Don't Ebay own Gumtree? has anyone reported this to the police yet, the culprit is in the UK after allOriginally Posted by proby24
I have looked at the Gumtree ad and asked the seller questions re history, service , receipts and got the following reply : "6 months old"Clearly he has more than one of these and is trying to defraud. I have reported him to Gumtree suggesting it is a fake. Perhaps the Police should be informed.
Hello! Using PP in this thread is a bit confusing! PayPal or Patek? In some context "PP has been very useful" could be very surprising!
Anyway, few advices:
1. Seller credibility: Always check seller ratings. Then, have a quick look at previous sold items... As you mentioned, some scammers execute hundreds of $1 (or less) transactions with same buyers to get top ratings.
2. Common sense: What's the rational for a seller to sell via eBay half the price he could get in a second-hand shop? (whithout mentioning the eBay fees, shipping issues, etc...)
3. Ask as many questions as you can and new pictures: You are a potential buyer, so the seller should be very helpful.
4. Always try to close the deal face-to-face or view the watch before.
Hope the advices will be helpful. I bought/sold many high-end watches (mainly Patek and AP) on-line over the last 5 years. Never had a single issue. With time, I learned how to spot straight the scammers.
"Went to Patek Philippe / 15 New Bond Street in London around noon to get the watch looked at and certified. Have to say that they were extremely understanding,"
Fair play to them for doing that for you, Was there a nominal charge? or just happy to help out?
I had a similar thing happen a few years ago and I immediately contacted the seller. They disputed my view and said that I needed to take it to an agent. I did and explained the situation, they gave me a short letter on headed paper saying that the watch was not genuine. The seller reluctantly agreed to take it back so I packaged it really well and sent it special delivery. The seller claimed it never arrived, I followed this up with royal mail and they confirmed it was signed for. The seller then claimed someone else must have signed for it and wanted proof. After this he claimed that he had sold me a genuine one and that I had swapped it. Eventually he sent me a photo where he had clearly taken a hammer to it and claimed that I had not packaged it correctly and therefore there was no refund as the clause is that it has to be in the same condition that it was sent. PayPal were useless and it ended up that I got limited recompense by Royal mail as the seller said this was the only way.
I use eBay all the time for buying things. If you always use paypal you will pretty much never have a worry about not getting your money back if the device was missold.
If "stock" pictures are used the buyer has pretty much 100% guarantee of the dispute siding with him. If there is detailed photos and documentation in the sale of any damage or faults or scratches etc.. then it may be more difficult to return an item.
As always sellers feedback is important and what they have sold, a good eBayer will have sold random things like you would yourself, make sure the sales have been to different buyers and things of a high value.
But I've had a few disputes with non delivery of devices and devices delivered not as described. (usually smarphones). I've yet to get "burned".
eBay and especially PayPal is very safe. Just be sure not to give feedbackl until you get the device and are happy with it. Paypal will release funds to the seller if you give positive feedback to them on the sale.
Last edited by CVByrne; 3rd May 2013 at 14:36.
It's difficult to compare a Patek with smartphones in terms of buying experience.
When you buy a £10k+ watch, you need to be extremly cautious. By asking a copy of the papers, servicing history, etc, you should avoid many issues...
Shipping a watch is a huge mistake: a movement is very fragile... RoyalMail (or other) clearly don't handle parcels cautiously... On top on that, the customs will charge you a huge amount... Never ever have your watch shipped (appart if it's a Suunto or Nike!)
Sorry but how do you think ADs get their stock? How does a Swiss made watch get over here? I agree Royal Mail etc do not baby a parcel but decent wrapping is more than enough to protect a watch, a watch movement is not as fragile as you say...the Moonwatch has been to the errr...the Moon and back, I think Royal Mail are not quite as rough as a re-entry to Earth.
Totally agree. Secure wrapping will protect a watch from almost anything a delivery trip will throw at it. However, I would never ship anything without full insurance, just in case...
Customs will not charge a huge amount - 20% VAT.
Yep, even that is mainly to ensure against theft, I think you would have a hard time claiming against a damaged watch movement, if all else was still intact.
But agree, insurance is a must.
£2000... yeah peanuts LOL.
You have reported it to Gumtree which means they will (If you are lucky and they can be bothered) Pull the ad and (Again if they can be bothered) Send some kind of "Report" (Meaning "Someone said this may be fake so we want to wash our hands of it, over to you") To the police and that will be the end of it for Gumtree. Bloke will probably have another ad under a different name in a week or so.
eBay will (hopefully) remove the advert on Gumtree, but there is no way that they will report anything to the police. There is no commercial benefit for eBay in doing so, and without evidence there is no way that the police would do anything (they barely have the resources to intervene when there is evidence of fraud; they are certainly not going to get involved in a dispute over whether a watch advertised on Gumtree is genuine or not).
