(Couldn't think of where else to put this, mods pls move as necessary. EDIT- See the 8/15 update for the happy part!)

So it looks like not one, but TWO sweet eBay buys I made recently have been lost in the mail or some damn thing.

I bought Cybertron Starscream, the red Voyager from the TRU 2-pack w/ Vector Prime, for about $21 shipped, complete and nice-looking. He was shipped USPS Priority on 7/7, supposedly. The seller has good feedback, so I have no reason to suspect trickery. It's almost a full month after shipping, and no sign of SS.

The other was a near-complete G1 Blitzwing, w/ 2 weapons but no missiles, for another $21 or so shipped, USPS Priority on 7/16. Almost 3 weeks gone by and nothing yet. Again, another apparently good seller.

I get my eBay buys sent to my work, so they won't sit outside waiting for me to get home, and so my wife won't see them. The mailroom here usually takes a couple days to get my stuff to me, based on USPS Tracking- e.g., if the USPS site says a package arrived on a Monday, I won't usually get it in my mailbox until Wed.). One time they took 10 days, but I got the damn thing. Thing is, I've already gotten 2 other packages that were sent after the 2 missing ones, so it doesn't seem to be the mailroom this time. Then again, what are the odds of 2 consecutive eBay purchases being lost by the USPS, or of 2 unrelated sellers deciding to screw me over at virtually the same time, or some combination thereof? Pretty low, I'd say. I have no recourse against the mailroom, since if I make a stink, somebody in charge might decide that letting us get personal mail here is too much trouble and forbid it. As it is, they must be pretty sick of my repeated inquiries by now. Not even sure if I can make a Paypal claim- one item didn't offer insurance and I declined it for the other.

I've never gotten insurance on eBay buys, but I might start now. This sucks. Two awesome TFs lost in limbo, along with 42 bucks- could've had Animated Ultra Magnus or Leader Bulkhead for that. *kicks wall* Not sure UI'm looking for advice, I just wanted to vent. Any ideas, tho, would be welcomed.

ouch....

My buddy recently had the same thing happen to him. He sold a Kodak Z712IS camera to a guy in New Jersey. He didn't use insurance or delivery confirmation because "the buyer wouldn't pay for it". 2mos later and the camera is still lost in space. The bad thing is that eBay sided with the buyer and my buddy lost $150 PLUS got his PayPal account frozen of ALL assets for 2wks.

I refuse to use USPS anymore. If I absolutely have to use it, I charge for the insurance and SIGNATURE confirmation. I find it's useless just to get delivery confirmation. UPS is even deceiving, as you have to request signature confirmation to get it, and it's a $2.50 charge.

Your Buddy's mistake was not stating in the auction that if the buyer does not pay for insurance, then seller is not responsible for lost in mail items. He could have pointed that out to ebay and won the case if he had done that.


Anyway, to the OP: Your best recourse is to secure a different delivery address than your work. That or put your foot down to your wife about getting toys in the mail at home.

i call trickery on the mail room

It's threads like this that always have me purchasing insurance on my buys. Insurance is never more than 1.50$ and my piece of mind is well worth that.

I've had one package get lost in the mail and that was a deal I made with a fellow board member. That was also one of the few times I didn't insure and in the end it cost me over 50$ to the seller and being out the 40 some-odd$ dollars it cost me to purchase the toys I sent him as well as the shipping cost for them. I actually blame the loss on the fact that he had me ship to a PO bo which I've come to assume is a risky thing to do.

yah. that's a pisser.

Ebay has left a terrible taste in my mouth in the past year or so. Too many fly-by-night sellers who get started, then when they screw up a few things... they end their account and DON'T REFUND YOUR MONEY AFTER YOU SEND THE CRAP BACK LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD.

I've learned: Always use insurance, never ship to PO box, always have some sort of tracking, and hate Ebay. But sometimes, it's a necessary evil

In 2 of my last 5 transactions, I got a wrong package(enjoy my Energon Omega whoever got it). The box was full of junk parts, that I don't need at all. I'm gonna start a Junkion pile with it.

The other is a Cybertron Unicron, it's been 2 weeks, no reply. One more email then I'm reporting the transaction.

Both sellers have good feedback, the first transaction gave me a full refund. The second, NADA!!!

Sometimes Ebay sucks. But the good thing about them is that they rarely leave you completely out of luck.

Since I have both figures though, I'm not super upset, it's just army building, and at least I got payed back on Omega.

Woo-HOO! I found my missing Blitzwing!

Turns out some jackass had hidden him in a file cabinet near the mail drop. Got bored today and went poking around and pa-bam, complete G1 Blitzwing in my hands- turret, gun, sword, and two missiles.

I'd love to find the dingus who thought it would be funny to hide my crap. I might have an idea, one of a couple characters I work with. *plots revenge*

Sadly, I've made a purchase of Beast Machines Ultra Jetstorm, RiD Sky-Byte, and Energon Sharkticon. All from Wildcard, whom gave me a pretty good deal on them. I used Paypal to pay and even paid for insurance. He sent them out via Priority on July 31, and I've yet to receive them. He said to expect them within a week. I don't think that he's screwed me, but I don't know what US postal Priority means to Canada post... On another note, I just received word yesterday that Premium Jazz has been shipped. I hope this one comes within the expected time...

