How to get an uncooperative ebay buyer to pay for their purchase

mooSe_

FH is my second home
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Lol I thought this was pretty clever of him.

How I got an uncooperative eBay buyer to pay for her purchase. Was it unethical? : funny

Quoted from the link:

First of all, I am not claiming to have invented this trick. I imagine others have used it with varying degrees of success. I also want to point out that nothing here is embellished or exaggerated.
I had tickets to a sporting event and couldn't attend. I made a 1-day listing and clearly stated that the tickets must be picked up in person within 24 hours (the game was the evening after the auction ended, so there wasn't any time to ship the tickets). A woman won the auction for about $600. The auction had ended at 10:00am and by 5:00pm she still hadn't responded to my emails trying to organize the exchange. Finally, at 9:30pm, I got a one-liner email: "I overbid and my husband won't let me buy these. Sorry and enjoy the game! :)"
I first tried explaining that I wouldn't have the time to resell the tickets (I already got turned down by the losing bidders). She said, "... that's not my problem. It's eBay, not a car dealership. I can back out if I want." I still don't understand the car dealership reference.
I was pretty upset. I was basically going to be stuck with tickets to an event that I couldn't attend. That's when I got the idea to convince her to change her mind.
I created a new eBay account, "Payback" we'll call it, and sent her a message: "Hi there, I noticed you won an auction for 4 [sporting event] tickets. I meant to bid on these but couldn't get to a computer. I wanted to take my son and dad and would be willing to give you $1,000 for the tickets. I imagine that you've already made plans to attend, but I figured it was worth a shot."
At 11:30pm she responded to Payback: "I'll do it for $1,100, no less. I can meet you at the game if you agree. I need your phone number."
At 11:35pm, Payback wrote: "Deal. Here is my number..." (Thanks Google Voice for the throwaway number). She called a few minutes later and made Payback "promise" to go through with the deal. She emphasized that she'd be out a lot of money if Payback backed out. Payback swore he would never do such a thing.
At 11:45pm, the woman emailed me: "Fine. I'll buy them. But you have to drop them off at my house tonight. I'll have the cash ready." So at fucking midnight I drove to her house across town and met her on the road in front of her apartment building. She was a nasty and rude individual. Things didn't get any better when I told her I wanted an extra $20 for the trouble of driving there at midnight (yeah, pushing my luck, I know). It became very awkward and she literally threw 31 $20 bills at me. I counted them before handing over the tickets. I said, "thanks for the great transaction" as she flipped me off while walking away.
At 10:00am she called Payback to make sure they were still on for the exchange. Payback said that he could no longer go to the game and wouldn't be able to do the exchange. She blew her fucking top and I swear to god started speaking in tongues. Payback said, "Ma'am, this is eBay, not a car dealership" and hung up.
I got a rabid email 10 minutes later telling me that I was going to hell and that she's reported me to the local police, FBI, and... the fire department. WTF?
I never heard another word from her. I have no idea if she went to the game or not.
Was this wrong?
EDIT: The Rabid Email
"Fuxking funny fucker! You know you can go to JAIL for this. YOu theef!!!!! [City] cops FBI fire and government already no. Your done. I got your number and your name. This is thefting property FUCKER!!! Give my $620 back or everything bad wiil happen - FUCK!!!!! You cant steal and get away. Refund me now or else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You dpnt want a lawsuit. Trust me. u dont. You can have tickets jut give my my money and be done."
That's the bulk of the email, word for word. There was more at the end too. She must have pressed 'enter' 30 times and wrote "FUCK" and the another 30 times and wrote "HELL". Then she wrote her name which was strange.
EDIT: Shameless Plug
So my story was far more popular than I ever could have imagined. I recognize that many of you are "charity-ed out", but I figured this was worth a shot. My father-in-law has cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. If you were able to save a few bucks from my story or just generally appreciated it, please consider donating to the American Cancer Society in his name here:
https://www.justgive.org/basket?acton=viewList&donorId=485078&listTypeId=1
 

Ormorof

FH is my second home
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Dec 22, 2003
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hahaha awesome, "you cant con an honest man/woman" as they say in that show whos name i right now cant remember :p

greed is a funny thing :)
 

Killswitch

FH is my second home
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Jan 29, 2004
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I do have to wonder slightly about the legality of this. She's clearly guilty of breach of contract which is serious but I would expect to be a civil case. Now by impersonating another person and making a deliberately false offer, I presume the original seller is committing fraud which I believe would be a federal offence.

Not that it's not funny as hell though :)
 

Ch3tan

I aer teh win!!
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Dec 22, 2003
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She's got counter-scammed on ebay. Tough luck.

Well done the seller. Buyers have all the power on ebay these days, nice to see the bitch get hers.
 

Killswitch

FH is my second home
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She's got counter-scammed on ebay. Tough luck.

Well done the seller. Buyers have all the power on ebay these days, nice to see the bitch get hers.

Just out of interest, do you not see a difference between the two actions?

1) She agreed to pay for something and then reneged on it. She might have had perfectly good reasons for doing this, although that's not in and of itself an excuse.

2) He deliberately misinformed her of his identity and intentions in order deceive her into parting with $600.

Now the reason she backed out of the original agreement might have been an unexpected medical bill for a child or something else equally serious. Or it might be that she's just a greedy bitch.
 

Ch3tan

I aer teh win!!
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
27,318
From the story; she's a greedy bitch.

I couldn't care less tbh, it's the reason I stopped using ebay long ago now.

Well done to this net warrior.
 

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