Gunbroker avoid list...

Since we all use Gunbroker quite a bit it seems, we should have a little database of deatbeat buyers/scamming sellers and put it in a sticky.

I have been using Gunbroker for something like 7 years now?? I have done maybe 50 or so transactions, I dont know.. anyhow, I attempted to sell a $65.00 AR15 free float tube on there like 2 weeks ago. Had a guy bid. Won. No contacts me despite several emails to him, including one with my cellular phone number. No dice. So I called him, cold contact, and got his voicemail [Farmer's insurance?!] which was full. So I say forget it, eat the costs and repost it. I didnt even bother leaving him negative feedback.. for what thats worth [how much can you say in 200 characters!?]

At any rate, I relist the item, still after not having heard from the guy in nearly 2 weeks, and low and behold, he bids again!?! So I try to block his bid; doesnt work apparently after they have already bid on your item. So I figure Id give him the benefit of the doubt and call him. I caught him Sunday evening, he's like hey whats up, all friendly and asks me where Im at. From his tone, he thought I was someone else.. I said yeah, you had bid on my Gunbroker item and never got back with me, and suddenly his tone changed and he stated he was walking into church and asked if he could call me back in about an hour. Never heard back from him.

Fast foward to this evening.. about an hour ago I suppose, I get a call on my phone from an unknown number. It's this guy, asking me what I had wanted. I said, yeah, you bid on my item, won and didnt contact me for almost 2 weeks. I relisted the item, ate the fees, and now youre bidding again. Do you want it or dont you? First he states that he was out of town at the end of the previous auction, and forgot all about it. I said hey I tryed to leave you a few messages on your Voicemail and he told me that people had lives. I told him that relisting it, though not a big deal costs money, and people need to take responsibility. He then tells me that 'technically' it had only been 12 days since the win, and Gunbroker states that a 'reasonable' payment time is two weeks. I said ok, thats fine, if you would have called or emailed me to say that I wouldnt have cared. Then I reminded him that Gunbroker states upon winning every auction that you have 5 days to contact the other party. He said he had never heard of that one, and starts to get rude.

He said that he would like to pay me for the item, but I only accept money orders, and he has a problem with that, as he is too busy to go out and pick one up. I said thats fine, some people work business hours, then you shouldnt have bid on my item, as it states pretty clearly in the description "USPS money orders only." His answer was, "Yeah, yeah, well I am going to pay you through Paypal. I said first of all Paypal doesnt accept gun related transactions, and I dont have a Paypal account. He said, well how about a credit card? I said, listen buddy if you dont want the item, or you cant pay for it you shouldnt have bid once... definatly not twice. Then he starts the ranting. I told him thanks but no thanks and hung up on him. :takinWiz:

The guy sounds educated and speaks rather affluently. I am guessing he is an insurance agent [based upon his Voicemail Box] and let me just tell you, this guy is quite a pompus ass. If you cant get along with me, probably the most laid back person on Earth, theres something wrong.

I started peering through his feedback, like over 500 ratings, and strangely enough, they are mostly positive.. BUT, if you look at them closely, every tenth auction or so, this guy gets a negative comment/rating whereas he pulls the same ****: he wants to pay his way, or when he wants, or both, and then when he gets the negative feedback, he uses words like "feedback blackmail," "rude," and "horrible customer service," and is just appaled that he received a negative rating.

So at any rate, if you made it this far, and use Gunbroker, just add this guy to your blocked list and save yourself the hassle. SUZZY

Thanks for letting me vent. Joe

Sorry to hear about that. I had one bad transaction once. The account name was bbq05 . They had mostly good feedback, but they screwed me and a few others too.

I have seen that behavior for years on ebay and thought that GB had higher standards. It must be the economic times we are living today that some people want things bid and cant afford. Frustrating ...

Money orders. Last year i used to get MO's from my bank and send in the mail till usps lost the mail and MO it took 60 days for the bank to issue a refund. From now on i only get Post office MO's they will make it right. Food for thought...

I've had problems on two purchases, both from west coaster sellers. Both took the money, shipped the goods with no bill of sale, FFL, or other positive ID for FFL source records.
After working through initial beligerance and resistance, I was able to resolve the issue each time, but after the experience, I have really changed my approach dealing with individuals over the net.
I courteously contact them by email and phone to confirm their committment to provide data needed to finish the transaction.... BEFORE I make an offer.
Having said that, the majority of transactions have been very smooth.

I bought a used Ruger Lipsey 44 special Tues and it would not let me complete the transaction as there was no record of it. I googled the seller and called them, they could not complete it from their end either, We agreed on how to do things and Wed Noon Gunbroker aagreed that I had bought it. It may have been a software error but way too weird.

I've often wondered if some guys don't get buyers remorse for bidding so high so they 'fall of the earth" then hope the item will get relisted to see if they can get it cheaper.

i don't think it is economic times, i think that every once in a while, you just run across an a**hol*. i used to work in the motorcycle industry, and most of the time, things go well enough. but every once in a while, we would fix something, and the guy would never come pick it up. it would sit there for sometimes two years, and all of a sudden, he would show up, wanting to ride it away. then be pi**ed that the thing wouldnt start after 2 years of sitting! some people are just id**ts. and then of course, there is the guy who brings in hiw whatever to be repaired, who has no intention of having it fixed. he is just looking for a place to dump it. they drop off the machine, using wrong phone numbers, and possible even the wrong name, saying please get this running. after it is diagnosed, when you tey to contact the person, you simply can not. they we were stuck storing whatever it may be for an indefinte amount of time. sometimes you would hear from them, most times not. basicly any item that sat there for more than 3 years was sold as scrap.

