Cine Seller to AVOID

[chas_ucla]

Avoid the seller here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ADME:B:SS:US:1

This is the junk store owner I reported about in the past... I sold two viewers to this dick at a garage sale a year or two ago...the man who gave me the tearful story of wanting to see his dad's S8 films that were left in his attic...how with the viewers I was giving him for peanuts he would fulfill his dream (yeah, right...insert orchestra music here)...and then I found the viewers in his shop for $30 and $50 bucks a couple of weeks later. ANYWAY, he also sells other cine stuff for much higher than normal prices and gives people bad advice to boot (Alex G. from the UK was with me when he tried to get him to buy a crappy non-reflex 16mm camera for mucho bux) Also, I'm pretty sure this is the Bolex 160 he listed in his shop at $250.00...which according to the e-bay listing he's not even sure is working and he won't accept any returns...yet somehow it's quoted as "Perfect for film students ..." yeah, film students who want a camera that doesn't work!
AVOID!

[c_77]

Thanks for the tip; there are lots of seedy resellers out there for sure! These people are like the carney's of cyberspace.

I recently emailed a friend of mine an auction where a man was selling seventy-seven Jo Stafford '78 records starting at $9.99. He emailed me back and said, check it out, he has another LINK with the SMALL PRINT! I've never seen an auction where you must go somewhere else just to read the full terms of the auction. So I went to his other page and found that the page was spending ten minutes just trying to load a huge image file, even with our cable modem! It made it even more difficult to view this, 'forever-loading page'. I finally jumped up and down enough times on the page to realize the records were $9.99 each, plus shipping and handling.

On the other hand, I've made some great deals. I found an "old Cannon 814 video camera" that some lady gave up as a buy it now for $30! She even lost money on the shipping and handling. The thing cleaned up very nice and came in its original case. But Ebay only covers fraud for so much and you have little recourse with some nickname across the country, let alone across the world. You really must rely on the goodwill of others. So far so good!

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 22, 2002 03:59 PM: Message edited by: c_77 ]</font>

[Matt Pacini]

I've had mostly good luck on ebay, but I've gotten nailed good a couple times, and found out some very useful info for you ebayers out there:

The FBI has a "internet fraud taskforce" or something, BUT, as I found out, they are not interested in anything under $50,000.

So if you are screwed on an ebay sale, your only recourse is the courts, and by the courts, I mean YOU HAVE TO PRESS CHARGES WHERE THE PERSON WHO RIPPED YOU OFF LIVES!
That's right, so if he's 3,000 miles away, you would have to travel there to go to court.
A lot of these scam artists know this, but us honest types do not.
I'm in the process of filing a small claims court case against one guy in L.A. who ripped me off through PayPal, which is EXTREMELY EASY TO DO, and PayPal will do NOTHING at all about it!
But the court clerk giving me the papers sounded like they may not take internet cases in small claims, because of course, they assume that the Internet Fraud government agencies are dealing with all that.

So, the moral of the story is, if you get screwed for less than $50,000 the government is going to do nothing whatsoever, so the guy got away with it.
I don't buy from anyone with low or bad looking feedback, ever.
And always get phone numbers & addresses, because sometimes these jerks change their email addresses.

Matt Pacini

[tfunch24]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by chas_ucla:
I wonder if it's legal to post the names of sellers who ripped you off...or at least the names they go under (though that might not be too helpful if they change their alias again and again)</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

People have been doing that for years...just browse the newsgroups/message boards devoted to vinyl LP collecting and you'll see the warnings.

If it's illegal, it seems as if no one is enforcing the law.

Tom

[chas_ucla]

I wonder if it's legal to post the names of sellers who ripped you off...or at least the names they go under (though that might not be too helpful if they change their alias again and again)

I'm sure someone must have done something like this before...so many people get ripped off on e-bay.