Well I made it very clear we can deal with roadblocks and such as long as there is communication. There has been very sporadic and unreliable communication at best.

A week or so is fine as long as I know that is the deal up front and no bullshiznit, but when I do talk to him he promises TOMMOROW and then I take half a day off to wait for UPS and it never shows. I understand that things happen, but 750 dollars isn't something to take lightly. I wanted to be cool about it but after he broke deadline after deadlin he left me no choice but to contact the police. He could still send one or the other back and nothing will come of it. It is possible that he has sent it and has neglected to fwd a tracking number, it is also possible that he isn't a man of his word. Point is, I don't know and I am the one that is out a great deal of money and if he has had time to cash the check then he has had time to send the package.

Greetings!

I agree with Doug. I have also done a lot of business on ebay, both buying and selling. There were only a handful of times where the situation was not resolved to my satisfaction. Most of the people I have dealt with are basically honest. I have only been burned once, and that is out of over 800 transactions. Some people are just more responsible / quicker to pay and ship than others.

I recommend you also look at the seller's feedback. See if they have had a lot of other auctions, or only a few. Look to see what other people said about the seller. Also, not everyone has easy or quick access to express shipment. There may have been a delay getting there, and the seller may also have had other emergencies (or even a flaky email server).

Have you phoned the person directly? Use the contact information function. This will give you the snail mail address and phone number of the seller. It will also send an email to both buyer and seller, saying the request was made.

Stahi,

I have sent you a private. Please read it and get back to me as I seem to be going through similar difficulties.

Thanks,
Andy.

Again I say that this was not done through Ebay. This was an individual on THIS list who contacted me and we set up the deal via email. THERE IS NO INVOLVEMENT WITH EBAY.

Anyhow it is in the Police Dept's hands now.

Right. That's why there should be some serious concern, it seems the scam artists have been watching this board carefully and are ready to prey on people who really desire to own a player.

If indeed this was a scam rather than just an unfortunate mix up, Stahi is not the only one who was caught out. I have also been unfortunate enough to lose out to the tune of $750.

The worrying thing is that if it was a scam, it was quite carefully set up. I am not in a position to go throwing that amount of money away so I took reasonable measures to check that the whole thing looked legitimate.

I checked several things carefully before proceeding. I checked the profile of the user in question which was quite comprehensively filled in. I checked their previous posts to see whether the things they had posted about suggested a genuine interest in the Empeg, enthusiastic knowledge of it and a history of being an Empeg owner.

I exchanged emails with an email address that was somewhat more reliable looking than an @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com address.

I made payment by electronic fund transfer for which I had the appropriate bank account details which matched the details of the individual I was dealing with.

All in all I had no reason to suspect that this was not a genuine individual. All the information they had given seemed consistent.

I began to be slightly concerned when replies to my email dried up immediately after confirming that the money had been received with a vague promise of shipping in the next day or so.

I was further concerned by the fact that this person had not been polite enough to send confirmation of the shipping including the appropriate shipping reference despite over a week passing and a few polite reminders from myself.

The post by Stahi just pretty much confirmed my suspicions. Two people both paying for the same single item and neither receiving it strongly suggests that something is amiss.

There may be an innocent explanation to all of this, but I doubt it.

Let's face it, it doesn't matter how careful you are when dealing with someone you have never met, ultimately it comes down to placing your trust in someone else's honesty and integrity. If they never had that in the first place then you are likely to lose out.

The worst aspect of all this is that it could create an atmosphere of mistrust in what was otherwise a friendly and close-knit online community.

I am still looking to purchase an Empeg, but will have to be even more cautious in future. It will certainly make it tricky when trying to deal with someone who isn't a recognised pillar of this community.

Caveat Emptor ...

Andy.

I bought my first empeg from a guy in America. The only recourse I had originally was a university email address, which I thought would be enough. I ended up doing a Google search with the guys name and found his webpage on the university web server. This was great because not only did it show his postal address, it also listed who his college room mates where, and what his final project was.
Looking back I'm surprised I was that trusting, I suppose I was so desparate to get an empeg I would have done almost anything (carplayer didn't come along for another month or so).

If this is true, if there really is a user on this BBS who is preying on people and taking their money, please send his address to PaulH so that he can be informed of the situation and lock the user out as necessary.

I also think that his real name, email address, BBS handle, etc., should be made public so that no one else gets scammed by him.

Absolutely, his details should be posted here - initially with a strong "nothing has been proved yet" disclaimer. This could save others from losing their money.

Did either of you find out what the serial number was of the player you are expecting to receive?

Rob

No serial number was given and perhaps naively I didn't think to ask. In retrospect it may not have proved anything anyway. If all the other details were so carefully made up, it wouldn't take much imagination for them to have made up a genuine looking number too. They could probably come up with one that was genuine and that didn't match anyone's here or one that was reported stolen.

As regards this user preying on others, that user has not made a single post since, although that doesn't mean that others aren't still replying to the original for sale post.

It certainly makes me wary to deal with new members too, which is unfortunate, but let's face it, there is little to stop this person having several different usernames.

It is difficult to know whether to make this person's details public at this time, as it may all be perfectly innocent and just down to an unfortunate mix-up. I wouldn't want to wrongly tarnish somebody's name.

I don't know whether Stahi can shed any further light on this individual and give any better idea as to whether their details should be made public.

As for me, I have decided that if I haven't heard from this person within the next 36 hours, I will make the essential details public here so that others may be warned. If the whole thing subsequently turns out to be one big misunderstanding, I will gladly apologise.

Andy.

Agreed, I am gonna give the police a little time to sort this out and hopefully this is a huge misunderstanding. I have the local police and the police in his hometown on the trail. MEANWHILE I HIGHLY SUGGEST THAT NOBODY PURCHASES ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF THE PROTECTION OF EBAY. I am not a fan of Ebay but that seems to be the safest alternative until this matter is resolved. At least Ebay has insurance.

I have two known email addresses from a large ISP, an address, a cell phone number, his signature on a return receipt and the tracking of the cashier's check, Andy has his bank account info. If this person is a crook then he is either some sort of criminal mastermind or an idiot.

Personally I hope he is an honest person that is very busy.

Stahi

Oh yea, no serial number was given either.

"If this person is a crook then he is either some sort of criminal mastermind or an idiot."

"Personally I hope he is an honest person that is very busy."


My thoughts exactly. Time will tell.

Andy.

At the very least even if all of this is some grand false alarm I think the way we tend to do business online leaves us rather exposed, and should be reevaluated.

No-one likes to admit that they have been duped, but when others are at risk I am gonna do all I can to raise awareness. I too thought that this was a close knit group that wouldn't be out to rip anyone off. I too looked for all the legit signs.

Alas I too am out $750 at this point.

Obviously the entire forum is not like this, but there are wolves in our midst it is safe to say.

So are you two dealing with the same guy?

Yes, it is the same guy.

Andy.