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A Bad Experience with eBay
And suggestion about how to avoid similar problems
What Happened
In October 2006 I had to buy a video acquisition card (Pinnacle AV/DV) to digitalize my videotapes. In the local stores its cost was no less than 180 euro, while on eBay it was sold at about 80 euros, so I decided to give it a try.
The best offer was 80 euros (plus shipping) from isellfourless, a United States eBay seller.
Since it was my first purchase on eBay, I did not have Paypal, I choose to pay with a wire transfer. I made the transfer via phone, it's the preferred method. The bank account the seller gave to me was in Netherlands.
After about one week, the seller told me he did not receive anything, so I told him wire transfers can take up to two weeks (I had a previous experience with a software bought in Germany). In the meanwhile, the amount had been taken from my bank account.
At the end of the second week the problem was the same: no money on the seller bank account. Rasbank (my bank) confirmed that the transfer has been done correctly. When I asked again, they told me there was an error in the Swift code, but it shouldn't have been a problem because the IBAN was correct and it is enough (it has all the required codes inside).
After some days nothing still got to the seller, so I asked my bank for another check. Thay said the wire transfer was stuck in a bank located in Belgium. The seller should have only told his bank to get the money. He replied his bank said it was my duty to contact the intermediate bank...
After a couple of months, I decided to create a Paypal account and to pay again with it, the seller said he would have sent back the money of the wire transfer if it would have ever got to him. The payment worked ike a charm and he sent the object by December, the 16th.
No more problem with the payment, only the package never got to me. I wrote him in the end of December, but he did not answer. I wrote him again in the first days of January and he said the object had been sent. When I asked him some informations to track the package, he started to answer less and less, so I decided to ask Paypal for a refund. Unfortunately the 45 days period for refunds was just over... perfect timing.
Conclusions
The conclusion is pretty simple: always pay as fast as you can, in order to be protected by eBay, and choose to pay with online services such as Paypal, that give you speed and protection. Wire transfers simply are not good when used outside your country: they are slow and every bank will tell you it's the other bank's duty to solve the problem.
As far as it concerne the object, these are the possibilities: the seller really sent the object, object then lost somewhere outside Italy or stolen by the Italian Mail service (not impossible, not probable) or, maybe, the seller, who knew I couldn't give hime any negative feedback anymore, never sent the object: I could have been refunded by Paypal and nothing would have happened to him. Unfortunately, I did not know about this possibility, so I asked too late for the refund.
Anyway, I will avoid buying object from that seller, even if he has a good feedback.
June 2006 Update
The money of the first transfer came back, so he really did not get them, but the object still is lost.
Author: Olaf Marzocchi
First revision: 12th May 2006.