[time-nuts] When buying, watch for scammers

Will Matney xformer at citynet.net
Sat Jun 25 18:52:11 UTC 2011


All,

I thought I would share this, as it could save you some hard earned cash.

I just won a piece of equipment off ebay, and I knew what it weighed, and
it's size, when I bought it. It was to be shipped from Colorado to here in
Ohio. When the auction was over, I sent in the payment, but the next day, I
get an e-mail saying that UPS wanted more to ship it, than they had
figured, at $16.00, and that they required $9.95 more. Well, the first
thing I did was go to the UPS Stores website, and there, you can put in
both city names, and zips, along with the package size, and weight. I did
this, and the total came to $16.14, as I first thought, and was what the
auction listed it at $16 even. I sent a message back, and stated that no, I
would not pay it, and that that was against ebay rules, and if they didn't
want to abide by the auction, they should refund my money, and that I would
leave appropriate feedback.

Two or three days passed by, with no reply from the seller, and just
yesterday, I receive the package via the mail, or USPS, which I know it
costed less to ship the package with. They may have saved $5 to $6 dollars,
but not the $9.99 they wanted, and I still got it as quick as UPS ground
estimated, but the point is, it didn't cost the $9.99 more to ship it, and
it did not arrive by the requested shipper, with insurance. I didn't check
with USPS to see what rate it would be, but that's what the seller pulled.

I have only had this happen two or three times out of around 500 purchases
from ebay, but you will run into this with some. At any rate, if they
request extra money, look into it, and I can assure you, ebay don't allow
this. It could possibly be true, that the seller did indeed mess up, but in
this case, nope, they just wanted extra cash for what they sold.

Best,

Will




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