My first bad deal on [H]

R

RamonGTP

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
8,150
About 3 weeks ago I posted a laptop FS or trade for a decent GPU:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1718081

On Wednesday I got a PM from Crystal_Castles asking if I would be willing to trade for a Sapphire 6870 Flex. We agreed it would be an even trade and both acknowledged to one another we would ship our respective items on Friday.

Friday came, I shipped the laptop to Crystal_Castles and PM'd him the tracking # on the same day. I did not receive any communication from him on Friday.

Saturday, I sent him another PC asking him if he had had the chance to send the card. Again, no reply.

Sunday, I sent another message stating I was getting worried about the state of our transaction since I had not heard from him at all since we made the agreement and asked again for the status of the card. Again, no reply. What's worse, I know he has been on the site and even checked his PM's as I happen to check his profile while he was online, his status showing he was viewing Private Messages.

I waited until Today before posting here to receive a reply, even though I was pretty sure it was a lost cause considering I knew he had logged on to the site and checked his private messages several days ago.

Luckily I was able to go to my local shipping store today and get the laptop recalled as it had not yet been delivered, so I'm only out the shipping costs and a bit of time.

I don't know what the proper etiquette is when posting on here, so I won't divulge his address unless its requested. He did use the name "REMOVED" to ship to.

His [H] Profile: http://hardforum.com/member.php?u=235871

I know I partially brought this onto myself for not asking for any heat or even pics of the card. I got lax with my due diligence because up until now, I've always had good experiences (both buying and selling) on this forum.
 
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Wow that sucks. Good call on going to the store to have it not delivered.

Atleast you're only out the shipping costs and everything.
 
Welll thanks for posting, but honestly something like this, you never know what really happened.. Yeah it could be a scam attempt, but honestly sounds more like a emergency or something happened...

Hopefully nothing major happened to him or his health...
 
EliteGeek91 said:
Welll thanks for posting, but honestly something like this, you never know what really happened.. Yeah it could be a scam attempt, but honestly sounds more like a emergency or something happened...

Hopefully nothing major happened to him or his health...
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Hardly think so unless you can explain what type of emergency would allow him to log on at least once a day for several days, check his messages but not allow him to reply?
 
Absolutely NEVER cross trade with someone without heatware feedback. I don't want you to get scammed. :(

Even buying something from someone without heatware is a bad idea.
 
I bought my Vertex 2 from here and it took the guy literally 6 weeks to ship it. He's been banned now.
 
Radical said:
+1, I didn't even know you could do that! Was there a surcharge or anything for having the package returned back to you?
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The owner of the shop called FedEx to see if she could get the package sent back, at that point i whispered to her that ill pay whatever the fee is, she then asked how much it would cost, she gave FedEx some more info they asked for, and when she got off I asked "how much?" And she said FedEx told her it wouldn't cost anything (to both our surprise) ill know for sure once the laptop comes back. Its being sent back to the shop I shipped it from.
 
seems suspicious, seeing how that persons last visit to the forums was today at 1:37PM (my time at least..), and has yet to reply
 
As a helpful note... I've heard that some phone browsers do not display the "you have a PM" popup. So he could be logging in on his phone and simply not noticing that he has a PM -- sometimes the popup doesn't work even on my XP laptop, and it can take me upwards of an hour to notice that there's an arrow and a 1 (or 2 or 3) in that particular corner of the screen.

...doesn't [H] have a mobile forum site of some sort now? (Asking because my smartphone's "data plan" is a data block. I'm too effing poor for anything else -- so I've no way to know on my own.)
 
starhawk said:
As a helpful note... I've heard that some phone browsers do not display the "you have a PM" popup. So he could be logging in on his phone and simply not noticing that he has a PM -- sometimes the popup doesn't work even on my XP laptop, and it can take me upwards of an hour to notice that there's an arrow and a 1 (or 2 or 3) in that particular corner of the screen.

...doesn't [H] have a mobile forum site of some sort now? (Asking because my smartphone's "data plan" is a data block. I'm too effing poor for anything else -- so I've no way to know on my own.)
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Except he has actually browsed his Private Messages.
 
