In a landmark court ruling eBay will pay more than $23,000 in damages to a duped user who never received the gold bars bought on its auction site from a fraudulent seller.
The duped Austrian paid for one kilogram of gold from German company ML Agentur which had a local police record for fraud and has since gone bankrupt.
eBay advertised the company as a power seller and particularly trustworthy.
The court has ruled the online auction site had been aware of ML Agentur's record before the gold bar transaction and was therefore guilty of negligence.
Based upon a particularly bad experience, I recommend that anyone buying through eBay had better do so through PayPal or directly through a credit card. Even if you have enough documentation to prove your case in court, the hassle of going to court makes it a mug's game to reclaim unless the amount at stake is large relative to the hassle. Reclaiming the money through PayPal or the credit card is much more convenient. I have a bank-deposit receipt to another's account, for which I got nothing, to remind me of that.
(It wasn't for gold or silver, I should add. I've never had any problems with any gold or silver eBay seller; they've all kept their word, and one of them was particularly nice regarding a refund.)
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Dear Buyer,
ReplyDeleteIt's my pleasure to inform you about my product ''Alluvial Gold Dust". I am Mark Adjei the family secretary of Adjei royal family here in Ashanti Region, Ghana. We are very happy to informed you of our product as it is always be every year. This year we are having in stuck 450 kilograms of aluvia Gold dust ready for sell. We normally export our gold to the states for sales, but due to sudden death of our head of the family Paa Owusu Hansa Adjie on the February 17 2009, and lack of the fund for the family at this particular time, This makes us to invite any interested buyer to visit us in Ghana to have look at the product we have on ground.
After all the necessary arrangement between the buyer and the family including the testing of the gold at PMMC to the satisfaction of the buyer, The family will be ready to release the gold dust to the buyer for shipment to his country for sales with agreement that the family representative will accord the product to the buyer destination to collect the money after sales of the gold. The expenses of the family representative during the period of this transaction shall be the buyer's responsibility.The price shall be determine depending on the kilos of gold the buyer wants. There will be discount of 20% to the world market if the buyer is ready to buy the gold here in Ghana with his cash..if you are taking the gold out of Ghana with the family representative to sell and pay us after selling your discount will be ten percent(10%) We can always negotiate on the price based on the world market price.
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Thank you for your corporation. You can contact me on: golddust@post.com
we will be very glad to hear from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Kwasi Adjei