I'm lucky, but will probably have to wait another weekend...and on tuesday a box better arrive and not another message with poor grammer.


what do you think ?
first time I've been jerked around like this and the alarm bells are ringing...or maybe I woke up on the wrong side of my cage ?


edit: well he messaged me again, and reassures its all good - and was very defensive in fact when I said 'Its starting to look like I've been ripped off' ....I dunno, was that over the line ?....surely he can see where I'm coming from ?

You need to check his feedback score and see if he's picked up any negative ones over the month or past 3 months.

Also, click on 'Buyers' to make sure you're reading feedback from people who bought from him.

If he's got good ones and there's no history of him screwing people over etc, then there's no reason why he'll pick you suddenly and do it to you.

Postal f*ck ups do happen and maybe he's just being unfortunate.

Best is to wait and remain positive - at the end of the day, either the bank or the postal service will have a policy of 14 working days most probably before you're allowed to complain in any way.

Let us know how it pans out

Kr.

by the way, if an ebay listing contains (approx):

"Do not contact us/me via eBay, you have to mail us/me on [email protected] (usually AOL) - We will NOT reply to any questions sent via eBay"

is a fraud

It's an account which has been hijacked and is being used by someone else to sell an item using the feedback and credibility of a good seller.

I hope you didn't bid on such item!

Kr.

give the guy a chance, i mean perhaps he was sick & there was a mistake with the postage, blimey, the post here is shite as well

Krugger is right,
someone tried numerous times to sell a non exisiting Jupiter 8 with this trick.
I have also seen fraud auctions for Prophet V , Synclaiver and other items. Tpically they running for a very short time and also offer a very cheap buy now price.
The idea behind it is obvious: You shall think that the person selling the machine has no clue about its real value and you just need to be quick enough to decide that you want it. If you contact the person and offer pay pal they usuall will tell you paypal is not safe and offer money transfer. If you do this you are lost.

Also the original owner of the ebay account might have no clue about this.

Robert

Hi -
well firstly the guy has good feedback, and we've communicated via ebay's messaging system. on one occassion , prior to agreeing on a sale , he emailed me with his own email address. the message didnt warrant a reply, so I didnt. Anyways I wanted to ask him some question about the OS version of the synth a couple of days ago and I sent the email to his email address....and I got a mailer-daemon error thing

This is the Postfix program at host webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The Postfix program

I kind of hazely concluded the email address was bogus maybe, was suspicious anyways....was eagerly waiting the due arrival date , then I got that message the day it would have arrived (via ebay) about some vague postal error, ..... I dunno, it didnt exactly put my suspicions to rest.


I dont think I'm gettin ripped off now tho....I think he just takes his sweet damn time doing things....probably hopefully.

edit: most of his feedback comes from around '02 ...and then theres 14 positive transactions this year, about half of which he was a seller (he mostly buys/sells off germans) ... its possible he developed a raging crack habit since '02...heh

Get him to send you the postal service's tracking number. Then you should be able to track the parcel yourself online.

I buy/sell 90% of my gear via Ebay and just few times had any problems. Germans are very straight and honest ( though there are also frauds on German Ebay but not so obvious as on UK Ebay) frankly I woudnt buy anything from anywhere else- I always make sure the seller is "typisch Deutsch"- in all positive aspects like mentioning any single scratch or faulty button and not some junkie selling his Prophet or 303 to get his E, yeyo or whatever. There is no point in getting upset or pissed since you have no chance anyway( due to legal aspects) so better be nice and diplomatic , playing it hard brings nothing ( unless you want to proceed with the friendly Russian persuasion but though cheaper then lawyer is ethicaly questionable). Have patience and good luck to you

Robert Henke wrote:Krugger is right,
someone tried numerous times to sell a non exisiting Jupiter 8 with this trick.
I have also seen fraud auctions for Prophet V , Synclaiver and other items. Tpically they running for a very short time and also offer a very cheap buy now price.
The idea behind it is obvious: You shall think that the person selling the machine has no clue about its real value and you just need to be quick enough to decide that you want it. If you contact the person and offer pay pal they usuall will tell you paypal is not safe and offer money transfer. If you do this you are lost.

Also the original owner of the ebay account might have no clue about this.

Robert

I totally thought I had an original OSCAR synth for like, $150 a while back. They set this thing up perfectly to look like they hadn't a clue what it was; they only had a few items in their history; things like bulk yarn and quilts and such. Hopefully to make you think it was some mom (or grandmom) somewhere who had just found her 45 year old grandson's vintage OScar that he had forgotten about. Totally great scam. I bidded (and won) and the whole thing fell apart when they wouldn't communicate and take paypal.

I was pretty much like, "yeah, nice one"....

I lost 1100 euro on ebay when I thought I had bought a nice secondhand monomachine!

It was never shipped so I had to by a new one, and had already paid the guy on ebay...mf

Aouch!!!! Dude, sorry to hear!!!!

I think eBay should have a separate service where for (say) 5 dollars, they'd send you all routing/traffic/tracing reports to the seller and the full address his computer is located.
Then for an extra 5 dollars, they'd send someone there to beat the living shit out of the seller and torture him afterwards Jack Bauer style until he comes up with a way to refund the buyer.

Kr.

Nixon wrote:I lost 1100 euro on ebay when I thought I had bought a nice secondhand monomachine!

It was never shipped so I had to by a new one, and had already paid the guy on ebay...mf

Krugger wrote: Then for an extra 5 dollars, they'd send someone there to beat the living shit out of the seller and torture him afterwards Jack Bauer style until he comes up with a way to refund the buyer.

what? why should someone else have all the fun ?

As long as you pay through eBay/Paypal you are covered.

ya

I was pretty hasty paying by bank - but I wanted to avoid my credit card .. this is gonna be on my mind till it arrives cos I'm pretty broke now after spending all my dough on this (785)- the guy doesnt even have to be a fully fledged con man...I mean he could just be an opportunist, he could keep the synth say he sent it and then I'll have to prove otherwise....I suppose he'd have to provide a postage receipt but he could always say he dumped it right ? ....

meh....its probably gonna work out, but for peace of mind I'm paying paypal for all ebay-esque purchases in the future.....most people are honest until you make it easy for them to rip you off, then all of a sudden theres a steep shift in how many honest people there are , in my opinion

tip:
use an Escrow service like Tripledeal..
if a seller won't go with that you can be sure for 99% that it is a fraud..

1- buyer and seller register at the escrow site
2- an agreement is set up
3- buyer pays the escrow service
4- seller sends package
5- escrow service pays seller