Retaliation story

lamblove8

Member
Jan 8, 2010
243
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I would like to share a story that I hope will help others.
(I apologize beforehand for the length of this post)

I am a LAMB collector, and did not realize the counterfeit situation was so extreme on ebay when I started buying. I had bought a Coach handbag (my first) at Nordies, and thought perhaps I could get a used wallet in decent condition on ebay. (LAMB 'lux' items are not generally counterfeited, and I haven't encountered one in my history of buying on ebay.) I bought a Coach wallet, guaranteed authentic with tags and care card and gift receipt... but after purchasing I started to worry that it might be fake. It was a gut feeling, and I did some research on the ebay forums. Every practice warned against in the forum was being used by this seller.

Ultimately, I left them neg. feedback like this: "item not authentic as described. poor communication." The seller was very angry with me, and he/she did get me on one point which was that I had no proof. I actually felt bad about this, and wrote a follow up comment saying, "seller is correct in saying I have no proof, only strong suspicion."

I am skipping a lot of the acrimonious back and forth, but I will mention that the seller got angry to the point where they were calling me names and attacking me personally. They also threatened to withold the refund after they had received the item (I shipped it back priority mail, and they didn't admit receipt of it until about 5 days after it was delivered). Ultimately, they did refund me, but also left me some very strange/borderline scary messages.
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Well, fast forward: when I sold my first item, a LAMB handbag, the winning bidder asked if they could pay by money order. I told them I was sorry, that I expressly stated that I only accepted paypal. After some strange back&forth, where they accused me of not responding to two messages, they then left me negative feedback, saying something like: "item not authentic as described! FORUMS CONFIRMED!! POOR communication!!" They also refused to cancel the transaction, and although they never paid, there was some loophole through which I was not able to have the feedback removed at first.

I had begun to suspect that this was retaliatory action from the Coach wallet seller. The words they used, the actions they took - were all mirroring the things that happened when I was buying/returning the wallet, only accelerated/intensified. For example, the messages I left - the first one I left for the Coach seller was a day or so after the sale and I became worried. The second, a couple of days later, and the third was a day or so after that. The seller wasn't responding, and I became more nervous and agitated, and asked why they were not responding. The person who 'won' my item then did the same thing, but accelerated the time component - the first note about one day after, the second about 6 hours after the first. All of my actions in worrying about authenticity were exactly mirrored in this situation. The statement: "FORUMS CONFIRMED!!" was in response to a message sent by me saying that I was worried as I had read the ebay forums on counterfeit Coach. There aren't any forums on counterfeit LAMB lux items at all, to my knowledge.

Also, I checked this buyer's feedback - they had 1 positive feedback, and it was from another Coach wallet seller, that I noticed used similar formatting, graphics, design, descriptions, pictures, etc. (The similarity in selling practices was one of the things that made me suspicious in the first place about these Coach wallet sellers, and what tipped me off initially to worry about the authenticity - they all sell just one, two or three wallets at a time - private auctions, same kinds of pictures, all offering Coach care card, gift receipts, and gift boxes, among other things.)

The end result was that, after over 10 hours on the phone with ebay customer service, being told different things by diff. people... they finally did remove the negative feedback. And I adopted the rule that if a buyer has less than 10 pos. feedback and did not personally message me about their intent to purchase, that I reserved the right to cancel bids and block the bidder.
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Fast forward again - the last month I discovered TPF. I had heard about it from different sellers, and I decided finally to check it out myself. At first, I didn't think about the ATs, because it's not really something that comes up much with LAMB. However, several days ago, I realized that I could do a search on this seller in the Coach AT. Guess what? The seller came up in not one, but several posts, all with the response that the posted items were DEFINITELY fakes. There were even references to the same phenomenon I noticed - different sellers using the same format, pictures, style of graphics, selling just one, two or three at a time.

The Coach wallet seller was furious that I messed up his feedback, as he had had 100% feedback before I left the negative. I left the feedback because my gut was telling me that this seller was not honest, and I am GLAD that I did, even though at the time, I had no definite proof, just very strong suspicion based on lots of different pieces of infromation/evidence. They said that I was a malicious bidder with no intent to pay, even though I paid for the item immediately, and didn't start being suspicious until AFTER I paid. The seller also ignored my initial 3 messages, I believe, in the hope that I would go away (it happens - and I think it works a lot of the time, because I actually considered it -it's actually way more stressful confronting the situation than just walking away).

I am posting this now, because I want to warn others about the potential of this happening - of a person retaliating through weird methods, and behaving in a way that is frightening (this seller had my home address and phone number, and was obviously bent on getting retribution, even though it turned out that my intuition was correct, and they WERE in fact selling fakes - thank goodness they live in a different state!)

This seller continues to get WONDERFUL feedback, and each and every person who leaves those feedbacks are buying FAKES!! My feedback is the ONLY neg feedback this person has, and they attacked me with a kind of righteousness that was truly frightening, especially when you consider that they are the ones being dishonest.

I have noticed that a person who behaves in a way which feels dishonest, usually IS dishonest. An honest person will admit to making mistakes when they occur, and do their best to take responsibility for them. So please be careful out there. And to each and every individual who works very hard to make sure that the ebay (or other similar venue) experience is an honest, kind and pleasant one for all participants: THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. :hugs:
 
I'm so sorry this happened to you! I have heard other stories of retaliation that just blow my mind, the steps people will take just to get even. In the end though karma will come back to bite them on the ass. Good for you for standing up for yourself and hanging in there to get that feedback removed!

Linda
 
Thanks for posting and sharing your story. Hopefully it will help people in the future. And like Linda said Karma will always come back to bite someone and IMO often harder...
 
