Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ebay/lens debacle, need advice!

Shawn Nelson

Shawn Nelson

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Messages
4,595
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Age
43
Location
Portland, OR
Okay, I will protect the name of this second party for the time being because I have to hope this turns out well, but I need advice.

I recently sold this lens http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290373372087 on ebay. I was extremely honest, as I value my integrity and my reputation within the international community. I took pictures from ever angle, close ups, etc. and accurately described it. I answered every question publicly. One question was
"Q: Are there any scratches or blemishes on the optics? How do you rate this lens, optically, mechanically and cosmetically? Thanks Nov-28-09
A: I'm an owner-operator but not a lens expert. Optically it looks perfect to me, flawless. The lens and body is from the 90s so its not brand new. The mechanics feel good to me, better than the Red 18-50 if you're familiar with that."

You can see my answer, optics look flawless (they are), I acknowledge that mechanically it "feels good" and it's not a new lens. But practically, there was nothing wrong with it. This was a great conversion.

I also specifically said shipping to US only. The high bidder is from Canada. I wont say where just yet. Oh well, I guess I'll do it. He tells me to not insure it to the winning bid of $2150 so he can avoid paying import duties and assures me he'll insure it for shipping with is own insurance.

So I comply, give it the best pack job of my life (triple boxing, yes, literally, 3 layers of fluff and cardboard) and fill out all these forms for him. I mail it.

He is now demanding full payment and has opened a paypal dispute with me and frozen my account to the tune of the full amount, claiming that I was completely untruthful in my statements about looking optical flawlessness because the iris ring has somehow become disconnected. He says he turns the iris gear and nothing happens. Well, this isnt that big of a deal I say, hot/cold of shipping must have loosened the screws on the external side of the iris ring below the gears and I point them out. He says he tried it and doesnt work and is accusing me of lies and so forth. My paypal account is now negative $2065 and I dont know what to do.

This guy is a Reduser, a DP with a long line of credits on IMDB. I'm avoiding the scorched earth policy to give him time to realize what he's doing. I was surprised to see how many credits he has since his basic wording is all wrong, he doesnt even seem to understand the difference between optical and mechanical. It's a technical detail, as they were both great when I shipped.

I've sold lenses before, i've sold a number of gear and have a 100% success rate until this guy.

Thoughts? I'm so mad and stressed and frustrated. I needed these funds to pay off another lens, not to dick with someone over paypal.
 
Oh, I forgot, he also had told me on Saturday to chill and that he'd have a lens tech look at it and we'd talk again this week...then he springs the paypal dispute on me tonight. So I thought the lens tech would take about 5 minutes to re-engage the iris wheel and this guy would stop freaking out.

Besides advice on how to handle him, any other ideas on why shipping would disengage the iris wheel? I thought that maybe the iris wheel needs to be turned to a proper location befeore screws re-tightened. He said screws are tightened to no difference.
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Oh, I forgot, he also had told me on Saturday to chill and that he'd have a lens tech look at it and we'd talk again this week...then he springs the paypal dispute on me tonight. So I thought the lens tech would take about 5 minutes to re-engage the iris wheel and this guy would stop freaking out.

Besides advice on how to handle him, any other ideas on why shipping would disengage the iris wheel? I thought that maybe the iris wheel needs to be turned to a proper location befeore screws re-tightened. He said screws are tightened to no difference.
Click to expand...
in germany we say, Man sieht sich im Leben immer mindestens zwei mal, in english it could be - you will see him a second time.
take the lens back, send him the money, i am sure you will find a better buyer. It is not worth to think to much about this behaviour. In our business i cannot say it is a permanent problem - but sometimes we have such experiences....
 
Can't help you too much, that sucks pretty bad. I sold a Firestore on Ebay once and the guy received it, said it was broken and when he sent it back he was right. I ended up with a worthless firestore and not much else. Don't know how it happened but you just never know. I've never met you Shawn but I've seen your name enough to bet that you're not trying to screw anyone and rather just trying to make a few pictures and keep food on your table. Good luck. I hope the party involved finds a way to work this out fairly and put his self in your shoes.
 
This would be a simpler situation if he hadn't specifically said he'd take the liability of shipping in exchange for avoiding import duties.
 
alright, i just offered him to refund his paypal if he mails it back. then i'll take the 5 min to re-screw it myself and later sell it after I prove it's good conditition. Hopefully he doesnt scratch it or sabotage it or something else like that.
 
Shawn,

So you knew you were dealing with somebody who was happy to defraud the government, why only the government?

Stephen
 
Stephen Williams said:
Shawn,

So you knew you were dealing with somebody who was happy to defraud the government, why only the government?

Stephen
Click to expand...

As much as Stephen's point is perfectly valid life is normally a muddier affair. You got slightly conned with the insurance but you where in bed with the other guy on a soft 'con' so it is difficult to lay clear blame. I say this without judgment because I can see how it could off happened to me in the past.

To be very hard on you (and I know this is not helpful at the moment)... you took a risk and all you can 'cleanly' do is take it back asap and start again.

good luck getting it fixed and resold!!

Michael L

ps I personally would not want to expose myself to the risk of a uninsured shipping and have modified my selling price on items to make insurance happen.
 
Stephen Williams said:
Shawn,

So you knew you were dealing with somebody who was happy to defraud the government, why only the government?
Click to expand...

I was just about to write the same thing.

Tax fraud = red flag
No insurance = big red flag
Wanting to ship outside of the US when you specifically said you would not = get the picture?

Take the lens back.
HOPE that Paypal refunds his money and doesn't end up permanently locking your account (which they have been known to do.)

I'm sure you are in the right here, but it becomes your word against his with Paypal in the middle. Normally in a dispute of this nature, Paypal would make the buyer get a certified appraisal of the value of the item and make you refund the difference. If you have emails from him saying he is responsible for the insurance you have some ammo, but is it worth the hassle?
 
I understand you're situation. I just lost about 2500€. I was about to sell my zeiss makro planar for contax 645 but had no luck on eBay. Than a eBay user with over 100 positiv ratings contacts me and says he's interested.he wanted to use an escrow service and poor me didn't know that 99% of them are fake. After I shipped the escrow site went offline and I couldn't reach him anymore. The eBay account got hacked and the emails he/they wrote came from all over Europe, the escrow service site owner is in Romainia - that's what the police told me. They said they can't do anything cause in the real world the borders still exist. I know shame on me to be that naiv
 
We all go through unpleasantries every now and then. I'm sure both you and the buy are not pleased. Things like this happen, fortunately it's something that is so easily correctable. Refund... move on.
 
My guess is the guy wanted to claim that not only was it used and hence not have to pay taxes on used gear courtesy of our nasty GST (5% on all new goods and services, and is traceable through Canda Border Services Agency for any goods imported into Canada), he probably wanted to insure it for less than the purchase price to keep his own insurance premium low...but this is only a guess. We get hooped on premiums up here all the time, so I can understand the 'why' of this issue.
 
Last edited:
My wife is a long-time ebay seller, and has come across all kinds of sketchy situations. Here are a couple of things she has learned:

1. Insurance is for the seller, not the buyer. The seller (in the eyes of Paypal) is responsible for getting the item to the buyer intact.

2. Paypal and eBay are a lot more interested in protecting buyers than sellers. Sellers have a very hard time prevailing in a Papal dispute.

3. Scamming is very prevalent on eBay. Regard any request to deviate from what you feel is on the up-and-up as a huge red flag.

3. The best recourse she has found is to offer a complete refund if the item is returned to her in its original condition. But it's not a great answer.

(And if it gets really ugly, threaten to report the f***er to Canadian customs. The fact that you didn't insure the item doesn't absolve him from paying his import duties.)
 
Stephen Williams said:
So you knew you were dealing with somebody who was happy to defraud the government, why only the government?
Click to expand...

If you restrict your dealings to those who do not defraud the government, then you can't deal with any US citizen. Do you know *any* US citizen who files use tax forms every month as required by law? Who pays thousands of dollars extra every year, even though 99.999% of the populace doesn't bother? Even though they know they cannot be caught if they didn't? If so, I'd like to meet them, because out of the hundreds of people I have talked to among my coworkers, friends, family, colleagues, etc., I have met only one other person who does so. Everyone else simply defrauds the government every time they buy out of state (online) or from an individual locally.

Of course, many of them don't even know that they're liable for use tax. Others evade use tax because they find the bookkeeping work and monthly filings too burdensome. But some just don't pay it because they know they wont get caught.
 
This morning I agreed to do a refund if he mails the lens back in the same condition as he received it. So I guess that's what happens. Then i'll get it looked at and sell it again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top