I always get delivery confirmation for packages I send out through ebay. It gives me evidence that the package has actually been delivered, in case the buyer tries something.

Another think that's pretty crappy about ebay is how they made it so only sellers can receive bad feedback.

Case in point, I recently had a guy win two actions. Once he won, I sent out a standard, "Hey, thanks for winning the auction. The items are packed and ready just as soon as my paypal account gets your payment."

Sometimes people respond, but most of the time they just pay. I try to be very friendly, anyway.

Two or three days later, this guy still hasn't responded to my ebay message, so I send out two more messages (one for each auction.) "I haven't heard from you in a few days. Just checking in to see if everything is okay. If you have any issues, please let me know."

No response.

A few days later I message him again (twice, so there's a recorded one for each auction) saying something along the lines of , "Hello again. I still haven't heard from you. It's been about a week. If you don't at least message me by Saturday I am going to report the auction as no payment / no response. If you need more time, I'm okay with that. Just message me."

No response. (Saturday was like 3 days away from the time I messaged him, by the way.)

So Saturday night I report him. Shortly afterward, I get a message from him.

That message consisted of an apology for not responding and then a sob story about unexpected car repairs. In one sentence, he says he didn't have time to respond to me as he has been so busy with bills. A few sentences later he says he's been selling things on ebay every day just to scrape together the money for his bills. (So wait, he's been on ebay every day selling things, but hasn't noticed all my messages or even thought about saying "hey, here's what's happened"?)

He then says he'll be glad to pay me if I give him more time, OR he'll be happy to mutually agree to end the auction so we both don't get a bad mark.

Now, he won 2 star wars figures in one auction and I had a few bidders on that, but the other auction was a couple of muppets action figures (I don't collect them, but bought them cheap on clearance because I knew they were variants. They were kept in package to sell on ebay someday.) and he was the only bidder on that one.

So I respond back saying I was sorry to hear about his bills, but he really should've at least said something to me. Because of that, I'd let him off the hook of the star wars auction but he had to pay for the muppets by that Saturday (which was a week away.)

He seemed like he wasn't expecting me to not let him off the hook for that one, but then quickly changed tone in his message to say he'd be happy to.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

A week goes by, and my next friendly message is ignored. I give him until 1pm on Sunday, just in case he's got some issues and wasn't able to pay (or message me) on Saturday. He still doesn't even message me, so I close the dispute with ebay under the grounds of the buyer not paying me and not keeping in contact with me.

I get a credit, he gets a check against his account.

I think that's that, and relist the muppets auction. He messages me to say that he forgot what day I wanted him to pay, and then says he'll still pay for the auction.

I politely respond back that the dispute has been closed, he has a check against his account, I've blocked him from bidding, relisted the auction, and it already had a new bidder. I remind him that I've been very nice in all my messages and that he continually took it for granted. There's only so nice I can be in a situation like that before I start to think he's scamming me.

He replies back that he's got to get that check removed one way or another. He says he's going to send my paypal account the money and I can either send him the muppets or refund him, but he had to get that check removed.

WTF kind of threat is that?

I'm not going out of my way just to refund him for money that he shouldn't have paid me, but if he paid me and I didn't then it seems like I'm scamming him.

So I suffered through explaining all of this to some livechat rep that could barely read english, and she told me to report the item as paid so he wouldn't be able to pay me. After logging the conversation and asking her to clarify just for posterity, I did so and messaged him saying the check against his account stays.

He then left me negative feedback! He couldn't leave feedback on the one that was mutually closed, but on the one that got a dispute opened and then closed for the buyer not paying or communicating, he could friggin leave negative feedback!

WTF?

He said "Very Nasty Person, & Very Determined in his Nastiness! This One Plays Dirty"!

I spoke to another livechat rep, who had me email customer service and report him for bullying / scamming and request the feedback removed.

I got a message from customer service saying that didn't quite constitute something the could punish, and another saying that the feedback would not be removed because ebay "does not remove untrue feedback." Basically, he didn't give away personal information or out and out threaten me so the only thing I could do was 'respond' to the feedback.

You have a limited amount of characters for that, and I used every one of them.

4 friendly emails to buyer with NO REPLY, 2 WEEKS NO PAYMENT, I closed auction.

And the worst part? I can't warn anyone else about him through ebay because buyers can't receive negative feedback!

So, avoid all ebay transaction with 'muppetlovers.'


I don't sell things too often, so my feedback matters to me. That's why I try to be very nice and communicate a lot with buyers and sellers.

The last two people who bought things off me (the two auctions muppetlovers failed to pay for) didn't leave ANY feedback. So hooray. :/

~Matt Booker

uhhh wait wouldnt that be 1/3 happy ending since the starscream is missing and you need to find out who hid blitzwing?