Cels Forum

Dear Rosemary,

Well, it's not a pretty situation, and I know EBAY SUPPORT
IS USELESS (You can try writing to them, but they will not
help you!)! 8(  I have been in this situation a couple of
times, and here is the best advice I can give you.  If you
want to get your money back, you have to be persistent!

1. Find out through eBay's user query page the seller's
   phone number and PHONE THEM!:

http://pages.ebay.com/search/members/user-query.html

   Ask the seller DIRECTLY about what happened to your money
   and item!  Hopefully, it will end here.

   I did this once and confronted a deceiving seller's
   MOTHER since the seller was underaged!! 8(  We worked out
   a compromise, and I got most of my money back.


2. If this doesn't work (One seller pulled a disappearing
   trick on me and the phone number just lead to an
   answering machine!), then it's time to take some more
   drastic measures!  Depending on how angry you are you can
   try the following:

   a. Go to your local post office and ask them how to file
      mail fraud charges.  The local postmaster should be
      able to help you with forms and such.

      I haven't done this myself since I was able to get my
      money back or items through sheer luck (One time the
      seller who was trying to schill bidding against me on
      2 separate auctions STUPIDLY sent me my 2 items before
      I could send out my payment for the second auction!  I
      caught her scheme on the second auction, and
      confronted her via e-mail and reported her to eBay.
      They suspended her for a month.  The second time (the
      disappearing seller), I LUCKILY noticed that a new
      seller that popped up on eBay sold the same items with
      the same pictures posted as my disappearing seller
      PLUS this new seller lived in the same city and state
      as my disappearing seller!  On a hunch, I looked up
      the new seller's info, and THE PHONE NUMBER EXACTLY
      MATCHED THE DISAPPEARING SELLER'S DISCONNECTED PHONE
      NUMBER FORWARDING MEMO!  I posted a neutral feedback
      to this new seller about how she cheated me and 2
      other buyers of their merchandise, and I promptly got
      a response from the new seller who turned out to be
      the disappearing seller's sister!  Apparently, her
      sister was in a car accident, so she had no idea about
      her sister's dealings on eBay, and she quickly mailed
      us the items we had bought!)  Like I said, all this
      was due to LUCK!

Continued in part 2!