Screwed by ebay ticket tout. What to do?

ruprect

I won 2 tickets for a concert this sunday. I got them at a good price, though it was nothing strange they were all going at that price in all auctions. It was about half face value. The seller was a proper ticket seller, business account, lots of tickets on sale, 100% feedback.

The auction was won yesterday, and was to be next day delivery since it is so close. And of course I stopped bidding on other auctions since I won these.

Now at 5pm today I get a paypal email saying my money was refunded. This was sterling by the way, so I will lose money on that since paypal will do their double exchange rate transaction.

The seller said they were "double listed" and already sold to a buyer last week. This was in the paypal email, no personal email from him

So I check the sellers current tickets on sale, and what has he got? yep my 2 tickets as buyitnow at over 1.5times the face value. Mine were seated in a particular block and these are in the very same block.

So I have asked him why that auction is still running and why those were not sent to me.

What should/could I do about this? I would like to leave exaggerated negative feedback to really ruin him, are there any repercussions of this?

If I did a charge back on the payment via my c/c company would the seller be hit with the charge? again any repercussions to doing that?

It is bad enough what he did, but being stung for exchange rates is salt in the wound. Also he left it too late for me to bid on any other tickets, loads were on sale that I could have got, but it is now too late for overnight delivery in time for the concert.

jor el

ruprect wrote: »

Now at 5pm today I get a paypal email saying my money was refunded. This was sterling by the way, so I will lose money on that since paypal will do their double exchange rate transaction.

That's the hit everyone takes when purchasing in a foreign currency, it's not a Paypal trick.

What should/could I do about this? I would like to leave exaggerated negative feedback to really ruin him, are there any repercussions of this?

A seller doesn't have to go through with the sale, all you can do is leave negative feedback and also report the seller to eBay for failing to go through with the sale. You can't force him to sell it, but the threat of a report and negative feedback might persuade him. Probably too late now anyway. Do not exaggerate the feedback, eBay will remove it and then you get nowhere.

If I did a charge back on the payment via my c/c company would the seller be hit with the charge? again any repercussions to doing that?

There's nothing to chargeback, since you've already been refunded. Trying would be fraud.

It is bad enough what he did, but being stung for exchange rates is salt in the wound. Also he left it too late for me to bid on any other tickets, loads were on sale that I could have got, but it is now too late for overnight delivery in time for the concert.

It's a tough break, but not much can be done. Here's the link to report seller non-performance, and it does actually work sometimes too.

jhegarty

jor el wrote: »

Do not exaggerate the feedback, eBay will remove it and then you get nowhere.

Ebay won't remove feedback without a court order (except in the case were your contact details are false). They do this because if they started moderating feedback they would become libel for everything up there.

jor el

Feedback rules. Seems they do remove it, but no mention of the process. I've heard of feedback being removed because the person included a link (to a blog or some such) in it.

It does say Inflammatory language, such as "fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man" etc., while strongly discouraged, will not be removed.
So if you feel cheated and lied to, then you can say that.

Bondvillain

jhegarty wrote: »

Ebay won't remove feedback without a court order (except in the case were your contact details are false). They do this because if they started moderating feedback they would become libel for everything up there.

That's a common misconception. Feedback can be (and is regularly) removed for various legitimate reasons, such as the ones detailed in Jor el's link.


Personally, After references to illegal activity ("POLICE involved!!! Seller is a SCUM THEIF!!!!!" etc. ) The most common reason I've personally seen on Ebay forums about removal is 'feedback pimping' i.e. - An advertisement for the seller left in a buyers feedback "Another great transaction from www.cheap-doohickies.co.uk!" etc. etc.- which is automatically removed upon request , even if the URL in question leads directly to an Ebay shop.

(It works in the other direction too - A competitor once purchased a low price item from me (and several other sellers in his field) to leave similar promo feedback on sellers FB pages in an idiotic attempt to blanket advertise his Ebay store to potential browsers. All were removed, and he was suspended within hours.)

The only other experience I personally have of feedback removal is for profanity, which occurred while I was on holiday. I came back to find that a feedback saying (including asterisks) F*****' GREAT! had been removed. Which I was somewhat disappointed with : I hadn't reported it myself, cos it was positive.


Ebay's bugbear though, is Feedback extortion. This is where a buyer or seller uses the threat of negative feedback as leverage in a transaction. "I've bought this red Jacket, but I’m not happy with the Colour. I prefer blue. Refund me half what I paid for it or I'll leave you negative feedback." The common response from sensible people is generally "No, send it back and I’ll refund you in full" or "Go and Shyte, chancer."

If the offender carries out his threat and leaves the negative feedback in this case, then Ebay generally remove it under the extortion rules upon production of the original correspondence as evidence.

So it's worth reading through that page if planning on leaving any kind of "warning" feedback, it's best to stick exactly to the facts, and remain calm and truthful, as Ebay will remove contentious input.

Sam Kade

Reporting anything to ebay is a waste of time. I reported priate dvds and they said that they will sort it out. That was 2 months ago the seller is still selling them and there are 2 new sellers selling the same priate dvds. I went a step further and reported them to the lawyer of the production company he said that he will try to stop them but he failed. The dvds were of a tv programme that was copied from sky tv. Looks like the ticket seller in your case wanted to get more for the tickets comming closer to the concert date.

ruprect

Cheers for the advice

jor el wrote: »

That's the hit everyone takes when purchasing in a foreign currency, it's not a Paypal trick.

