An Ebay Tale: Did I had bad luck or good luck?

Charry

Inspired
I wanted to tell you guys a very peculiar story that just happened to me on Ebay.

Last week I came across an auction for an Axe Fx Ultra that caught my attention, first of all the price was very low, it had no reserve price and it had no bidders whatsoever. So, I started watching the item. 4 days and not a single bid, so I thought, well, what the hell, maybe there's no love for the ultras now, let's bid on it. But, at the same time I noticed other ultras going for $800 and up, and this was on $280 if I remember correctly. The auction ended on sunday, I bid at maximum of $560 because that's what I had at the moment, and I won it at $428. To tell you the truth I was not expecting to win at all, I've never seen an ultra to go down for such a low price, so I was very happy and excited, but at the same time I got a bit worried because I though maybe this is was a scam. I emailed the seller and told him exactly that, that I was happy but at the same time worried and that it would mean a lot to me if he just could send me some proof of ownership, some picture of the unit with a newspaper from that day, or with my eBay username on top of it, or something like that. He told me that he made a mistake at did not put the reserve price and that he was expecting something above $700, but that his mistake was my luck, he actually asked if he could relist the item with the reserve price to be fair with him, I told him that I won the auction in a legit way and that it wasn't my fault that he didn't put a reserve price. I could tell he vas upset but he agreed to send the pictures in 24 hours.
He didn't, so I emailed him again and told him that I could pay him right away, I just needed some simple picture and that's it.

This morning he wrote to me two messages at 6:00 am:


You're making me paranoid. Youre just like the buyer who did this to me on my Neuman TLM103 1 month ago. You act all antsy about the sale, telling me you're worried about the unit not being as described...you're going to file a complaint on me when you get it and keep your money, but I'm shipping the damn thing with signature confirmation when you pay me. Stop fucking around, you fucked me on this, you win. Yay. One musician to another, I'm fucking pissed off, and the guy who just won the auction of a damn lifetime is telling me to take pictures smiling with one of the most important pieces of hardware (I've owned two, my name is XXXX, the founding member of XXXXX...look it up, millions of plays on the songs I've written for aegaeon and I write my own music as well) I've ever owned as a successful artist. Now, follow the process and fucking pay me before I file a complaint against YOU for not paying on time. Jesus man. Stop being paranoid, I started the auction way too low at 180 and it only had bids from 1 person until 36 hours left. It's simple. That's why you got it so cheap. I've produced hundreds of songs for many artists using both my unit that failed before this one and I've used this one a little bit. My wife is now pregnant.

Please pay me if you havent (I havent checked) and I'll ship the axe fx to you immediately after I get home from the OBGYN apt from 2:30-3:30. I guess I was holding onto hope that maybe a decent person would exist and agree to me resisting at a buy it now price somewhere in the middle of what I wanted for my reserve price (750) and what I'm actually making after fees (under 400)...I'd hoped youd think of a $600 axe fx ultra (free shipping) would be a fair thing between musicians, who unlike the rest of the world dont follow all the rules. I've been a pro for 15 years. You wanna get paranoid, go ahead. I'm following all the damn rules and those pictures were taking the day I listed it and show you what ebay says to show you

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And I will take your stupid ass pictures AFTER I ship it, just to prove a point to you. You're disregarding all the rules and muddying up this process. My pregnant wife and I need this for grocery money. Stop acting like a paranoid person and just accept that you got the best deal in history on an axe fx ultra in good condition that fully functions and has one minor issue with a knob that we have fully covered already.

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5 minutes later he cancelled my order. and an hour later he wrote this:


I'm sorry to inform you, but I went ahead and decided to package it up for you after my angry message about your paranoid behavior. Sorry for being mean, that's not how I typically act...nonetheless, it has been damaged now by an electrical surge we experienced 11/12 due to the extreme weather in the midwest right now, subzero temps and also car accidents from the ice... our power went off and on like 50x in 1 minute. I think I took a screen shot of the outage even to show my wife. Anyway I just plugged it in for you and its screwed. It wont turn on. I heard a pop when the power came on and off a bunch I THINK, but didnt attribute it to the axe fx. Car hit our actual electrical pole on my road, and everything turned on and off like 50x. I had the axe plugged into the wall directly...Its broken now, karma probably for me being a jerk to you...and probably was broken before I sent you that super angry message today so I'm sorry for being mean, but also man...you were really weird to me after you basically took somethin from me, totally legitimately might I add...but you stole this at 450 and we both know it. Then you were all paranoid and untrusting...

