Vendor Alert - I THOUGHT I Got Scammed - UPDATE

[Dodge Don]

I bought a restored 70 Charger instrument cluster off of a vendor on EBAY back in early November. It was fully restored, silk screened and I went for it. Over 2 months later still nothing. Claims he mailed it but can't track it.

The vendor is gaugeguy2003 out of Cowan Tennessee. Also goes by "The Classic Stop". No replies to my e-mails.

He has another item on EBAY now, except with white gauges.....I kinda suspect it is the cluster I bought that they just replaced the background with white.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1970-Dodge-Charger-Instrument-Cluster-Custom-RESTORED_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ34206QQitemZ4605616579QQrdZ1


If you choose to deal with this guy....caveat emptor.

[Shakey]

Don,

Hate the thought that someone decent like you got burnt.

I looked at the feedback and see maggieandguppy left some negative feedback for this user.

magieandguppy is a local guy (to you and I) maybe he has some insight.  He sells a lot of Charger parts on e-bay.  I will PM you him sympatico address and maybe he can help.

Thanks for the heads up.

Mike

[472 R/T SE]

maggieandguppy is a respectable name.   I've bought from him, and he always has something .

That sucks Don, I need to get my little biz going.  I have quite a few clusters now.

[Dodge Don]

I bought some stuff off Maggieandguppy as well. He had a bronze 69 500 Hemi. Good guy.

[firefighter3931]

That sucks Don ! I recently got scammed on a heater core from some outfit in NY called restoration wharehouse. Paid them in Oct and parts never shipped and no response to e-mails. Their phone number is an answering machine with a promise to return all calls....Bull$hit. I'm gonna get my credit card co to retrieve the funds.

Ron

Ps. Found the part online through NAPA and it was cheaper than i paid through this bogus vendor. 

[rare69]

thats the shits! ebay is a great place to find that hard to find part, don't let one bad apple ruin it for you. let ebay know about the bogus user before he screws someone els though.

[Silver R/T]

did you have insurance on it, did you pay with c/card?

[694spdRT]

Sorry to hear about this Don. I got burned a '70 Charger grill also. I got some money back through Paypal but, not all of it.

Thanks for the heads up...hope you can get your money back.

[Dodge Don]

The item was listed on EBAY but I missed the end of the auction, no one had bid so I contacted the seller outside of EBAY and struck a side deal on the cluster and paid via PayPal. I've never been burned on EBAY and this was the first time I ventured outside the EBAY controls.......lesson learned I guess. So I'm not covered under the EBAY/PayPal protection, can't leave negative feedback since it wasn't an EBAY deal and I can't charge it back via my credit card because in these situations PayPal is the merchant and they performed the service I paid for of transferring $$.....it is different than EBAY sales where the transaction is specifically for the purchase of goods.....outside of EBAY using PayPal is no different than sending $$ to your cousin Bubba and the service is to move $$ from point A to point B not for a documented and controlled purchase of goods.

I knew better but since I've never been burned in well over 100 EBAY transactions I got careless.

Other related names they used were:
Jim and Stephanie Spradling
Collector's Choice Restorations

I've done searches in Tennessee on all the names and there is no listed telephone # or address.

Like I said......lesson learned. Don't want you guys to make the same mistake.

[Mopar2Ya]

Well that was close I was just going to buy his '70 cluster. I was uncomfortable because I too struck a deal w/him outside of ebay months ago w/no returned invoice so I never paid. I figured if I did it through ebay I'd be ok, but now I doubt it.  He gave me a ph# (931)968-0992 months ago I tried calling several times only getting an answering machine, w/a message sounding like someones home phone. 

[dkn1997]

seems odd that he sold all of those instrument clusters to other people and had good transactions and just decided to give you a screwing?  I would try contacting some of the other buyers and ask if any of them if they kept the box that may have a shipping address on it, or a company name.  you might be able to use that info to get in touch with him some other way.

[472 R/T SE]

It's a pretty good scam.  Price the cluster high enuf to where no one bids on it and hope someone (Don in this case) contacts him outside of ebay and ebays rules, repercussions to complete the scam.  So what if I'm slow and just figured it out.     I've kept track of average & done cluster sales and for that price a person could be getting more... 

Sorry, don't mean to mock in any way Don. 

[bull]

I can see there being no protection from Ebay but why not PayPal?

[Dodge Don]

Outside of EBAY, PayPal is a money transfer service. No different than Western Union. You pay them to move money from point A to point B. If the person at point B doesn't do something that is not PayPals issue...their service was merely to move funds to the person you wanted to send it to. If you walk into a Bank branch in NYC and deposit $$ into someone elses account held at the same bank in LA...and the guy you paid jams you on some deal do you walk into the bank and demand your money back? Nope...your recourse is through civil courts or in some cases police. Western Union, PayPal and the like primarily exist to transfer $$....you don't get the protection offered by a Credit card when you buy something.

