RIPPED OFF on Ebay

[Healer2K]

A friend of mine recently bought a cell phone from someone on Ebay. Once she paid for and got the phone, and tried to activate it, she was told that the phone was reported LOST OR STOLEN. So, she can't activate it.

When she contacted the seller, he claimed he had told her he was selling the phone for a friend of his who is away at school [he didn't.], and that he'd get back with her. He didn't. She filed a complaint with Ebay, and they want her to pay them $20 for a mediator to intervene in the situation.

Does anyone know what she can do about this situation?

[mendel]

if you paid via paypal using a credit card, (and the credit card is from a decent bank) you should be able to dispute it.

[KenS]

It won't get you your money back, but call the cops. If the phone was reported "lost or stolen", then at a minimum the person selling it was probably scamming his phone or insurance company, and may have stolen it. Revenge is not only sweet (if unlikely, the police have bigger fish to fry), having already filed a report is a good defense if the phone company accuses you of stealing the phone.

[Critic]

This won't be of much help here, but for future...is there any way that as a buyer, you can request that the seller send you some kind of verification from VZW that a phone hasn't been reported lost/stolen? I know that in many cases, sellers don't want to release the ESN numbers, but there has to be a happy middle ground somewhere...

[njsvrzncdma]

no way really unless you have the esn.....

[pcardoza]

Originally Posted by Healer2K

A friend of mine recently bought a cell phone from someone on Ebay. Once she paid for and got the phone, and tried to activate it, she was told that the phone was reported LOST OR STOLEN. So, she can't activate it.

When she contacted the seller, he claimed he had told her he was selling the phone for a friend of his who is away at school [he didn't.], and that he'd get back with her. He didn't. She filed a complaint with Ebay, and they want her to pay them $20 for a mediator to intervene in the situation.

Does anyone know what she can do about this situation?

Unfortunately, there's no way you can ever be 100% certain when buying through Ebay, BUT, there are precautions you can take to minimize your risk. ALWAYS check out the seller's ratings in detail. Only buy from sellers with an excellent rating (98%+) over many, many transactions. If you stick to these rules, the odds of getting ripped off are greatly reduced.