Royally messed around by seasoned boards user!

cormie

I'd been considering whether to post this or not but decided it best to put this up to show that even someone who you think you can trust based on their online history, can still mess you around considerably

It started when I posted this thread on boards considering upgrading my current XPS Dell laptop: <SNIP>

The user in question responded and PM'd me offering an as new laptop for €1,300. It was about €90 less than he paid for it and decided to sell it after thinking he'd prefer a smaller one for college. He ordered it with a student discount from the Dell Outlet so got a good price on it and this type was rare enough on the outlet so it seemed. He also said he'd throw in a laptop bag/case. I decided to go ahead and we agreed I would pay half before he sent it by courier, tracked and insured, and I would inspect it by benchmark software, for dents, scratches etc and if I was happy with it, would pay the remainder and if not, would send it back for a refund. We also agreed I would pay €20 extra for postage.

I sent payment and understood it was busy coming up to Chrismtas but there was still plenty of time to get it sent to me.

What happened next was a complete joke. At first I thought it was just because of how busy it was at Christmas, but as the communication progressed, it just seemed like he was coming up with excuse and lie after lie not to send it to me, including telling me that days after he was meant to send it, that he JUST DISCOVERED it actually had less ram and a smaller SSD than it was supposed to, that he was stuck in work for 15 hour shifts so couldn't make it to post office between 3am and 6pm, that he was just after contacting Dell who said the warranty wouldn't be supported in Ireland, then failure after failure to make it to the post office on time.

On top of all this, I see he had <SNIP> on what I think was the day, or after the day I sent payment, it's hard to tell exactly with adverts, but while he had my money, he was bargaining with people over adverts on the same laptop. I knew it was on adverts but didn't mention this until I saw a deal was close to being agreed there so came to let the new potential buyer know the story, who respectfully pulled out. The ad was subsequently withdrawn by the seller.

After all this he then tells me he doesn't want to ship it without receiving full payment first and then tells me he will if I agree to pay an extra €90 so it's the same as what he paid. I tell him I'm not paying him any more than we agreed but I'd happily pay €90 to a dog santuary and he then asks for €45 instead. Read the transcripts below, it's unbelievably painful!

I didn't fear I wasn't going to get my €670 back, but I did want the laptop and wanted him to stick to our agreement.

We first communicated by PM on boards.ie, and then by email and then everything was over WhatsApp. Both of us had our boards.ie inboxes very full and I had to delete a lot of the PM's to make room for more

These were the emails:

Mod snipped - Nody

cormie

The conversation then moved to WhatsApp:

Mod snipped - Nody

cormie

continued

Mod snipped - Nody

whoopsadoodles

Why on earth would you waste so much time with such a dick?

You should have taken the refund weeks ago.

sparrowcar

You were very patient over a long period of time IMO.

The guy messed up somewhere along the way and probably spent your money over xmas and sold the laptop as well. Basically buying himself time at your expense.

Complete joker it would appear and very stressful for you. It's very hard sometimes for people to understand how frustrating and stressful things like this can become.

Is there a resolution since the last post?

cormie

I wanted the laptop plain and simply. I posted about the deal on facebook and I had my techy friends telling me it's a fantastic deal and to go for it and Christmas is the best time for me to do things like switching to a new laptop or phone as I'm not expected to be responsive with calls and emails to my business. After that, it kinda switched to a matter of principle, but I still wanted the laptop

In the end, I found out that there's a new XPS being released in weeks and I saw a few similar spec ones to what he was selling appear on the UK Outlet store and at the time, I hadn't had a BSOD in a good 2 weeks or so, so decided I could hold out a little longer and just to get my money back.

He sent me a PM over boards and I replied via email as my boards inbox was almost full again (start from the bottom of the quoted text)

Mod snipped - Nody

Barry Badrinath

That seller is a timewasting, dishonest, amateur extortionist.

No honor or respect and a pure lazy attitude.

Absolute disgrace

whoopsadoodles

And now we know what poster it is!

Barry Badrinath

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

And now we know what poster it is!

Sure I have his address too :pac:

stampydmonkey

Jeez...You have the patience of a saint. He sounds like a 12year old.

Barry Badrinath

It was probably an aul Lidl laptop anyway. All those spanners he threw into the deal must have come from there too.

