One of the many pleasures of being an eBay seller is getting to deal with some of eBay’s bottom of the barrel buyers. Don’t get me wrong here, there are lots of buyers who are wonderful people to work with. But there are also some very bad buyers, some so bad that your ability to retain your sanity could possibly be threatened.

This page will introduce you to my personal experiences with the worst that eBay has to offer in terms of buyers. Con artists, liars, morons and the whole nine yards. As you read this, keep in mind that complaints from these buyers are what eBay used to suspend my account. No matter how bad the buyer, no matter how untrue or bogus the complaint, their complaints against your account are considered valid in the eyes of eBay and they will suspend you over it.

Feedback Doesn’t Matter for Buyers:

eBay User ID: squidjelly
Real Name: Kenneth Groberg
Location: Clinton, Utah
Occupation: Owner of Trucking Company
Relationship: Buyer/Bidder

The issue with this guy now is, well, the fact that he is still on eBay at all. Just take a look at his glorious feedback (mirror copy here). As a seller, I am expected to keep 95% of my customers happy according to eBay. This guy can only complete a little more than half of his transactions without getting negative feedback. He has gotten 4 positives and 3 negatives, for 57.1%. One of the negatives was left by a seller with a score of almost 60,000 feedbacks. All of his other negative feedback mentions non-payment and/or refusal to communicate in any way. Talk about hypocritical on eBay’s part.

In this case, the buyer placed an order with me (eBay Item #300118949106, $499.88) and then later opened an Item Not Received dispute with eBay, claiming he did not get his items. It was an oversight, I shipped the items to him, he got them and signed for them. USPS Delivery Confirmation #2301 3460 0001 9432 2703. But he would never acknowledge receipt of the items and would not respond to the dispute. Of course, knowing that eBay was holding the dispute against me despite the fact that the buyer had the items and would not pursue his complaint, I decided to try calling him. When I did so, I learned that his phone number on his eBay account was not his own. That violates eBay’s policy, and I reported him for it.

To add a little bit of irony to the situation, the account is also registered to a business, Groberg Trucking, Inc. Presumably. my customer Kenneth owns the company. A little bit of research revealed that this company is a U.S. Mail contractor. Its is always amazing how much information you can dig up on someone using freely-available search engines and public records. I wonder if Kenneth gives the government the same fake phone number he gives to eBay (or, as we’ll soon see, only pretends its a fake phone number).

Here is what I sent to eBay’s Trust & Safety Department by e-mail on August 2nd, 17:45:03 PDT:

I attempted to call this buyer today, 8/2/2007 at 8:45 PM CST about the Item Not Received dispute they have opened, using the number they have on file of 801-773-8118.

The person who answered the number (on behalf of a landscaping company) tells me that there is no one named “Kenneth Groberg” works there or is authorized to use their number, and furthermore that they do not own the eBay account “squidjelly”

This is expressly prohibited by eBay policy, which reads, in part: “Falsifying or omitting contact information such as a member’s name, address, and/or telephone number when registering on eBay is not permitted.”

Please see the following page for the policy: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-false.html

eBay never responded to the report - not even with a form letter or auto-response. But I still have the copy they sent me of my own report, which I got because I clicked on “Send Me a Copy” when I submitted it. When I filed that report, I believed it to be true and did not look into it any further. But in preparing for the launch of this site, I decided to do a reverse lookup on this number using switchboard.com, and guess what?

The number traces back to none other than Kenneth Groberg. Apparently, the woman I spoke with must have been his wife and probably gave me that little speech at her husband’s behest to avoid dealing with the complaint issue. Nice, huh?

To this day, this gem of a buyer remains a registered user on eBay - despite the fact that his feedback indicates he has stiffed about half of the sellers he has encountered and lies about his identity. Apparently, polices only apply to eBay Sellers and only when they feel like enforcing them.

I’ll Defraud My Seller If I Want To:

eBay User ID: frugalchicken
Real Name: Daniel Gillis
Location: Suffolk, Virginia
Occupation: Real Estate Agent
Relationship: Buyer/Bidder

Dan is a special cookie and a big thorn in my side. He ordered a lot of three sets of toner cartridges for a HP printer, total cost $499.98 (eBay Item #300117414146) and paid with his American Express card on June 9th.

