I bought a 12k gooseneck dumping trailer on ebay. I was the winning bidder at the last minuit, after the seller reduced the reserve to a point that the next bid owned it. The payment terms called for a chunck of the money by paypal and the rest by certified funds in a short time. I emailed the seller right after the auction ended and gave them the option of all on paypal, as listed or all in cert funds so they could avoid the fees. The reply was all in a cashieers check to avoid the fees. I offered a week as a waiting period to make sure the check was good before arainging a pickup. The seller said that was good. The check went out by priority mail the next day and was delivery confirmed a few days later. I then recieved a email stating that their bank would not release the funds for 10 working days. Throw in a Veterans day and Thanksgiving holiday and my one week turned into 3. This I can understand.
I had used the ebay listing location as a basis for my bidding on this one as it was nearly on the way to my wifes best friends house, and I thought we could make a fun weekend out of the 500+ mile trip. I had used the address that I had sent the check to to generate a mapquest trip planner for. I had emailed a few questions to the seller about the trip and the electrical hookup to which I never recieved a reply to. I then tried to email a question thru ebays system and got a response. I asked the seller to put me into their contacts list to not get my mail dumped as spam. The seller then mentioned that the trailer was not at the address the check went to but it was at "moms" house in another town 30 miles away. I then asked for a street address to get mapquest to for pickup and a phone number for a contact should I have a problem. No reply again. Sent another note thru ebay to inform them that We were leaving the next day at 3.00pm and needed some answers. I had put my phone number in all of my emails to the seller. At 9.00pm on last Thurs evening I recieved an email asking for me to call them asap. I made the call less tham 5 min after the time stamp of the email and went into voice mail after a lot of rings.
I finally recieved a call on Fri afternoon at 1.30pm stating that ther was a small problem. The trailer was sold by the daughter for mom. While trying to get the title ready for me it was discovered that DAD also had to sign. Dad and mom are seperated and dad said he would not sign. Daughter seemed to think that a sitdown with dad on Sat afternoon would get some results.
I waited untill the wife and kids were home from school, and had a discussion with them. They were all psyched up about seeing their friends that they wanted to go anyway. We all pile into the truck and head to the Lake Erie region with all the big storm warnings and all.
Sat afternoon I recieved a call from the daughter saying that dad would not budge. I informed her of my lengthy drive for nothing and said I at least wanted to see the trailer as it was nearly on my way home. Daughter offered my money back, I said I wanted to see it first. She agreed. I looked at the trailer on our way home. It was everything that was listed and more. I want it bad because I cannot touch one like it around here for twice the money.
I feel that dad realized how cheep it was being sold and wanted to stop the process. I also feel that the seller should be held accountable for their actions. Seems like when one sells something on ebay, they should be forced to follow through with their transaction. Seems like there should be laws governing a seller selling something without the proper paperwork in hand (fraud?)
I left it that we would wait two weeks to see IF dads demands can be met by daughter and mom (I dont know nor do I want to know what they are) with the daughter agreeing to deliver the trailer at her cost at that time.

I assume if I go back to ebay that they would tell me that a refund is as good as it gets. My guess is that they dont care about VALUE to a buyer.


What would you do? I know I cannot buy a trailer like that for twice the ebay ammount around here even if I had the extra money. Does a case like this have a chance in court? I upheld my end of the deal all the way to the end. Give me your helpful advice guys, I am a bit too PO'd to see straight.

Thanks

 

follow through with the ebay dispute process, it stinks as it is, but that is the only avenue you have. a sale is supposedly a binding contract(according to their site and threats) but good luck getting them to force her to sell it as the auction contract.sorry buddy.

 

ebay is supposed to be legally binding so they should have to sell it to you, if that is what you';re trying to get...

 

The only problem i can see with the case is that it wasn't the daughters to sell in the first place, so she tried to sell something that wasn't legally hers to begin with. It is Mom & Dad's.
Do the arbitration thing and good luck, hate to see a great deal fall through for anyone.
PS get your money back before they spend it!!

 

Court won't help. You can't sell what isn't yours! About the only thing that will come of this is the daughter will get spanked by eBay.

Have you tried contacting the Dad to grease his palms a bit?

 

I have yet to see any paperwork to give me a name. I looked around at the mothers place for a clue to what the name was but no luck. I didnt feel like a "breaking and entering" charge. There appeared to be no one home while I was inspecting it.

 

Maybe you should have hooked on to your trailer and took it home, instead of "inspecting" it. Then let the daughter, father and mother desided who owned it. If they say it isn't the daughters to sell, offer to have her charged for theft by deception--she sold it.

You do have the benefit of knowing the address of who had the item when it was sold, their phone #, name, etc.

If you don't want to hire an attorney in the city the item is located contact that counties county attorney for some insite and free advise. Or, contact the state attorney generals' office (in the state the trailer was sold) and ask them what to do. Even if they say "not much", call the seller and let them know you've contacted the attorney generals' office and are pursuing the matter whether she solves the problem with her father or not. Fear of legal entanglements and loss of money motivates many folks.

 

I had a seemlier problem with ebay 2 two years ago EBAY WAS NOT ANY HELP AT ALL. How ever I did my research after the fact as you are and the Attorney general told me it a Felony to comet INTERNET Freud and that is What you have.Make a report with them in the state it took place in. And let them Handel it I did and got my money and handling charges back.Good luck And keep us posted Most on ebay are on the up & up.

 

It's not a fraud until they refuse to give the money back, it's just a broken contract, a civil matter. She was selling it for her mother who does have partial authority on the title, they just didn't get the other required authority on the title. If you knew the deal would probably fall through prior to travel, you might not even be able to claim the loss from travel expences.

 

Get the money and run!

Redleg has it right. She cannot give you clear title and you cannot force them to do so. Get your money and call it a day!

 

At this point I would ask the issuer of the check if you can get your money back if the daughter returns the check to you. If you can, ask the daughter to return the uncashed check, which you will hold for the two weeks, until they resolve their problem. If mom and dad are separated, or divorced, there are problems you don't need to be part of. With a nice fat check just lying around someone may decide to go Christmas shopping with your trailer money. In the interim, try to stop payment on the check if you have to. Once it's cashed, this may get very ugly!

 

Take your money and run!!! Be thankful if you get it back. When I buy big ticket items like that I pay in person at the time I pick it up, that way I am only out the travel if it does not work out. I went 150 miles to boston for a trailer I bought on ebay, it was brand new but they forgot to disclose it was damaged.
I took my money and went home, I was out 300 miles of travel but I ended up with a trailer I was haapy with in the end.
Good luck.

 

We are now well passed the day that her bank would release the funds. I am sure that some of the money is spent. She may have been smart enough to just let it sit in the account but I doubt it.