On December 4th I sent a postal money order for a copy of Karaoke Revolution 3 from an eBay seller.
So I wait...and wait....and wait...skip to 2 weeks later.
I email the guy and ask what's up. I don't get a reply. A few days later I request his number from eBay and call him. I get an answering machine. The message is spoken by his wife, who gives her name and her husbands name, then says it is also the voice mail box for "Games Exchange".
I left quite a few messages over a week or two. No reply. I was pissed. I then checked his eBay feedback profile. He had great feedback when I bought the game...but in those few weeks he had received over 60 negative feedbacks because he wasn't sending people their games or replying to them!
I filed fraud complaints with eBay and SquareTrade. I couldn't use Paypal since I had not paid with Paypal.
I decided to take matters into my own hands. I looked up the couple's names on Switchboard.com. I found a different address and phone number. I left a message on the new number (which had the exact same answering machine message greeting) and then forwarded this information onto every single other person who had left negative feedback since Dec. 4th. One of the members I forwarded the information to said she did some investigating herself and found out where the wife worked and gave me the wife's email address.
By this time, a month later, I am mad. I am giving them until January 31st, 2005 to give me a refund or send me my game or I'll call the police. (I don't know if the police would do anything since this is interstate commerce...but at least it was a threat.) Whenever I threatened to call the police I did it in a calm way. You could tell my tone was firm, but not crazy.
I emailed the wife. I got a rude reply back that she had nothing to do with it and "she hoped everything could be resolved and to have a nice day." Then she blocked my email address. Of course a geek has more than one email address so I emailed her with my Gmail account. I asked her to please forward the email onto her husband. I also said her husband has made me and many other customers frustrated with what has been going on.
Finally, I get a response from the husband! I faxed him the receipt for the money order and I'm waiting now to see how things go with his bank.
After that, the wife emailed me that I was "very" rude and that I should consider "kindness" as a better stragegy.
Obviously, she knows nothing of getting scammed by an eBay seller, especially when you're on a low income and trying to get a Christmas present for a relative! I WAS kind the first 10 email and phone messages. I never said I was a saint.
THEN she wrote that she could press charges against me as well for "invading her space." WTF. She could try harrassment but once I presented proof to the police that I had in fact been trying to get a hold of them (proof of email messages and phone records) that my charges of petty theft would make a LOT more sense than her charges of "OMG she sent me a few emails and threatened to call the police!!!!!!!"
She still claims that she has nothing to do with her husband's work. Okay, fine. Maybe you want to take your name off the answering service so it will be harder to get a hold of you!
Anyway, I was going to write this last part into an email to her but she probably blocked my Gmail address too. Oh well. I needed to vent. I hope I get my game... Thanks.