Why you should avoid this Ebay user

' USED ' and the text

telcom talkeasy 100 in good working order please check their spec out on their web page.

gave no indication that the radio's were badly damaged with chips out of the paintwork and filthy dirty.

So .. I emailed him with this message ..

Hi .. I did get your parcel today and was .. well .. a bit dissapointed! .. the two telcom walkie talkies are very battered and dirty which you may have mentioned in your description as the pictures you posted did not clearly show any damage.

I was hoping to give them to someone as a gift but that will not be possible with these.

I realise that they are sold at half price but bought another two at the same time for less which are as new.

I also have 4 more of my own!

However ... they do work, so I will swop them for two of mine and I will use the tatty ones.

Please be a bit more honest and descriptive when you post your ads, it does you no favours to be less than fair when using Ebay, negative feedback does make a big difference I always look to see what people have posted and I am sure many others do the same.

I will not post any feedback on this sale until I read your reply to these comments.

yours faithfully

Chris

To which he replied ..

im sorry about your dissapointment i let my son post them on to ebay as they were a present to him last christmas we paid 34.99 for them

as you can see from my feedback i dont mess people around and i can only appologise

it would be ashame to swapnegative feed back

thanks

martin

It seems to me that this was a veiled attempt to BLACKMAIL me into giving him positive feedback .. so I wrote again ..

Martin, I have read your reply and can only assume you mean that if I leave negative feedback on the poor quality items you mis-represented on Ebay and sent to me that you will post negative for me!!! ... and why would you do that? .. my cheque not get to you ..had a problem spending my money? or just bitter and spiteful.

If you had simply emailed me with the apology and perhaps offered to take them back ( I would have declined and said no more ! ) or offered a small re-fund then I assure you I would have been quite happy !

Your apology is worth nothing after writing abouting swopping negative feedback.

But no .. you chose instead to use the implied threat of posting a negative for me!

Not on!

Look at my feedback .. I have no negatives except for a prat who when I won an auction for a Minidisc player chose to tell me it had been stolen rather than let it go for the low sale price .. I posted a web site with the full details of the transaction and why people should avoid him like the plague.. I noticed his next three auctions didn't get a bid, and quite right too. He thought that by trying to con me, not answering emails I would go away but I traced the sod's address and found his phone number, he was suprised and very sorry in the end.

I don't like being blackmailed sir .. I tell you what .. I will post a negative because it is the right thing to do, it will be truthfull, nothing more.. you do as you think fit .. but mark this .. if I get a negative on this sale .. I will post a link to a web page on the comments under your feedback, on this page I will paste the Ebay sale page( now copied with all HTML on my computer), put some of my pictures showing CLEARLY the damage and muck on those radio's and explaining why I posted the negative for you, I will also put up my emails to you and your reply to my (quite reasonable) email in which you clearly imply posting a negative for me. then we can let everybody see what is what eh!!

I am honest, especially on Ebay .. because it just doesn't work if we allow fraud and bad practise to prevail.

You have been paid, and promptly, there is no reason other than spite to post a negative for me in this instance and you only have yourself to blame for the negative I shall post sir, Let it go at that and I hope you take a little more care with your customers in future.

yours very sincerly

Chris

He wrote again shortly after getting this to say he would accept them back but it was a bit too late by then .. his previous email was so obviously a cop out and attempt to blackmail that I had had enough! .. cut my losses (time) and draw a line under this!

his next email was just plain insulting ..

'you are an idiot who should read ad first it said used which will mean its used so sorry their was a couple of scratches if you wanted new condition u should of bought new

for ten pounds what do you excpect thats half an hour at work '.

In conclusion ..

His reply was very quick but not quite fast enough .. I had decided to give this guy the benifit of doubt and left a NEUTRAL feedback response on this sale .. but guess what .. He went ahead and left a negative for me and even more bizzare said in his feedback I was blackmailing him ??? .. I don't know about you but would you REALLY want to do business with this simple minded spitefull moron?

Leave it up to you to decide who's in the wrong here.

Thanks for taking time to read this and beware there are a lot of people like this guy out there ... take time out to expose them then maybe we can make Ebay a nicer place to trade in without getting ripped off and abused.

Chris November 2004