My local Gumtree gets about 4 to 6 adverts a night for fake watches (mostly "Rolex" and "Breitling" in the £50 to £100 range, but occasionally at anything up to £3k). I report them every day and (to be fair), they get taken down pretty quickly. However they are always back within the day, with the same name and contact number. eBay has no interest whatsoever in pro-actively keeping them off Gumtree - and most certainly won't involve law enforcement.
I didn't have to pay a penny for that document! They also said that it was in their interest to have those sellers and watches taken off the market. Great customer service!
Best,
Al
Nasty story. If someone would do this to me and I had his address...... But this is also why the seller was so keen to have me send the watch back to him. I already assumed he would try to pull that trick on me and contacted PayPal. They luckily confirmed that I should keep the replica until they've decided on the cases' outcome based on my further documentation. If they "judge" in my favour, I will have to destroy the watch.
Best,
Al
I wonder how eBay would fight a claim or how they cover themselves, if the victim was the seller and not the buyer? Loosing the money and the watch!...a scary thought.
Last edited by jegger; 5th May 2013 at 22:26.
I was looking on the bay last night and came accross this.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Omega-Seam...item2a2c5ca711
Now you'd think everything must be fine looking at the pictures.
But why I wouldn't deal here is if you look at his completed deals and feedback, all buying & selling are cheap clothes. As a rule never do business with someone who has this kind of history.
Simply why would somone who spend this long buying and selling only cheap clothes for £3 or £4 have an expensive watch.
I wondered about that too. But what if the seller transfers the money out of PP and to a bank account immediately and cashes it? This can all happen in a matter of hours. And if the bank account is empty or fraudulent, what can PayPal really do, especially if this guy used a bogus identity? I'm sure some of these guys are well organised.
Haven't read below this reply but FOLLOW THE PAYPAL PROCESS. Send it tracked and PAYPAL WILL refund you once it's shown as received. Even if he receives it and then tries to prove you've returned something different, you will still get a refund.
Just keep an eye on the tracking ref. As soon as you see it's been delivered, call PayPal directly and tell them you want the case closed as it's in your favour.
It can't, you need to give positive feedback for a seller to withdraw the funds. Also the seller needs to include a tracking number for the package and new PayPal accounts can't withdraw funds for 28 dats after sale. You need to build up a solid history before you can access the money quicker.
There safeguards are there. Otherwise people could just send a box full of nothing and put a tracking num on it and get away with theft.
I wouldn't necessarily rule out a purchase in this situation. I would, however, contact the seller and ask how he/she acquired the watch and the reason for selling. People come across stuff in the strangest ways. He could be selling it for a friend/family member who is inexperienced in selling online for example. I agree that the first and foremost rule for buying wathces online is "buy the seller", and if something's fishy, then you run away as fast as you can.
Interesting. I can withdraw money from PayPal as soon as it's received regardless of what else the buyer does, and it's in my bank account within minutes. So not everyone can do that, and it's based on one's history? That's a relief!
By the way, do you know what that "solid history" is exactly?
It's only when items are sold via eBay. The money isn't released until the item is received and no dispute is opened. I have had to wait until a buyer gave positive feedback before funds were released.
If a bank account is linked up and verified then this can be done quicker. But you still have the protection of PayPal.
It makes absolutely no difference to the buyer - they are covered under PayPal's Buyers Protection scheme and PayPal will refund the money; it's irrelevant whether it's still in the seller's bank account or not.
What PayPal will then do is to pursue the seller for the money - they use extremely aggresive debt collection agencies to do this. Don't forget that the seller has to associate a real bank account with their PayPal account as part of the account opening process, so PayPal will have a route to find them. They can also ban the seller from using either eBay or PayPal for life - that can be quite restrictive for anybody who wants to buy or sell online.
That's a restriction that PayPal sometimes put on new users (especially if they start off selling relatively high value items) but it's not universally true.
Apart from anything else, there is no obligation on anybody to give feedback on eBay - it's an entirely voluntary system.
Paypal does have similar rules on funds availability (https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mp...s-availability), but it typically only affects new sellers.
Last edited by Citizen V; 7th May 2013 at 12:49.
Hi, my comments were in response to this post:
I thought there were ways for fraudulent sellers to keep the money and get away with it (e.g., through identity theft to open accounts etc). This is regardless of what happens to the buyer, who is protected no matter what.
But I gather from the posts here that some good mechanisms are in place to make the fraudsters' life difficult.
Last edited by o u t a t i m e; 7th May 2013 at 12:51.
Just a little update: (not satisfying yet)
PayPal had sent me another mail, saying that they had voted in my favour - but asked me to return the watch to the seller.