On July 10th, he called my billing agent 2CheckOut and complained to a representative there that he did not have his order and that I was not responding to his e-mails. In fact, I had responded to every single one of his messages and he just did not like the answer he was getting (the item was back ordered). Part of the service 2CO provides to me is taking complaints from customers, consolidating them into a report and sending them to me for resolution.

Here is what 2CO sent me on 10-Jul-2007 22:51:34:

Customer called to request access to services for order #3750559157. After “15 emails” to request shipping details. ” 32 days and counting still no response”. At this point the customer either wants his package of toner or a refund. Failure to contact the customer will ultimately result in a refund via 2Checkout.com. Please resolve this issue to avoid further complications.

Brandy
Customer Care

Now, any reasonable person reading this would assume that our buddy Dan is unhappy with the deal but still wants his order shipped, right? Of course. And being committed to the prevention of problems, I made sure that his order left the very next day and that he knew it.

I sent him the following on 11-Jul-2007 14:45:30:

Dear Buyer,

Your order has been prepared for shipment and will be sent by 10 PM tonight from the AMF in Dallas, TX. The tracking number is as follows: 2304 1070 0000 3865 0058. This will be sent USPS Priority Mail. Thank you for your patience while we processed your order and I do apologize for the delay in sending it, though I doubt that will mean much to you. As they say, talk is cheap. None the less, I am sorry and I hope you will let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

Thanks,

Keith

I sent the package, it was delivered on July 13 and signed for by “S GILLIS”, according to the USPS website. A request to the postal service made later produced a copy of the signature and proof positive of delivery. Thats the end of, right? Nope, just the beginning. Now this is where it gets scandalous.

On July 30th, I received notification from 2CO that Dan had contacted Amex and performed a charge back on his credit card, claiming that he did not receive the merchandise. The result was a $11 fee to my account at 2CO for handling the dispute as well as reversal of the charge for the merchandise. So now, Dan has his money AND my product. Due to the contractual relationship between 2CO and Amex, there are no disputes of chargebacks permitted, so despite having signature proof of delivery, I was unable to undo this.

I try to assume good faith, knowing that his dispute and my package could have crossed in the mail and that he may have already called AMEX and advised them of the fact that his package arrived and he no longer disputes the charge. Several buyers have done that and then Amex will credit our account back again. When that happens, I chalk it up to an innocent mistake and then move on. So my first action was to call Dan and see what the deal was. I left messages at both of his numbers I had for him and they were not returned. So I tried sending a couple of polite e-mails to him, which he also ignored. The next day I spoke to a woman at one number who said Dan was not available and refused to give me more information but took a message and said Dan would call me back. Never called, but he finally responded to the e-mails I had sent him with the below:

House of Surplus,

In checking my stockroom the toner in question was found to be delivered and signed for by an unauthorized individual. There is no “dispute of charges” filed with AMEX. After 33 days of calling and e-mailing you with little to no response i called you and told your machine that i would be getting my money back because i suspected you of fraudulent activity. then i called 2checkout.com and notified them i was calling AMEX to get my money back for non-delivery of services. I then called AMEX and they returned my money promptly. THEN, You apparently shipped this now unwanted package to me several days later without checking to see if any of this had occurred. So, my saying there’s no dispute with AMEX there’s not. i’m happy with the final outcome. Now, for your package you mistakenly sent to my address. if you would like it back then please send an appropriate pre-paid UPS or USPS label to the address below and i will be more than happy to ship it back for you. if you would like me to dispose of the package then just e-mail back and i’ll do so. (by the way you sure are on top of it when it’s your money, 3-4 calls and several e-mails in one day, HHMMM..makes one wonder….)