I never sell anything and didnt set a reserve because I thought I did and thought if I didnt I could change it later. I told you that....this sucks, but now it's broken so it doesn't matter. I guess I'm not eating this month, im sorry for your luck dude....here's proof of ownership photos btw, not that it matters. I'm so so sorry, this was awful all the way around and it ends with both of us....with nothing. Good day.



So, what do you guys make of this? Did I just got lucky and save myself from getting scammed? Or did I acted paranoid and lost a great opportunity?? Mmmm...
 
I’ve been on EBay for 21 years, and all but 1 or 2 of the over 1000 transactions has went off without a hitch. That’s better luck than I’ve ever had buying/selling face to face. But there are a-holes and scammers everywhere these days, and chances are good you’ll run into one. I had one make an attempt on Reverb just a month or so back.

A real seller would not have a problem sending a picture. Takes one minute to do. You were fortunate to lose the deal. Make sure you use a protected form of payment in any online purchase. Some scammers come across as very nice guys, too.
 
My Spidey senses are tingling...consider yourself very lucky that you didn't enter go further with that guy. It sounds like he would have screwed you over any other way he could have.
 
You got lucky. So many red flags with this guy....

  • Needs the money - Pregnant wife (usually it's this or car accident)
  • Aggressive after you asked for a simple request
  • Saying you stole it after it was his mistake
  • Needless showboating about who he is and what he's done. What does that have to do with the transaction?
  • Unit magically breaks so he doesn't have to send it to you

I'd bet this unit shows up again on Ebay/Reverb soon.
 
Its broken now, karma probably for me being a jerk to you...and probably was broken before I sent you that super angry message today so I'm sorry for being mean, but also man...you were really weird to me after you basically took somethin from me, totally legitimately might I add...but you stole this at 450 and we both know it. Then you were all paranoid and untrusting...

Classic cautionary tale of the psychology of a thief. All good points @MicroMort makes.

On the flip side, eBay and PayPal are actually good about weeding out these 'account' jack-@$$3$. Make sure you follow up with eBay to ensure they flag that account. Similar to Facebook, new approaches to modern-day-pirates are taking over well-established accounts on the platform making you feel like you're interacting with legitimacy. In reality they brute force authenticated an unmanaged account and posted a popular eBay item to steal.

Well done in flagging it where you could. If you're looking for an Ultra, I bet someone on here has one to sell ya?

Cheers!
 
Was the band name Allegaeon maybe? They did use Ultra's before going to the II. I know both current guitar players and both are gentlemen. I don't know their other founding guitarist personally.
 
Was the band name Allegaeon maybe? They did use Ultra's before going to the II. I know both current guitar players and both are gentlemen. I don't know their other founding guitarist personally.

The guy told me his name and I already did my search, don't know if it's really him or someone hijacked his profile, that's why I didn't mention it...
 
Sounds to me like what needed to happen happened. Count yourself lucky on this one. There are a lot of scammers in the world....
 
What a gaslighter. Be sure to send this whole thing to Ebay. First, to make sure you have documented your transaction w/ him - I assume the emails were direct and not through the Ebay system? That's one thing I like about Reverb, they can see all the communications. Also to alert them in case anything else happens. He could easily make up a story about you, and tell them he had to re-list it because you failed to follow through.
 
What a gaslighter. Be sure to send this whole thing to Ebay. First, to make sure you have documented your transaction w/ him - I assume the emails were direct and not through the Ebay system? That's one thing I like about Reverb, they can see all the communications. Also to alert them in case anything else happens. He could easily make up a story about you, and tell them he had to re-list it because you failed to follow through.

I already reported the item, all messages were through eBay and I have everything well documented in case is needed.
 
I already reported the item, all messages were through eBay and I have everything well documented in case is needed.
Good! It's been years since I've done anything on Ebay - didn't remember if they had an internal msg system.
 
I quit doing eBay after an ordeal a little over a year ago. I sold an AxFx II to a scam artist he snatched it up paid immediately when he got it claimed I sent him a berhringer unit, want to send it back for a refund. I refused long story short, I sent eBay proof id sent the correct item to him and they still gave his money back and stiffed me for the AxFx. Ebays seller protection is a lie, anyone can make such a claim and there’s nothing you can do about it. Thankfully FedEx insurance paid me after a month. Never sell any high priced items on eBay if something goes wrong you’re wasting your time trying to collect. I used eBay for over 20 years with never a negative comment or feedback. Can’t make myself list on eBay again.
 
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