So everyone here is a wheeler and dealer aren't you? Of course you are. But anyways. I'm into radio control (I know, I'm super gay) monster trucks and stuff as a side hobby mostly. I don't mess with them alot but I do, anyways to the point. There was a guy here on an RC forum (more like a playground then a forum, seriously) and he was selling a roller (just like a real car, did you guess that there was everything but an engine? good guess!) and he wanted $200 + Shipping. Well, since my buddy wanted a truck I decided this would be a good buy and he could use one of my extra engines for now.
So here is the deal, in full.
$200 for the truck.
$25 is the estimated shipping cost.
Payment method : Paypal
$225 shipped if you can add numbers together.
So I agree to paypal him $225 and he will ship out the truck asap. The deal was done mostly over the phone, txt & call and on msn. Well, he asks me if I could send him the money as a gift, instead of a regular payment to avoid fees. Little red flag going up here, Fees on a $200 purchase is going to be like 6 dollars. I've thrown away car parts worth more then that. I tell him flat out that I don't know him well enough yet to be sending payment for an item as a gift, I am pretty sure it's not as safe as regular. He says fine and to just paypal him $225 normally. So I do.
A few minutes later after the payment has been sent he starts *****ing about the $6.83 fee. He says he got the short end of the deal and that shipping could be over $18 and that would mean he got less then $200. Well sorry folks, thats just how things go. Blame paypal for taking out a fee so they can insure you when you make a bad transaction to a shady guy, like this person. He then says "well I'm going to send the money back until I find out the shipping cost sorry" and he refunds me, and signs off msn. And I'm thinking. "Wow, he wouldn't sell me the truck unless it was sent as a 'gift'.. seems like a schyster to me." So in result of his quick back out and leaving, I text him and I'm like "hey? what went wrong where'd you go? I can cover fees if that's what you want." Because literally, $6.83 is not that big of deal. Thats like cruising around town for an hour or two, I'll just watch TV tonight and call it even.
So in result of this I put a thread up on the forum we were both on in the trader feedback section. And basically told the people there what happened. And like one or two guys off of that forum replied and said things like "Oh well you didn't do the transaction the RIGHT way" or "Oh well he would have been $2 short because shipping is more like $20 instead of $18" and "You should have just PM'd him about this problem"... Okay. First off.. PM = Personal Message. I texted the guy, and we were chatting on MSN. It doesn't get more personal message like then having the guys number. Transaction the "RIGHT" way? Gift vs Send Money. Well I don't just give my money away so I bought the item legally on paypal, I'd call that the RIGHT way, sorry if you disagree. And $2 short.... Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally? Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally? Reaaa... CMON lol.
As a result of me saying "hey guys, watch out, this guy seems kind of shady" I get my thread DELETED. Yeah, DELETED. Someones obviously hiding some ****. And then I believe I have been banned, or their forum just sucks, probably both. Because the guys considered "Staff." And you can't say bad things about staff members. Bio248 you drive a subaru. Ha, I said something bad about a staff member. (Kidding dude, but you need to buy a wrx!!! gogogo!)
What do you guys think? I mean, I seriously don't feel I did anything wrong, and I honestly believe if I had sent the money as a gift I could have gotten handed by this guy.