Tim Willis, age 41?

Rick, PM me the item number of the listing.

your guitar, along with others....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1331788695.jpg


picture of seller....

(not sure if it's appropriate, so not putting it up here yet)

Yes, I have that photo. He emailed it to me and his photo is in his gmail too. Doesn't help me though.

This guy is into vampires and crap. If Valorius was around, we'd probably be able to get him on the case.

Ok, I've opened up a case with eBay. They're giving it eight days before I can escalate it further.

I,ve been buying on ebay for years. Some big ticket items but mostly small stuff,car parts etc. .I won a 34 ft (Schock 34 PC) damaged sailboat several years ago. It sat at about $8500 until the very last minute. I threw $13500 at it. I won with about $1.00 to spare . I fixed the boat and resold it a year later for $38K. Another time I bought a diamond tennis bracelet for my wife. Really too cheap. It showed up and a jeweller estimated it was worth about what I paid. What gives? Key statement from seller .Bidding on "a" beautiful diamond bracelet. (One diamond chip,rest was glass). Buyer beware ask questions in writing before auction ends . Ebay garantees title and that item isn,t stolen) by insurance, but there are layers of fine print.
I used their buyer protection for the first time a few weeks ago. I bought a 1971 Camaro z28 which was misrepresented as having the original block and heads engine and some other original parts. sent a $1200 deposit. Engine wasn,t original and parts were now lost. I demanded my deposit back. Eventually refunded by ebay insurance. . Seller has listed me as a non paying buyer which affects my feedback.
He tried to stall me until the 30 days to complain to ebay expired. Keep an eye on your dates and comunicate thru ebay . This seller also used multi email accounts to reply to me but I prevailed partly because I sent my original about engine questions thru ebay.

I won a fraud claim with eBay around 12 yrs. ago on a Fender Twin Reverb Silverface. When I buy larger items like that, I usually talk by phone with the seller to get a feel for him/her. He owned a music store and told me he had used it with his band the other night and it sounded great. When it arrived it was no louder than a clock radio. My amp tech said the speakers were shot and had been so for a long time. Seller offered me new speakers at cost. No thanks. At that time eBay used Lloyds of London for insurance and there was something like a $200 deductible. So I got a whopping $250 back and had to spend another few hundred getting the amp fixed. Really sucked.

The only other problem I had was with another Fender Hot Rod DeVille, where I asked the seller to remove the tubes and ship separately. He put them in a zip lock bag and taped it to the top of the amp. I bag of glass shards arrived and he refunded me $150 without my making a stink to eBay about it.

My only less than positive feedback received was for a Mexican Strat I sold. Buyer left me neutral feedback with the comment (get this), "Item as described, but not as expected." WTF?

Item "as described but not as expected would sum up" many/most ebay sales . I have only felt ripped off twice . and on balance felt good about ebay buys most of the time

Well, if it was as described, then that should be what's expected. That's the best you can hope for. This buyer was an idiot. I was on a business trip on my bike when he got the guitar and started whining about it. I told him to give me two days to get home and I'd call to discuss. By then he had already left neutral feedback, so I considered the matter done.

this guy with the camaro kept sending ambiguous email answers to my pointed questions.I eventually asked him if he was trying to mislead me intentionally or was he dislexic. I sent an appraiser over to actually look at the car and found casting dates which confirmed the block was made 2 months after the car and heads 14 months earlier. He tried to convince me that was normal during 1971 because of a GM strike. I told him a " time tunnel "was required to install an engine made in two different years in this car and he didn,t know what he was talking about. He refused to give the deposit back on the grounds I had "dissed him and his car" . Ebay paid me the deposit and told me he is being barred from the site. (but he will probably reappear with another name. ) I was taken because he works at USC in the Education faculty and had a 100% feedback score. Luckily I watched the dates when I smelled a rat. Sadly the car was probably worth the final bid but the seller wasn,t to be trusted and refused to renegotiate because of all the missing parts(original carb,exhaust etc was described as included)

So I opened a case with eBay last Sat. on 03/17, as it had been over two weeks since I had paid for the item. Seller responded that night, said he thinks one of his employees had forgotten to ship it, assured me he'd make it right and ship immediately. That was the last I heard - still no guitar and no tracking number. Today is the first day I can escalate to eBay for a "final decision," which I just did. They said they'll get back to me within 72 hrs. Should I do anything w/ PayPal at this time or will eBay make them refund my money once they find in my favor? Can this seller even leave me feedback if there's a dispute open that's found in my favor?

Rick,

Sorry to hear about the problems with the seller...

eBay just ruled in my favor and PayPal refunded my money. I would love to know what the seller told them, since there's no way they'd have made a decision in only a few hours without his input. Now, I shall try to leave him feedback.

Glad to hear it worked out for you, financially. I've never dealt with disputes on eBay/Paypal but I can guess the seller's response to the complaint:

"One of my employees sold it to someone else without my knowledge and I just found out about it when I followed up on the buyer's request..."

or some variation of that. Not his fault, sorry it happened, please return sellers money. And, he won't be banned.