eBay Transaction Leads to Arrest - A Cautionary Tale

[momcqueen]

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/abblog/blog.pl?/pl/2016/7/1468851206.html

Mon July 18 2016 10:13:26

eBay Transaction Leads to Arrest - A Cautionary TaleBy: Ina Steiner

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A man was jailed for failing to deliver three cars after selling them on eBay - the kicker is that the cars were toys that he sold for a total of only 16 pounds (British currency), not real cars. Other sources: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3694681/Potty-Police-hold-eBay-seller-16-Dinky-row-didn-t-ma... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/toy-car-collector-arrested-and-held-in-police-cell-for-fo...

[cumos55]

Usually it is buyer beware.

Evidently in this situation it was seller beware.

Or... Is this the reality on eBay?   Seller beware...

Wonder if the seller can sue the buyer.... a civil case?

[ypdc_dennis]

A cautionary tale of making sure the shipping costs are specified up front in the listing rather than attempting to add them on after the buyer has paid.

Took 14 months, but the seller finally got an apology from Scotland police for the handling of the case.

The police badly handled things, but the idiot in this case was the seller. He should have either shipped or canceled the purchase and refunded the money the buyer had already paid.

-..-

[momcqueen]

And the U.K. has its own special Online Sales Act to protect buyers.

[momcqueen]

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/rights.html#scratch

[pjcdn2005]

I'm skeptical and think there may be more to the story.  I really can't see the police getting involved in a. civil  matter like that unless there had been some sort of threat..

[momcqueen]

I'm wondering if the buyer was a person of importance.

[i.am.vivian]

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@ypdc_dennis wrote:

A cautionary tale of making sure the shipping costs are specified up front in the listing rather than attempting to add them on after the buyer has paid.

Took 14 months, but the seller finally got an apology from Scotland police for the handling of the case.

The police badly handled things, but the idiot in this case was the seller. He should have either shipped or canceled the purchase and refunded the money the buyer had already paid.

---

It might work differently with a money transfer since the buyer sent the cost of the items but left off the shipping saying he thought it was too much.  The seller likely wanted to use tracked with signature but the buyer decided he wanted second class.  

Maybe the seller should have used the shipping included FREE shipping and charge 22GBP for his items.  The seller may have made a mistake but I would like to know the eBay USER ID of any  buyer whose FIRST course of action is to call the fraud squad and inflict all that on another person.  It takes retaliatory spite to a new level.