Got scammed on Ebay.......got money back but still kind pissed

[LegoDW]

I recently purchased a sealed 70701 Lego set from Ebay.  Package came on time and well packed.  When I opened, seller had put a bunch of random bricks in 70701 box.  I filed a return with Ebay that day and within a few hours got a refund.  Someone couldn't have accidently put a bunch of crap in a box and not the set I ordered.  This is clearly a scam!

Anyways, my kids were really upset.  They wanted the set.  I contacted Ebay and they basically said the issue was closed and they were not going to look into blocking the seller or any real consequence for him (his name was one the shipping label).  Just don't feel this is right.  Am I wrong?  Is this this a common thing on Ebay?  Do the sellers just hope the buyers won't complain about getting totally ripped off?

Also, what should I do with the 1/2 a gal bag of lose bricks I did get?  Kind of feel like just throwing them away as assume they are of low value and tainted in my eyes?  Too strong of a reaction?

 

 

 

[deraven]

Yes, too strong a reaction.  In the (literally) 20 years I've been on eBay, I think I've had all of 1 purchase that seemed like a scam (right item, but obviously broken and put back in the box and sold as New in Open Box).  It's not common, unless maybe all you do is purchase items that seem like the deal is too good to be true - then I assume the risk for fraud is higher.

It definitely stinks that there are no larger ramifications for the seller, but if they have a ton of good feedback and told eBay something like, "I got that item marked as new myself and hadn't inspected the contents, so honest error" then it's not unreasonable for them to believe the seller, give you a refund, and move on.

Also stinks that your kids are disappointed, but such is life.  Why wouldn't you keep and play with those pieces?  You're not out any money and basically got free Lego if they're not requesting it be returned, so that doesn't seem so bad to me.  And are you really talking about 70701 (Galaxy Squad Swarm Interceptor)?  If so and they got a half-galon of parts into that smallish box, then it's almost a deal from that perspective.  ;)

You can get 70701 on Bricklink for $15-20, which is at or below original retail, so I'd just to that route instead.

[Johnny1360]

Just out of curiosity, how much did the seller want for the bogus set?

[LegoDW]

 Meant quart sized bag of old Lego bricks, only 1/2 filled.  Set was $25 sealed free shipping. 

3 hours ago, deraven said:

Yes, too strong a reaction.  In the (literally) 20 years I've been on eBay, I think I've had all of 1 purchase that seemed like a scam (right item, but obviously broken and put back in the box and sold as New in Open Box).  It's not common, unless maybe all you do is purchase items that seem like the deal is too good to be true - then I assume the risk for fraud is higher.

It definitely stinks that there are no larger ramifications for the seller, but if they have a ton of good feedback and told eBay something like, "I got that item marked as new myself and hadn't inspected the contents, so honest error" then it's not unreasonable for them to believe the seller, give you a refund, and move on.

Also stinks that your kids are disappointed, but such is life.  Why wouldn't you keep and play with those pieces?  You're not out any money and basically got free Lego if they're not requesting it be returned, so that doesn't seem so bad to me.  And are you really talking about 70701 (Galaxy Squad Swarm Interceptor)?  If so and they got a half-galon of parts into that smallish box, then it's almost a deal from that perspective.  ;)

You can get 70701 on Bricklink for $15-20, which is at or below original retail, so I'd just to that route instead.

So you wouldn't feel the slightest bit cheated if you opened your Lego purchase (in front of your kids) and a 1/2 quart sized bag of old crappy Lego fell out?  Come on, you would be pissed too!

Edited September 9, 2018 by LegoDW

[Vindicare]

4 hours ago, LegoDW said:

I recently purchased a sealed 70701 Lego set from Ebay.  Package came on time and well packed.  When I opened, seller had put a bunch of random bricks in 70701 box.  I filed a return with Ebay that day and within a few hours got a refund.  Someone couldn't have accidently put a bunch of crap in a box and not the set I ordered.  This is clearly a scam!

Anyways, my kids were really upset.  They wanted the set.  I contacted Ebay and they basically said the issue was closed and they were not going to look into blocking the seller or any real consequence for him (his name was one the shipping label).  Just don't feel this is right.  Am I wrong?  Is this this a common thing on Ebay?  Do the sellers just hope the buyers won't complain about getting totally ripped off?

Also, what should I do with the 1/2 a gal bag of lose bricks I did get?  Kind of feel like just throwing them away as assume they are of low value and tainted in my eyes?  Too strong of a reaction?

 

 

 

I would certainly feel cheated. I had a, what I thought, sealed set...yet the minifigs were all gone. That’s not quite as disastrous as yours, but it was like a punch in the gut. 

Did you contact the seller about the mistake, & if so what was their response? If they’re a regular seller, this could’ve been an honest mistake. Perhaps they bought it from a store, without knowing it had been returned with “faulty” bricks in it. 

At least you got your money back & can order the set elsewhere. It’ll be a good lesson in patience for your kids. 

[deraven]

5 minutes ago, LegoDW said:

So you wouldn't feel the slightest bit cheated if you opened your Lego purchase (in front of your kids) and a 1/2 quart sized bag of old crappy Lego fell out?  Come on, you would be pissed too!