I then called them up again and reminded them of my conversation with one of their service people, stating that I'm not allowed to return counterfeit items as it would be illegal. The guy then spoke to his supervisor and then finally told me to ignore the mail (deja vu) and instead return a signed declaration that I have destroyed/discarded the watch. Apparently the person who handles the case had "misunderstood something"........
Two days after I faxed them the document, the money was back in my PayPal.
But guess what. Another two days later it was taken out again, as the seller appealed the decision and it's now pending review by PayPal. So the nightmare is not over yet... One can only guess what kind of faked evidence the seller is submitting to PayPal to back up his appeal!
Regards,
Al
Damn. Good luck. Hope it turns out well.
Wow. That guy seriously needs to get a visit from the police or someone...
This really is police territory - or would they just give it the old 'civil matter' line?
Fraudsters like your Patek vendor should be locked up.
This is shocking, I have been watching this and believed paypal would sort this very quickly, at least PayPal have genuine evidence from Patek on the watch....
This puts me off buying on ebay!!
Jeezo that's bad - some people just have no moral compass - surely there comes a point when you say to yourself "what I'm doing is fundamentally wrong".
And to the OP - hope you get it sorted soon. Nice (and slightly surprising) that Patek themselves were so accomodating.
Been interesting to read through your journey with this scammer. Hopefully you'll get your money back. Sadly there will propably be no consequences to the scammer apart from time wasted if/when you get your money back 100%.
A bit of perspective here. Its one thing to buy a replacement battery for your camera off ebay its another to spend £££££'s on a watch.
I have purchased over 900 items , 896 have been great (and saved me going to the shops and lots of money). On the 4 which were not. One was a fake and the bloke refunded me and let me keep it anyway. 2 were refunded by Paypal and the sellers kicked out and one which was a nightmare, but only because I refused to return it (to hard!!) - lessoned learnt and mucho negitive feedback left.
As for buying watches off the Bay, treat them just as you would if you were buying a car. Same goes for Chrono24.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Sadly this is good advice... Shame as the potential choice on offer, if it was all genuine and sold by all genuine honest people, is great...
Ha! ahahahahaha! ebay and Paypal really isn't very safe at all. You're buying at a distance, where morality is diluted by lack of contact. Any warning bells, run away. There's plenty more. Caveat Emptor in huge flaming letters all over every transaction. The hassle and turmoil caused is significant for the ones that go wrong. And many of us will have stories.
Cheers for the updates OP... I hope you get a positive outcome soon.
Was hoping to,see an alls well that ends well post after following this thread. Keep us updated please and hope it works out
To be fair to them, PayPal have to be careful here, given the amount of money involved.
Imagine a parallel universe. An honest seller sells an authentic Patek for many thousands of pounds on eBay. A dishonest buyer receives the watch. This dishonest buyer then takes a replica Patek that they have purchased elsewhere to a Patek AD and gets a letter attesting that it's a fake. They then use this letter to raise a dispute with PayPal, who find in the buyer's favour. The honest seller then challenges PayPal's ruling, saying that he has evidence that the watch he sent was genuine.
From PayPal's perspective, it would look identical to the current situation described in this thread, and they may need to gather further evidence from both sides.
This is my worry. Who would you believe?
If you can get proof of the seller's other sales of the same watch posted after the sale that could be evidence, I would imagine?
Well I guess they're going to want some proof from the seller that his watch is legit, a purchase invoice possibly, pictures, the papers of the watch?
I'm pretty sure an honest seller here reported on getting ripped off by a dishonest buyer (not a TZ-UK transaction) who took a fake Breitling to a Breitling shop and got a refund from Paypal...I can't remember how it ended but I think it was a huge hassle for the seller. I'll try to find that topic again.
IIRC it ended badly for the seller of the watch.
Yep, found the topic : http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...-Ebay-heads-up linking to the original horror story : http://www.breitlingsource.com/phpBB...hp?f=1&t=35100
But there was a happy ending...http://www.breitlingsource.com/phpBB...259440#p259440 but no details given unfortunately, looks like someone that had special access at Paypal helped him out. What do you do if you don't have that?
It's not what you know but who you know in this case it seems.
Would like to quickly report: happy ending for me as well. Case is permanently closed (in my favour). Big relief!
Seller kept sending me dozens of delusional texts, threats and obvious lies though, trying to get the watch back. He just wouldn't accept that it's gone - I then simply ignored him until he piped down.
Regards,
Al
Good to hear.
Very good news :thumbup:
I saw a seller trying to sell a "picture" of a watch the other day and it was up to £400!!!
And yes I did report it and now it's gone :-D
Great that it worked out!
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote