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Ebay Scam & Secret Website — Parallax Forums

Ebay Scam & Secret Website

ercoerco Posts: 20,260
edited 2011-06-05 08:15 in General Discussion
A friend of mine got taken in my seller "manantial32" on Ebay. I've warned of this clown before, and I'll do it again here. He makes amazing claims to sell things on Ebay, but it's always an overhyped scam to sell his overpriced, inconsequential parts. He mentions the BASIC Stamp by name. He tries to sweeten the deal with "free software", but he just has a few old pages on his "top-secret" site that list links (some long-dead) to well-known freeware or trial commercialware. And of course, he only reveals that secret website after you buy his stuff. Avoid this seller like the plague, it's like making a deal with the devil: never as good as it sounds. For example, his $10 memory expander is a shift register: http://cgi.ebay.com/Parallax-Boe-Bot-PIC-ARDUINO-XPANDED-MEMORY-CHIP-FUN-/260663870523?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb0c7043b

His Ebay items: http://shop.ebay.com/manantial32/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686


His SECRET websites:

http://wsop1.sky.prohosting.com/FREE_SOFTWARE.htm
http://wsop1.sky.prohosting.com/Programs_for_the_Parallex_Basic_Stamp.htm

Ebay feedback for item " Parallax Boe Bot PIC ARDUINO ATOM 3D BORG MATRIX FUN": this "kit" was only some led's and a resistor

Comments

  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2010-09-18 15:13
    Thanks erco
  • iDaveiDave Posts: 252
    edited 2010-09-18 15:14
    Yep, I've always laughed at this guy's listings!
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2010-09-18 15:27
    The scammy content notwithstanding, he should be at least taken to the woodpile for his crappy web design. Yuck!

    -Phil
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2011-06-03 17:53
    His old web site was closed down and his new one is at http://sites.google.com/site/robotsoftwaresite/home/programs-for-basic-stamp

    If you can suffer through his "crappy web design", there may be some useful info in there...
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2011-06-04 17:16
    On my system (Ubuntu w/ chromium) one of his links on his new website is overlaid on itself. How did he do that? The HTML appears normal enough:
    <p align="center"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"><font size="7" style="background-color:#ff0000"><strong><span style="font-size:13.5pt"><font color="#0066cc" size="7" style="background-color:#ff0000"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1220059703/ref=sr_pg_2?ie=UTF8&amp;rs=&amp;keywords=stefan%20sperry%20&amp;rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Astefan%20sperry%20&amp;page=2" rel="nofollow">CLICK TO SEE MY RECOMMEND LIST OF GREAT BOOKS</a></font></span></strong></font></span></p>
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,452
    edited 2011-06-04 17:32
    eBay needs to do some serious reorganizing. Their reputation system is completely borked.

    My wife got scammed by a buyer. She sold him a box of decent quality semiprecious gemstone rough (a sideline -- most of you didn't know that while I was at UPEW Saturday, my wife was at the airport buying geodes). He paid quickly and she left positive feedback, but then he came back and reversed the Paypal charge claiming the material wasn't up to spec. All right she said, send it back, but he kept making excuses. At this point she couldn't change her feedback. What he did finally send back was 20 lb of random lapidary scrap, not the original material.

    Fortunately my wife has a husband who works for a scale company so she pays attention to weights. When they pointed out that the verifiable UPS records shows she shipped 22.5 lb of "approximately 20 lb" out, but he returned exactly 20.0 lb -- he didn't remember the exact weight, and just tossed worthless junk in the box until it weighed exactly 20 lb. PayPal noted the discrepancy and put the money back in her account.

    He probably won't make that mistake again, though. Future transactions, if conducted at all, will not be rated until the return complaint period has expired.
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2011-06-05 07:19
    It doesn't matter, a seller cannot leave negative feedback anyway.

    Bean
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,452
    edited 2011-06-05 08:15
    Bean wrote: »
    It doesn't matter, a seller cannot leave negative feedback anyway.

    True, but she can at least avoid leaving positive feedback for a scammer.
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