Absolutely shocking behaviour....and still trying to sell it on another site for more money whike he held onto the OP's substantial deposit for weeks on end.

Jaysis I would have walked to Cork and got it sorted.

booterboy

Some people are just horrible and dishonest when it comes to money.
Have sold second hand electronics including TVs,PCs,laptops,Ipads,game consoles to name but a few over the past 25 years and my number 1 rule was I would not post or sell anything without the buyer fully inspecting the item I was selling.
Have never had one problem with a buyer as I have always dealt with people face to face and cash transactions only.
There are too many people on Adverts/Donedeal/Ebay getting ripped off by rogue sellers.
Dont ever pay good money for something from someone you dont know without atleast seeing the bloody thing.
Anyway hope OP gets money back and learns from this.

amdublin

Very long could not follow it all. Did you get the money back??

cormie

Yep, got it back in the end It's long alright, but it's full of ridiculousness

readytosnap

First up, I cannot believe I read all that.
Secondly, the seller sounds like a right knob. Like others have said, he probably blew the deposit on perlenbacher. At least you got your cash back. Sounds like he treated your deposit as a short term loan, interest free.

Drumorig

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

Why on earth would you waste so much time with such a dick?

You should have taken the refund weeks ago.

Ye wtf, thats crazy... is there gold hidden in this laptop or something ?
Id a bought a laptop online in the 1st place, instead your on a mission to save 90 quid or something...

cormie

I'm on a mission to save €90? Not a chance! It's a saving of about €700 over what it would cost to buy new. They are rarely stocked at the same spec, although there's a few there now, there was nothing on the Outlet site any time I checked over the 2/3 weeks this was all happening. Maybe it's the fact it's after Christmas now that there's a few in stock at the moment, but I'm going to wait another while for the newer model to be available.

As I mentioned to him, I would have happily paid €90 extra had he negotiated a bit better at the start and I was happy to donate €90 to a dog sanctuary if he sent it at the agreed price, I just didn't want to give him a penny extra, he's the one who caused all this over wanting to get an extra €90 which I didn't even know about until the end and who knows if that's even the reason really!

The funny thing is, I don't think he did spend the money, I think he had it ready to refund me the whole time.

JaMarcusHustle

Infuriating read. What an absolute tosser.

Looks like he sold a phone on Adverts too and never marked it as sold too, to avoid the seller's fee. Be a shame if someone reported it

If it were me - being the incredibly petty person that I am and seeing how much inconvenience and stress he would have caused me - I could think of a lot of damage I could do with his name, address, phone number and e-mail address. But maybe that's just me.

Ideo

Surely the guy should be ip blocked due to the above?

TimeToShine

There's still a lesson for you here OP.

Earthhorse

Good luck trying to get anyone to do anything to prevent the user doing this again. But fair play for posting it.

Delacent

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but seems the seller was not as rushed as the buyer.

Buyer put alot of pressure on seller. It sets off alarm bells and seller gets cold feet.

With so much scamming going on, people close to seller probably gave warnings.

Buyer gets more heated, seller gets more worried. Seller wants to refund money - seller BEGS to refund money, buyer doesn't want refund, want laptop and offers extra. More alarm bells for seller.

Sorry, but buyer put too much pressure on what seems to be a young seller - even slyly threw out tyat he had sellers home address and seller just wanted out of the deal and give refund.

I'm on sellers side overall - though agree that fault lies on both sides.

Galadriel

Delacent wrote: »

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but seems the seller was not as rushed as the buyer.

Buyer put alot of pressure on seller. It sets off alarm bells and seller gets cold feet.

With so much scamming going on, people close to seller probably gave warnings.

Buyer gets more heated, seller gets more worried. Seller wants to refund money - seller BEGS to refund money, buyer doesn't want refund, want laptop and offers extra. More alarm bells for seller.

Sorry, but buyer put too much pressure on what seems to be a young seller - even slyly threw out tyat he had sellers home address and seller just wanted out of the deal and give refund.

I'm on sellers side overall - though agree that fault lies on both sides.