I work in the Payments business...in case folks were wondering.


As for this guys good feedback.......the 2 problems are both from Canada....may figure because we are in a different country we have no recourse...and for the amounts we are talking about that would be true.

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong and the cluster will appear out of thin air 

[Mopar2Ya]

I made contact w/one of his ebay customers & he/she said they were very happy.  Did you try the ph# Don? I'll need an address to send the core to, I'll post that too.

[dkn1997]

again, 140+ positives and 1 neg.  I really find it hard to believe that just all of the sudden decided to scam you when he had all of those other good transactions.  People are creatures of habit and his seem good according to feedback.

[472 R/T SE]

again, 140+ positives and 1 neg.  I really find it hard to believe that just all of the sudden decided to scam you when he had all of those other good transactions.  People are creatures of habit and his seem good according to feedback.

Well duh, it's hard to get negative feedback when the sale was private.   He could have 100% feedback with over 2000 transactions, big deal, we're talking about a private sale here. 
There very well could be a dozen buyers who have bypassed ebay and have gotten taked advantage of, we'll never know now if it was "a private sale"
I'm not dog piling the thread, there should have been a tracking number, period.  You don't just ship something with no paperwork unless he was delivering it in person.

[dkn1997]

my thinking was, like I said, that we all tend to act a certian way, all the time, we don't change too much.  I reasoned that it was odd for him to scam don when all his other transactions were ok, no matter where they took place.

I could be wrong, maybe he is acting out of character.  Maybe it's like you insulting me by saying "duh" like a 2 year old when I usually don't see you do that in your posts....yup, we humans are funny creatures.

Don was not exactly dealing with hlpag here.

[472 R/T SE]

Insulting...?   You're not always the most plesant.

It's just how I feel about the situation, strong minded about something and using "duh" isn't portrayed over a keyboard so well I guess.  You, on the other hand, are looking at it from a different perspective and there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't understand the guy, I mean his username is even tied into the clusters, what's he thinking.  This happened in November, I would never have let it go this long.  Repercussions of negative feedback or not, he needs to address it.  I'd send a link to the gentleman but it's not my place.  And if it happened to you dkn1997, I'd feel the same.

[dkn1997]

I never thought to send him a link.  Don, if you are listening, you should do it through the ebay "ask seller a question" 

[DodgeChargerNeeded]

You can do a fraud claim against them through Ebay and if you paid with paypal you can even do a claim through them and in most cases get your money refunded. They will take it directly from him and give it to you.

[Charger Aficionado]

  Guys I talked to him several times about his silkscreening process... I was thinking about using his service...  Took it upon myself to call him with that number you listed... 

  I have dealt with Don before and consider him a bud, and would hate to see a "bud" get scammed.  I mentioned to guy:  "I may not use service now, since the issues with Don's stuff"...  He said it was merely a shipping error that it got lost...  I put in a word for a replacement, but it sounded like a TALL order...  He basically said "put yourself in my shoes": (having high-dollar items sent-out, and the courier service loosing it)... 

  Side-note...  Dealing with a vendor I have sold products for, it was expressed to me that items once shipped, vendor is not responsible for, rather if it gets lost/damaged, a claim must be filed for re-imbursment).  I personally (If I had surplus of products), would like to offer another, and I myself would wait for claim monies...  But I do not make any of these Items I sell on the "Bay...  Customer is ALWAYS right. 

  I don't know, but I've been waiting for a year on my UPS claim for my NOS '69 Trunk Trim strip, and still: NOTHING...  I'm SICK from that situation...

[472 R/T SE]

I mentioned to guy:  "I may not use service now, since the issues with Don's stuff"...  He said it was merely a shipping error that it got lost...  I put in a word for a replacement, but it sounded like a TALL order...  He basically said "put yourself in my shoes": (having high-dollar items sent-out, and the courier service loosing it)... 

I call BS. 

Alright fine then, I put myself in his shoes, but in his shoes I get a tracking number to begin with.   He didn't get one so it's his fault, not someone else's period the end.  Why is it so hard for people to step up to the plate when they're wrong, instead they want to blame others.
Am I right?

[dkn1997]

If you are shipping expensive items, whether the customer asks for it or not, I would get the insurance/tracking.  Yes, if the buyer chooses not too, you are in the right, but isn't it easier to just fork over a few extra bucks?  for this guy, it would have been better for him to purchase a tracking number when he said he shipped the cluster.  it would have cost him a couple of bucks, but he would not be getting negative feedback like on this thread....

[Dodge Don]

UPDATE!!!

I have to eat some crow here......the cluster just showed up this morning after 3 months!!!. The package/box was beat to hell but the restored cluster inside was snug as a bug in a rug.

So......I'm pretty darn happy right now.

It would appear the seller was truthful and the box got hung up somewhere in limbo as the Posties played soccer with the box.