I am sure paypal are delighted when they get to do it. I love the way the pass themselves off as a corner shop operation when you email them. They must do more business than most countries national banks.

Anyway it seems they did not sting my this time for some reason.

jor el wrote: »

Do not exaggerate the feedback, eBay will remove it and then you get nowhere.

how will they know if it is exagerrated or not?

jor el wrote: »

There's nothing to chargeback, since you've already been refunded. Trying would be fraud.

Must ask my mate about this, he works in c/c and has done chargebacks before for me. I would imagine if they did do 2 transactions, e.g. my payment and a refund of less money that I could reject their refund and chargeback the initial full amount.

What do you guys think of this as a possible feedback.

REFUSED SALE & RELISTED TICKETS AT HIGHER PRICE. COULD HAVE OFFERED STANDING TOO


The snake has 4 standing ones now put up on sale that he could have offered me, dunno if that feedback could do with better wording. Limited to 80 characters.

Vikings

ruprect wrote: »

Anyway it seems they did not sting my this time for some reason.

If you are refunded within 24 hours the same exchange rate is used on both charges which means you will always get the same amount back.

Anything over 24 hours and then you are going to be charged the current exchange rate.

jor el

ruprect wrote: »

how will they know if it is exagerrated or not?

The seller can contest it and report it. Depends on how exaggerated you make it. There's no need anyway, report the truth that the seller refused to sell and re-listed at a higher price.

Must ask my mate about this, he works in c/c and has done chargebacks before for me. I would imagine if they did do 2 transactions, e.g. my payment and a refund of less money that I could reject their refund and chargeback the initial full amount.

Paypal will contest the chargeback. They'll presumably show that they did refund and you refused. I don't know what the outcome would be here.

REFUSED SALE & RELISTED TICKETS AT HIGHER PRICE. COULD HAVE OFFERED STANDING TOO

Looks OK to me.

ruprect

jor el wrote: »

It's a tough break, but not much can be done. Here's the link to report seller non-performance, and it does actually work sometimes too.

Cheers for that link. I did it but as I expected they never even bothered to read my email. They really are a bunch of worthless ****s managing ebay, they do not give a damn what goes on, I have seen it time and time again.

The response was laughable, reminded me of a repeat of friends that was on the other night where phoebe trys to return money to a bank and they obviously never read the letters at all.

boardsie08

ruprect wrote: »

I get a paypal email saying my money was refunded. This was sterling by the way, so I will lose money on that since paypal will do their double exchange rate transaction.

Could someone just clarify the above for me please - I thought that when you got a refund through PayPal all fees etc.. were refunded, that the recipient of the refund would not be out any money??

Is this not the case??

JJ

You should definitely neg because sellers who receive too many negs/neutrals, have low DSR scores and/or have too many disputes opened against them can have their accounts restricted or suspended. If the seller replies to your neg, you can also leave a follow up comment, then you'll have the last word.

Also, if the seller emails you saying he's not going to sell you the tickets, send a copy of that email to eBay. You'll need to make sure that copy includes the email headers. This may not result in any visible action taken but action is taken.

ruprect

boardsie08 wrote: »

Could someone just clarify the above for me please - I thought that when you got a refund through PayPal all fees etc.. were refunded, that the recipient of the refund would not be out any money??

Is this not the case??

I did get a full refund in this instance, since the (non)seller refunded within 24hrs. I mentioned this later on in this thread and Vikings explained why.

Previously I did get stung on exchange rates, think I lost €15-20. Paypals rates are not too bad in fairness. But it is equivalent to me walking into a bank and buying £200, then going in 1minute later and cashing it back for euro again. Even if the exchange rate never changed in that 1minute , you would lose out since banks have different buy/sell rates or commission fees. Paypal also have different buy/sell rates but if it is done within 24hrs you get it all back.

JJ wrote: »

You should definitely neg because sellers who receive too many negs/neutrals,

Yes, I left the neg that I stated. I was waiting until he had a few tickets more on sale so my negative would be top of the list. I also probably had a time limit in which I could leave it. Recently I got a item that was broken and returned it, seller was fine and replaced it, but so much time had passed I could no longer leave any feedback for him.

JJ wrote: »

If the seller replies to your neg, you can also leave a follow up comment, then you'll have the last word.

That is what I am hoping. It is hard to fit a decent explanation/warning in 80 characters. I expect some potential buyers might pm me via ebay.

JJ wrote: »

Also, if the seller emails you saying he's not going to sell you the tickets, send a copy of that email to eBay. You'll need to make sure that copy includes the email headers. This may not result in any visible action taken but action is taken.

I sent them his email, had no other responses from him since.

BTW www.toutless.com is a good Irish site for tickets, some concert goers might be looking at this thread.

and www.tickets.ie is good for smaller gigs, like whelans, you can buy online just like ticketmaster, BUT they charge you nothing if you get them at the box-office. even in soundcellar they charge €2. you can also pay €1 for postage. That is almost a €7 saving over ticketmaster for expensive concerts, per ticket.