Please advise,

The Frugal Chicken

Because he just got done telling the 2CO rep to ship his product, I wasn’t buying the “unwanted package” story. Dan has lied to me several times and claims that I sent the package after he told me not to and that he wanted a refund. Unfortantly for Dan, the facts don’t seem to indicate that. In preparation for the prosecution of Dan, 2CO has released a recording of the telephone Dan made to 2CO, where he asked for his product or his refund. In no uncertain terms, Dan says he wants his product or a refund and indicated no preference for which one he wanted.

A little bit of research showed that the “unauthorized person” in the mailroom of his real estate office (which, by the way, consists of one additional person besides the two Gillises) appears to be his wife. Also interesting is that the address I shipped to does not even appear to be his work address, it appears to be his house. So I was not buying this whole excuse, either.

If Dan wanted a refund, he should have asked for one. But asking for your product and then stopping payment (charging back) on the credit card charge in the next breath is illegal, dishonest and fraudulent. He wanted to get the product and his money too, or just wanted to be a pain by making me pay to send it and then pay to have it sent back. Since he not less than 48 hours prior to shipment had asked for his product, and had not updated his wishes with a new statement that he’d rather have a refund, I denied his request to cover shipping costs. The terms of the listing state that buyers can return items for any reason as long as they are not used, minus shipping both ways. Its my position that Dan simply changed his mind, and while I might have made an exception to my policy had he not acted like such an ass about it, this is a time to enforce the policy to the letter.

Later on, in the feedback Dan left, his story changed multiple times and suddenly he had new complaints about the products. You know, the ones he didnt pay for. Really takes alot of gall to complaint to the merchant about the products you stole from his store, doesn’t it? Thats our man Dan, lots of balls and full of crap.

Dan’s Feedback for Me w/ My Reply Then His Follow-up:

• Jul-31-07 19:05: BUYER BEWARE! BAD SELLER SELLING REFURBISHED TONER LISTED AS NEW 35+ DAY SHIP
• Jul-31-07 20:38: CC Fraud Disputed Charge After He Got It. 2304 1070 0000 3865 0058. Toner OEM.
• Aug-01-07 03:58: SCAM SITE! HE shipped non-oem REFURBISHED TONER AFTER chargeback /wrong upc #!

My Feedback for Dan w/ His Reply Then My Follow-up:

• Jul-31-07 14:02: BUYER FILED CHARGEBACK AFTER HE SIGNED FOR & GOT ITEM. REFUSES TO RETURN IT!
• Jul-31-07 17:57: Waited 33 days, HE shipped AFTER chargeback was done & REFUSED RETURN
• Jul-31-07 20:42: This isnt Wal-Mart. We dont pay S&H when buyers change minds, read Terms of Sale.

Dan’s argument that I am selling refurbished toner is utterly ludicrous. I had sold over 100 sets of this stuff on eBay before they killed my account, the only other person to make these outlandish complaints about misrepresented product was another buyer (who was, as coincidence would have it, another Realtor, this one from California) who left negative feedback and also threatened to commit fraud by charging back and keeping the items. Perhaps the most interesting part was his follow-up on my profile where he refers to an incorrect Universal Product Code (UPC). Thats quite interesting, since no retail packaging was included, thus there was no UPC code to speak of. Everyone, save these two, that I have sold to has been happy with the product with the only complaint being slow shipping, which was an issue I admitted to then and admit to now.

Several attempts have been made to get Dan to either return the stolen product or pay for it, he has refused to do either. As such, a lawsuit has been prepared for filing against Dan, in an attempt to recover the money or product he stole from me - depending on how you look at it - and the damage to my reputation he caused with his bogus complaints to eBay. I cannot wait to see what he has to say when he comes to Court. Its all fun and games until someone gets sued, right?

But on a side note from all this, isn’t it good to know that Prudential Decker Realty hires scammers? Thats one firm I will never use if I need to buy or sell realty in Virgina. They really should investigate the morals of their employees a little more throughly before allowing them to represent the company.

Of course, as testimony to the complete and utter worthlessness of eBay’s Trust and Safety department, not only does this buyer remain a registered, active user on eBay, he also is selling like crazy. So apparently, eBay likes scammers as long as they can make some money from them.