[Test-Equipment] Ripoff seller warning

[Chris van Lint]

I agree that it is difficult to argue that there has been a rip off, since
you did not loose any money.

I had an experience recently where I won a bid for a Tecom 1.71 - 1.85 GHz
Antenna.  I am located in Hong Kong and the seller did indicate that he
ships internationally.  The winning bid was for $20.00, which I imagine the
seller thought was too low.  This was back in December last year.  I had to
contact the seller several times via email to get a final cost including
shipping, because most emails were ignored.  Similarly telephone calls
connected me to an answering machine and requests to reply to my emails were
ignored.  I finally got a reply about a month later in the middle of
January.  He quoted $90.00 for shipping, presumably in the hope that I would
give up.  As I view the bid as a contract I did go ahead and paid the
$110.00  When I still had not received the gear in the middle of February I
sent the seller several emails enquiring about shipping details, which were
ignored.  Again phone calls to answering machines requesting replies to
emails were ignored.  So finally a couple of weeks ago in desperation I left
negative feed-back.  This brought the seller out of the woodwork, who had
the gall to complain about me leaving negative feedback.  He said he had
been trying to figure out how to fit the item in a package that met the
limits set by the postal authorities.  If he had bothered to answer my
emails, I would have known and could have suggested an alternative.  So
after three months, $110.00 out of pocket and no item.  Now that I think is
a rip off.  Being so far away there is not much I can do.  I have found eBay
to be rather indifferent about these things.   One has to wade through pages
and pages on the web and the final advise is to try and settle the issue
through emails and phone calls, which is great if the guy answers emails and
phones.  All the other methods of redress expire after 3 months.
Fortunately this has been my one and only bad experience on eBay.

Chris