I ordered a cell phone off ebay (reputable large power seller) and recieved it, the listing said it was clean/ready to activate. So my wife called verizon while I was at work, went through a ton of stuff for about 30 minutes with them (she kept getting put on hold as they tried to figure things out) eventually they said "it's stolen/lost" so I got home, thought that it took so long to activate because the people she was working with were morons so I called in. I simply said, hey, I bought this phone and want to make sure it's ready to activate before I give it to someone, I read him the DEC number, he says, yep it's fine, and so I asked him how I could check the ESN to verify that, he said I had to activate it to check that. So I said ok, activate it. He tried and said it wouldn't work. He then informed me that they have a NEW system, he check the phone in that system, and sure enough it was reported lost/stolen.

Make sure that if you call to verify ESN number that you ask the person to check BOTH systems

 

thanks for the heads up. any recourse with the seller?

 

Man that sucks. Hope you can get you're money back somehow

 

this is why I NEVER buy things on e-bay..........

 

I second that

I remember back in the day when it was just regular people selling their used things they didnt want anymore.

now its all businesses selling a bunch of knock off crap

like "JDM style"

I hope you can get your money back, i have never had any luck getting my money back from ebay/paypal

 

cant say i agree with that.

that's like saying you wont go outside cause you might get hit by a meteor...though the odds of gettin screwed on ebay are better than that.

 

go to ANY forum on the net and pretty much half of the stuff is I got scammed by X off of Y or e-bay

pretty soon e-bay will be known as e-scam...........

 

I've bought quite a few things off ebay and never had an issue. I think people get ripped off when they don't pay attentention to what they are buying, sure there are a few scams but not from most power sellers. Also, in this situation they had no way of knowing considering verizon themselves couldn't even tell me until I activated it, and in fact told me it was clear until I tried to do that.... No harm no foul... I have contacted them and they are going to send me a new phone. I'm going to ask for just a refund but either way If I get what I paid for then that is a fair deal I suppose.

 

see? everything works out. sirnot gets a new stolen phone that WASNT reported stolen!

 

I love eBay. I agree with Sir_Nasty though.Usually scams are easy to detect, as long as thebuyers read everything. I still don't understand when people bid on things before reading the entire auction and then complain about it. I've never been scammed. I've only had 2 problems in ALL of my eBaying purchases which is numerous.

1. Sold a Sony car stereo, the guy didnt pay. No big deal, got my money refunded for the cost of the auction listing. Listed it again and it went for more then previously!

2. It was 2 days before I left for CIY with my churchand the event was in TN. So I figured I would order my projector lights and they would roughly be delivered by the time I got home. So I ordered them from: atomicstreet (Do NOT use them) then the next day I received an e-mail saying they are on backorder and I can get a refund or wait. So I sent them an e-mail and told them I wanted a refund. So I went ahead and ordered another set with a different seller. So I come back to find that atomicstreet sent me the headlights anyways. So I had two sets of headlights which screwed me out of $140. I opened a dispute and PayPalEFFED me over saying there was proof of shipping. WTF? Thats not why I was mad! They are scammers as well in my opinion.

So all in all....PayPal is easy to use but they always screw over the buyer.