Eh, the buyer sent €670 to the seller and then seller did not send the laptop? what else is there? the buyer offered to pay €20 extra for the delivery cost, he wouldn't have been hassled if he had just sent the laptop like he agreed to, and don't forget the seller is the one that PM'd the buyer about the laptop in the first place...

JaMarcusHustle

Delacent wrote:

I'm on sellers side overall - though agree that fault lies on both sides.

The fact that the seller put it on Adverts and was negotiating with other interested buyers the whole time doesn't alarm you at all?

Delacent

Galadriel wrote: »

Eh, the buyer sent €670 to the seller and then seller did not send the laptop? what else is there? the buyer offered to pay €20 extra for the delivery cost, he wouldn't have been hassled if he had just sent the laptop like he agreed to, and don't forget the seller is the one that PM'd the buyer about the laptop in the first place...

Did you read the entire conversation?

Seller offered to refund amount on 21st dec.
Seller was also shift working in retail and at Christmas that's crazy hours.

Buyer put a lot of pressure as buyer wanted it urgently - whilst buyer is 100% genuine, the conversation seems to have spooked the seller and buyer came across as too keen.

As i said, fault on both sides, but you need to acknowledge that seller offered to refund paid amount on 21st Dec and wanted out of deal - buyer just wanted laptop and piled more pressure, thus seller lost trust.

Try reading it as if the buyer was a total unknown - its almost identical to many scam threads you read. I think the buyer wanted this too much and this spooked the seller.

Galadriel

Delacent wrote: »

Did you read the entire conversation?

Seller offered to refund amount on 21st dec.
Seller was also shift working in retail and at Christmas that's crazy hours.

Buyer put a lot of pressure as buyer wanted it urgently - whilst buyer is 100% genuine, the conversation seems to have spooked the seller and buyer came across as too keen.

As i said, fault on both sides, but you need to acknowledge that seller offered to refund paid amount on 21st Dec and wanted out of deal - buyer just wanted laptop and piled more pressure, thus seller lost trust.

Try reading it as if the buyer was a total unknown - its almost identical to many scam threads you read. I think the buyer wanted this too much and this spooked the seller.

Ok then, how to you explain the adverts ad? EDIT: Yes the buyer should have pulled out then, but look he was the one that was PM'd about it, bottom line no one will be buying from the seller again in a hurry.

SteoL

Delacent wrote: »

Did you read the entire conversation?

Seller offered to refund amount on 21st dec.
Seller was also shift working in retail and at Christmas that's crazy hours.

Buyer put a lot of pressure as buyer wanted it urgently - whilst buyer is 100% genuine, the conversation seems to have spooked the seller and buyer came across as too keen.

As i said, fault on both sides, but you need to acknowledge that seller offered to refund paid amount on 21st Dec and wanted out of deal - buyer just wanted laptop and piled more pressure, thus seller lost trust.

Try reading it as if the buyer was a total unknown - its almost identical to many scam threads you read. I think the buyer wanted this too much and this spooked the seller.

Honestly, I don't know any scammers that would wire cash to the person they're scamming and any that do don't know how to scam properly!

me_right_one

Who is the poster? Put up his Boards username so we'll all know not to deal with him

nava

MOD: I Removed reference to seller as we only have 1 side of the story

Delacent

SteoL wrote: »

Honestly, I don't know any scammers that would wire cash to the person they're scamming and any that do don't know how to scam properly!

You know that, I know that, but looks like the seller is 19 / 20 years old and they are probably listening to people giving loads of scare stories.

Even Joe "whine away" Duffy had plenty of stories very similar around that time.

lawred2

Delacent wrote: »

Did you read the entire conversation?

Seller offered to refund amount on 21st dec.
Seller was also shift working in retail and at Christmas that's crazy hours.

Buyer put a lot of pressure as buyer wanted it urgently - whilst buyer is 100% genuine, the conversation seems to have spooked the seller and buyer came across as too keen.

As i said, fault on both sides, but you need to acknowledge that seller offered to refund paid amount on 21st Dec and wanted out of deal - buyer just wanted laptop and piled more pressure, thus seller lost trust.

Try reading it as if the buyer was a total unknown - its almost identical to many scam threads you read. I think the buyer wanted this too much and this spooked the seller.

Lol

First time ever I've heard of a keen buyer spooking a seller.

Give over.