Only 1 heatware evaluation... you should have asked him to ship first then you ship upon getting the graphics card. I'm sorry, but you kind of set yourself up for this without properly verifying that the person is reputable.

You might want to leave a negative on his heatware page, at least until all this gets sorted out.

Crystal_Castle's heatware.
 
Agreed, I should have been more careful. Thanks for the heatware link.
 
RamonGTP said:
The owner of the shop called FedEx to see if she could get the package sent back, at that point i whispered to her that ill pay whatever the fee is, she then asked how much it would cost, she gave FedEx some more info they asked for, and when she got off I asked "how much?" And she said FedEx told her it wouldn't cost anything (to both our surprise) ill know for sure once the laptop comes back. Its being sent back to the shop I shipped it from.
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Thanks for the info, this is great to know if I'm ever in that situation. I'm going to guess that this is an added benefit of using Fedex (and possibly UPS as well?), as I seriously doubt USPS would do this for you.
 
Hopefully you can at least get a refund on the shipping costs from him, but at least you didn't lose your laptop.

If he doesn't work things out with you, hopefully he gets banned as a bad trader.
 
Radical said:
Thanks for the info, this is great to know if I'm ever in that situation. I'm going to guess that this is an added benefit of using Fedex (and possibly UPS as well?), as I seriously doubt USPS would do this for you.
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Yeah, I'm not sure how USPS would have handeled it. I think it also helped that the request came from one of their 'resellers" (for lack of a better term) who does a decent amount of business with FedEx

Tsumi said:
Hopefully you can at least get a refund on the shipping costs from him, but at least you didn't lose your laptop.

If he doesn't work things out with you, hopefully he gets banned as a bad trader.
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We'll see. Still no reply and he was logged back on the forums an hour and a half ago.
 
RamonGTP said:
Yeah, I'm not sure how USPS would have handeled it. I think it also helped that the request came from one of their 'resellers" (for lack of a better term) who does a decent amount of business with FedEx
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UPS will intercept a package depending on where the package is. I had it done a couple times (a store intercepted a package for me). As for USPS, I doubt it too.
 
AngryArtichoke said:
Make sure to leave negative feedback on his heatware page.
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I'm waiting to see how things turn out in the next day or two. I WANT to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but this was a case I needed to take some action early. since it was a cross trade, I'd have been completely SOL if I'd waited until my item was delivered to him.
 
most people are pretty trust worthy on here though aren't they? I have only bought a few things on here. never had a hard time.
 
dremic said:
most people are pretty trust worthy on here though aren't they? I have only bought a few things on here. never had a hard time.
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Yes, most definitely are. I too never has an issue until this incident.
 
Man, I was discussing with him about buying that card (a couple of weeks ago). That was close.
 
Isn't it possible that he didn't trust, so he decided to wait until your package arrived before he sent his, I mean maybe he wanted to check the PC before he sent..... I know this isn't what you two agreed upon but it could be possible
 
Kuurus said:
Isn't it possible that he didn't trust, so he decided to wait until your package arrived before he sent his, I mean maybe he wanted to check the PC before he sent..... I know this isn't what you two agreed upon but it could be possible
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Not trusting is one thing, but not even answering repeated PMs is another.
 
Kuurus said:
Isn't it possible that he didn't trust, so he decided to wait until your package arrived before he sent his, I mean maybe he wanted to check the PC before he sent..... I know this isn't what you two agreed upon but it could be possible
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Not only is it not what was agreed upon, but he is reading and not responding to PMs. Sure, it's possible but unlikely. Either way it's still a bad deal. I'm certainly not going to sit idly by, holding up my end of the bargain, wait for him to receive my shipment while being kept in the dark to entertain this unlikely and remote possibility that he's an honest guy with trust issues.
 
Kuurus said:
[...]I know this isn't what you two agreed upon but[...]
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There is no place for buts in an agreement. The conditions are either met or not met. Good call on getting the package recalled.
 
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I think that the fact that he has not appeared on this thread to give his side of the story despite logging on tells us his intention or negative proclivity with this trade. I would recommend a negative heat if he continues to refuse to answer your PMs and/or return the shipping fees.
 
Oh boy..Guess I better sign up for heatware..wheee.
That sucks..btw..I noticed his thread has been killed :D
 
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