OP I'm so sorry about your experience! I had heard stories of retaliation before I started selling, so I created a separate ID for selling. I am a true believer of karma - what goes around WILL come around to this seller!
 
Can you please post the seller ID's of this person? I'm sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that I would never want to encounter this seller on ebay.

Also, just an idea but, if you ever plan on selling again, you may want to consider a different ebay user ID.
I don't know how much time passed from the time you dealt with this seller and the time they retaliated but, whatever amount of time passed, that seller sat around just waiting for you to list something so they could get you back and that is VERY disturbing that they had so much anger that they devoted themselves to getting you back.
 
Thank you all so much for your encouraging posts.
It would be smart to change my ebay id... although it will show that I changed it, and anyone could access and see who I was before - so unless I were to open a new account, I'm not sure it would deter a person who really wanted to do damage. But it's still a good idea and I think I will go ahead and do that. Thanks for the suggestions.

I'd be happy to list the name and the posts I found in the AT - is that ok, or will I be breaking any rules?

xo :smile:

ps I want to mention that I am very glad that I stuck to my gut about feeling like this was a strange buyer and not accepting a money order. Who knows to what lengths this person would have gone to embroil me further in a nasty situation? Ebay (after all that phone time) did refund all the fees as well as removing the feedback, and in the end I learned a very important lesson regarding selling.
 
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It is always very disappointing to hear these kinds of stories that occur and that

is the reason why it is so important to do your homework.. many of us are taken

in and feedback is one of them.. so yes, what goes around comes around...
 
What a wonderful detailed post you wrote. Thank You. I have read so many horror stories this week in this forum that I've been thinking that I may never buy another thing on e-bay. I've never bought a purse but I have a very extensive doll collection all of which was purchased on e-bay. I never had a problem but the doll market and the purse market seems to be a completely different entity.

Get a new ID and move on from there. I don't know what this person wrote to you but you used the words "strange/borderline scary". I'm sure this frightened you and I am really sorry that you had to deal with this obvious nutcase.

Always trust your gut because it sounds like you have wonderful instincts coupled with a wonderful attitude. You don't blacken all the other e-bayers but can differentiate between the creeps and the good honest ones.

Wishing you all the best!
 
I'm going to go out on a limb here and post the search results in the Coach AT thread. If this is problematic, someone please tell me, as I don't want to break any rules and as I'm still fairly new to TPF, I'm still learning them.

http://forum.purseblog.com/search.php?searchid=12989208

The last post in this search lists the actual wallet that I bought and verifies that it is fake - the listing has been removed from ebay (WHY would ebay keep letting these sellers sell items that are documented as being fake??) but it's the Coach Penelope checkbook wallet.

oops - I just realized that all three posts are referring to the same thing - I thought it was 3 separate incidents when I viewed it the other day. Still, the Coach Penelope is the exact wallet that I returned, box unopened, and was attacked by the seller for saying I believed that it was fake.
 
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What a wonderful detailed post you wrote. Thank You. I have read so many horror stories this week in this forum that I've been thinking that I may never buy another thing on e-bay. I've never bought a purse but I have a very extensive doll collection all of which was purchased on e-bay. I never had a problem but the doll market and the purse market seems to be a completely different entity.

Get a new ID and move on from there. I don't know what this person wrote to you but you used the words "strange/borderline scary". I'm sure this frightened you and I am really sorry that you had to deal with this obvious nutcase.

Always trust your gut because it sounds like you have wonderful instincts coupled with a wonderful attitude. You don't blacken all the other e-bayers but can differentiate between the creeps and the good honest ones.

Wishing you all the best!

Thanks so much for this lovely reply. I actually just changed my id, thanks to the advice from you and the other posters, and hopefully that will help - hmmm. When I went back to check the old feedback from this seller, the new id is listed, so I'm not sure it will make any difference to them. They can just go look at their feedback to see what my new ID is. They're not a power seller, so it wouldn't be difficult to notice... I'm tempted to change my id back just out of consistency, if it won't make a difference in regards to safety. Oops, can't change it back now... oh well.

Well regardless, I am grateful for the supportive responses.
xo
 
Yes, you can post thier ebay ID.

Instead of changing your ebay ID, you could always have one for buying and open up a new one for selling. It would be a new account so, there would be no way for anyone to find out that it is you.


Thank you all so much for your encouraging posts.
It would be smart to change my ebay id... although it will show that I changed it, and anyone could access and see who I was before - so unless I were to open a new account, I'm not sure it would deter a person who really wanted to do damage. But it's still a good idea and I think I will go ahead and do that. Thanks for the suggestions.

I'd be happy to list the name and the posts I found in the AT - is that ok, or will I be breaking any rules?

xo :smile:

ps I want to mention that I am very glad that I stuck to my gut about feeling like this was a strange buyer and not accepting a money order. Who knows to what lengths this person would have gone to embroil me further in a nasty situation? Ebay (after all that phone time) did refund all the fees as well as removing the feedback, and in the end I learned a very important lesson regarding selling.
 
Yes, you can post thier ebay ID.

Instead of changing your ebay ID, you could always have one for buying and open up a new one for selling. It would be a new account so, there would be no way for anyone to find out that it is you.

Yes, it's just a shame to lose the positive feedback I gained as a seller. I don't sell a huge amount - only items that I decide that I am letting go from my personal collection, so each item is kind of a big deal for me :P

If you look at the link I posted, you will see the seller's id under the search details - and the seller I'm referring to is also the first one listed in the group. (Sorry to be a little oblique, I'm getting a little paranoid again, in case this group comes after me now!! yikes!) This group of sellers sell in that similar format, graphics, pictures, descriptions, etc. I am not the only one who noticed, thank goodness.