I sell and service outdoor power equipment. If I have something here after 30 days, I mail the customer a certified letter telling him we consider his equipment abandoned and give them 5 days to pick it up or it will be sold. As far as them dropping off stuff so We have to junk it, We now get a deposit on ANYTHING brought in to our store for repair, It stinks that we have to do it, but people will take advantage of you if you let them.

I have bought and sold quite a few items on both Gunbroker and eBay over the years. While every once in a while the item I got was not exactly as it was described, it was generally close enough that I didn't complain, up until last month the huge majority of my experiences have been perfect or nearly so.

Then about the middle of last month I bought a Christmas present for my wife on eBay. I sent payment via PayPal and shortly thereafter got an acknowledgment from the seller and a tracking number. It was a Friday, and as is not unusual the tracking number was not found in the FedEx system over the weekend. I started to get suspicious when it still wasn't found the next week. The seller sold a total of five of the same item that I bought and as time went on feedback started to appear that either the item had not arrived or it was a cheap knockoff of what was advertised. I attempted multiple times to contact the seller and I got no response and nothing ever arrived. So, I contacted PayPal and filed a dispute. Almost as soon as I did the seller provided a different tracking number, which also turned out to be fraudulent. As it stands right now I am still waiting for a refund from PayPal. They say I should hear something on that by the 20th, but that doesn't necessarily mean I will get a refund by the 20th, if at all. Its already been over a month since I paid for the item. What really chaps my hide is the price I paid on eBay was only about $20 less than I could have purchased it locally for, but I have three kids and my wife hasn't worked for pay for a year and a half, so $20 is $20. Even so at the moment I'm still out my $140 and I may or may not get it back in time to buy my wife a present before Christmas (which I will then have to buy locally and spend the extra $20 anyway).

I'm a police officer in the jurisdiction where I was when I made the purchase. I am seriously considering talking to the DA about subpoenaing the records from eBay and PayPal and then taking out a warrant for Obtaining Money by False Pretense against the seller. The problem is that while that is a felony, its probably not a serious enough felony for us to extradite the seller from Louisiana to North Carolina. On the other hand, I could enter the warrant into NCIC and that would probably turn into a big hassle for the seller over time. If the seller was closer I would have already begun the process.

At any rate, one bad transaction over more than ten years of buying stuff on the internet isn't bad, but it probably couldn't have come at a worse time for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by XWrench3

i don't think it is economic times, i think that every once in a while, you just run across an a**hol*. i used to work in the motorcycle industry, and most of the time, things go well enough. but every once in a while, we would fix something, and the guy would never come pick it up. it would sit there for sometimes two years, and all of a sudden, he would show up, wanting to ride it away. then be pi**ed that the thing wouldnt start after 2 years of sitting! some people are just id**ts. and then of course, there is the guy who brings in hiw whatever to be repaired, who has no intention of having it fixed. he is just looking for a place to dump it. they drop off the machine, using wrong phone numbers, and possible even the wrong name, saying please get this running. after it is diagnosed, when you tey to contact the person, you simply can not. they we were stuck storing whatever it may be for an indefinte amount of time. sometimes you would hear from them, most times not. basicly any item that sat there for more than 3 years was sold as scrap.

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I ride a bike and consider many I know and ride trails with the salt of the earth but with bikes you always consider the posibility they were behind bars for a couple of years.

A few years back I sold a pistol on GB and the winning bidder never got hold of me so I left a negative feedback and a protest on the fee. I got the fee back and sold th pistol at the next gun show. Fast forward one year I get a call from the dead beat winner asking if I still had the pistol, I was so dumbfounded all I could say was no. After I thought about it they had big brass ones to call a year latter.

I have sold Hundreds of items on Gun Broker over the last 8 Years, and maybe 50-60 items on Auction Arms (have not used AA in 3-4yrs). One handgun purchase I made did not work because of the firearms regs in the state I lived in then, but the seller took it back, I did pay the return shipping. I have had only one Negative feedback in all that time for items I sold, 99.99% of everyone I have dealt with has been excellent, wish all the people were as decent as the folks from Gun Broker & Auction Arms.
32ideal

I wonder if it wasn't some anti gun nut just trying to cause trouble for a seller. Costing the seller fees and time to sour him/her from using the system to sell gun related items at all.

Some people are clueless but make up for it in gall. My wife and I run a mini-storage business. She got a call a couple weeks ago from a woman that wanted to get her stuff back. Wife didn't recognize name and said she would check our records and call her back. Turns out the woman stiffed us for three months rent and abandoned her stuff five years ago! Of course it was long gone, and by our records it was junk that even the auction company we use wouldn't take so we had to pay to have it hauled to dump. Wife called her back and told her that we had disposed of her stuff five years ago. The woman threatened to hire a lawyer and sue us for theft or somesuch. Wife said that's fine, when we go to court we would show the judge the court records documenting that she had not shown up in small claims court when she was served with a summons and that she would have to pay us court judgment of back rent, five years interest, the cost of disposing of the trash she left in her unit, attorney's fees, and prior court costs. Oh, and if she lost this case she would again have to pay attorneys fees and court costs. She told my wife to commit an impossible act and hung up.

How clueless and self centered are you to sign a contract, break it, and expect somebody to store junk even the Salvation Army wouldn't take for free for more than five years?

j23, you can get credit for the auction fees if you have a non-paying bidder.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Non...derCredit.aspx