The PayPal FBI is on a manhunt

They're hunting the guy who took my $38.50. I had won an auction for a box of Topps 2008 Heritage Baseball cards by a guy who lives in Albemarle, NC. I was perusing for boxes of cards and I noticed this guy and I figured I could win out the auction (including shipping) for cheaper than what it's going for on wholesale sites. I like the 2008 Topps Heritage cards because they look like the 1959 Topps cards which I always liked growing up.

After winning the auction on October 2nd at around 10:50-something PM, I promptly pay as I normally do with Paypal auctions. And I go on my merry way thinking this guy will ship it and should arrive very soon because I'm literally an hour and a half away from him.

I'm generally a trusting person and I give people the benefit of the doubt because the last thing I want to do is jump to conclusions and look stupid for it. For the auctions I win, I let them run their course and only become concerned when it starts hitting the 2 week mark and I haven't heard from the seller. I've noticed some people ship in cycles, some ship right away, some are procrastinators I suppose and just take their time, hell something could come up to delay shipping. I read user feedback (specifically negative or neutral feedback) to get a feel for the seller. Speaking of which, this guy's feedback had been 100% positive...up to that point.

A couple of days ago I started to wonder about this auction and checked the date and time of the auction. At this point, I've forgotten this person lives in Albemarle otherwise I would've realized that 2 weeks is a long time to ship. Dave from Fielder's Choice sent my girlfriend some cards and they arrived in one day. He lives the same distance from me as does the dude from Albemarle! So when I realize this guy is the Albemarle guy, then I realize that I've been hitting the snooze on this one for way too long.

I check the guy's feedback. HOLY CRAP! 12 Negative feedback's since October 8th and all of them claim he never sent the item. At that point, I wanted to give him instant negative feedback but I know I couldn't wholeheartedly do that without making an attempt to contact him. Maybe there was an explanation and some people were jumping the gun on the negative feedback.

I send this letter to him via the "Contact a seller" thing on eBay:
"Do you have any information on when this item was shipped out and possibly a tracking number? I live about an hour and a half away from you so I figured the shipping wouldn't take very long."

I knew in my heart I would never get a response but I had to send it out so it wouldn't look like I jumped to conclusions. This was yesterday...fast forward to today.

I get on eBay and go to my "I need to leave feedback on" link to get to the auction site. The first thing I notice is a nice little "This user is no longer registered on eBay" note next to that auction. So I click on the auction url. BAM This listing (320306795856) has been removed or is no longer available. MOTHERF@#$@#....!

So, I took it upon myself to file my very first Claim Dispute with PayPal. So what happens now? I have to wait for the PayPal police to investigate this guy with my claim and the other 12 or so people who were rear-ended by this guy. Will I get my $38.50 back? I have no idea, I see all these guarentees that my purchase is protected or whatever but I have a hard time coming to terms with how that works in a real situation.

There's still a piece of me that believes something horrible happened to the guy and he's unable to complete any transactions or someone hacked his account and started selling fictious items. But either way, I should be informed IMMEDIATELY of said situation. This is someone else's money we're talking about and we deserve to know what's going on. If it turns out that Mr. Donald Short of Albemarle, NC has taken our money and ran with it. I want my damn money back. I don't care about cards, I could care less about the amount of money. I hate being lied to and taken for a fool. I sent you money in good faith and all you had to do is honor that by sending the goods or simply say, "hey, I can't do this, here's your money back." THAT'S ALL. I hate it when someone takes something that is such a good idea then rapes and defiles it.

This isn't how I wanted to start out as a blogger but I guess starting from the ugly side can only mean that the blogs can only get better from here on out. I'll add updates when I learn what Paypal is gonna do to help right this wrong. I guess I'll just have to be more vigilant on eBay from now on.

On a random note, I loved typing Albemarle over and over because it reminds me of Kelly Pickler on American Idol saying that word with her very Southern accent. She always seemed like a person that was a few cards short of a full set.