Absolutely, I would be quite annoyed.  I wasn't saying you shouldn't be upset - I said the whole thing stinks, especially the disappointed kids - just that I think it's taking it too far to throw away the bricks you did get because they're "tainted" (unless those aren't genuine Lego but rather Megabloks or something - then I would cross over into being pissed, too!).  

But you got your money back so no real harm done and potentially a good lesson opportunity for the kids about caveat emptor… not that that's any consolation.  Thankfully it's not a hard set to find, so hopefully the next purchase will go off without a hitch!

[Peppermint_M]

As rubbish as that is, throwing away bricks is certainly too much of a reaction. At least donate them if you don't want to hang on to them, way too much goes to landfill.

You got your money back, you can use it to go buy the set on Bricklink and the children have learned a valuable lesson about buying online. Sad but true, for all the genuine sellers there are scammers. And these days you run the risk of picking up sets that are manufactured by the bootleggers like Lepin, so hey, you  avoided that one.

Free bricks at least!

[scatmanjack]

Probably 10 years ago, my wife bought me a Toy Story LEGO set from Wal-Mart for Father's Day.   I opened it up to find the bricks replaced by ziplock bags full of rice!  Needless to say I took it back to Wal-Mart and luckily was able to get a replacement without too much trouble...

[splatman]

Some people just don't know how to be rice. I mean nice.

[LEGO Historian]

On 9/11/2018 at 11:20 AM, scatmanjack said:

Probably 10 years ago, my wife bought me a Toy Story LEGO set from Wal-Mart for Father's Day.   I opened it up to find the bricks replaced by ziplock bags full of rice!  Needless to say I took it back to Wal-Mart and luckily was able to get a replacement without too much trouble...

I wonder how many "ticking time bombs" are out there.... of MISB sets that were purchased because all the seals looked like they had not been tampered with... and were put away for many years.... only to be opened in the future and found to be full of rice or worse (Megabloks or Lepin).  

[fred67]

Throwing away bricks is probably too much.  You may not want to keep them because every time you build something you'll be thinking "these are bricks that someone tried to scam me with."  So donate them.  Even just Goodwill (there are a lot better choices out there, though).

For the record, I simply haven't bought on Ebay in years.  I check occasionally, but am usually not thrilled with what I see.  I know some people have had some fantastic purchases on Ebay, and that's great, but most of the time I see current auctions already above what you can get the set for on Bricklink.

The last time I got something on Ebay I wasn't "scammed," but I ordered a complete set of Series 1 CMFs with a "custom built LEGO display."  I really didn't give a #!$ about the display, but thought "hey, a bunch of filler bricks essentially for free," but they turned out to be Megablocks.

So I'm very wary.  Even on BL, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[dr_spock]

On 9/11/2018 at 11:20 AM, scatmanjack said:

Probably 10 years ago, my wife bought me a Toy Story LEGO set from Wal-Mart for Father's Day.   I opened it up to find the bricks replaced by ziplock bags full of rice!  Needless to say I took it back to Wal-Mart and luckily was able to get a replacement without too much trouble...

Walmart auction off skid loads of their open boxes, returns, damaged, overstocks, etc.  You can bid on a skid of their AS-IS goods on their auction website. If you win, then resell each item separately online such as on eBay or in your own discount warehouse store. Maybe someone ended up with that box of rice at auction.   You never know...

 

[one79]

On 9/13/2018 at 4:09 AM, LEGO Historian said:

I wonder how many "ticking time bombs" are out there.... of MISB sets that were purchased because all the seals looked like they had not been tampered with... and were put away for many years.... only to be opened in the future and found to be full of rice or worse (Megabloks or Lepin).  

uh-oh.....should I open up all my stockpile of Lego thatt I bought from online marketplace and resellers? 

[splatman]

Not open them, just get a look under the flaps (use a strong flashlight), prying just enough to see if the glue is legit, showing no signs of tampering.

If you still have your doubts, there's always the "shake shake" method, especially if you have more than 1 box of a set, and they were purchased from different sellers/stores, shake them all and listen if their sounds match up. Different contents will produce different sounds.

[Johnny1360]

Time to X-ray all those unopened sets. 

[Adam_Lego]

From what I've heard eBay basically just dosent care about sellers 

apparently if you don't accept returns on an item

the buyer can still return the item anyway even if it says "no returns accepted"

and there was some glitch with the bidding thing

were you could bid any amount of money on an item without having a payment method on your account

for example if there's an item up for bids and the starting price is £5 you could you just put in £2000 and win the bid without having a payment method so you could win any bid without spending a penny

[Larry Andersen]

I'm surprised the bag contained real Lego bricks and not some off-brand.

[Lordoflego]

Those bricks aren’t tainted, they’re free!

you said you purchased “sealed” but did it come “sealed”? 

If so, maybe it’s not you who “almost” got scammed, it’s the seller who actually ended up scammed because he, without knowing, bought it resealed instead of originally sealed like he/she thought. My eBay account dates back to year 2000 with few thousand feedback, would I risk almost 2 decades of sales for a $25 scam? Of course not. Take a look at seller’s history, feedback etc next time and go from there. Just 2 cents from a reseller scum...

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Lordoflego