This is extremely long, but it's a pretty interesting story if you like lauging at someone elses gullibility. Mine that is.

OK, I'm admitting my stupidity right off the bat, so please lay off the smartass comments because I'm already out of pocket $1,847.50 that I probably won't ever see again. So I realize my error in judgment. I just want to let people know how I was duped so it doesn't happen again.

Another victim in this supposedly already made a thread regarding this same individual, but I didn't ever see it and he just let me know about it today.

Anyway, one of the guys in my local owner's club told me a guy was auctioning off a silver hardtop on Ebay and the current price was only about $1,800. Apparently the seller's wife totalled the S2K without the top on it and he wasn't going to get a new one so he wanted to sell the top. I sent him an email to find out more about the hardtop and he replied with the details. I was then going to bid on it but some other buyers had pushed the price up over $2,000 and I really didn't want to spend any more than $1,900 for a used one, so I didn't even make a bid and someone else ended up winning the auction.

Ebay Auction URL

Then about three days later I got an email from the seller saying that the winner of the auction decided against buyng the top because his car was yellow and it would cost to much to paint the silver top to match it. So he asked if I wanted to buy it for the original $1,800 asking price. I said yes and then asked if he took Paypal for payment. He said yes.

I then told him that I had already spent some money on my HKS exhaust since the auction and that I only had enough t give him a down payment for the top at that time. Bt I told him I'd have all the money within a few weeks when I got my next commission check. He said that was fine and over the next few weeks I sent him four payments as the money became available to me.

Here's where I should have grown really skeptical, but didn't because I really wanted a cheap hardtop. The first payment I sent him to his Paypal email address went through fine. About 10 days later I sent him the second payment and it wouldn't go through. Paypal said "This account is not currently accepting funds". I then emailed the seller asking him what the problem is and he said that Paypal was having a technical glitch with his account and that he was working it out with them. When in reality, what was proabably going on was that Paypal had suspended that account because some other buyer's had placed complaints against him for scamming them on the same item earlier.

I did not have any knowledge of these other buyer's complaints so I believed that there was a technical glitch on Paypal's part when he told me that. I know, I'm an idiot. So I asked him how he'd like to proceed because I had more of the money and I was eager to get the hardtop. He then gave me an alternate Paypal address and said it belonged to his boss and that I could send the money there and his boss would just write him a check for it. Of course I believed him and I then sent the second payment to that address, and a few days later sent the third payment. He emailed me to let me know he got those payments and the last time I heard from him was to let me know he got the third payment.

I then emailed him to say that I was going to have the last payment to send him that coming friday, and I wanted to know if he could ship the top that same day so I'd get it the following week. Well I didn't hear anything from him all week. I assumed he was busy because he'd sometimes taken a while to get back to me before. So I then sent him the final payment that Friday morning.

Well I didn't get any emails from him all weekend and then a few days into the next week. I was beginning to worry that I'd been taken. On a hunch, I then went back to the expired auction page and got the email address from the winner of the original auction. I sent him a message asking why he didn't buy the top just to see if his story matched up with the seller's story. That's when I found out I just got screwed in the butt for almost $2,000.

The reply I got from the auction winner said that the seller did not tell me the truth and that he actually did agree to purchase the top from the seller and did Paypal the money to him, but the seller never shipped the top to him. Then he told me that apparently the same guy did the same thing to another guy as well. So we know that at least three of us have been ripped off.

I've already put in disputes on my credit cards for all the payments, but who knows what will come of it. SInce the transaction went through paypal, and not directly through a vendor, I think I may be F*&!#*.

I actually saw a thread on this site that mentioned the guy auctioning the top but it didn't say anyhting negative about it. I now realize I should have been more skeptical and will be in the future. To think, I was so trusting that I forgot to even get a phone number from this guy when I agreed to buy the top. Now email is the only way I can attempt to contact him and Paypal won't give me any of his contact info because it is against policy.

I did have the guys name and also the name of the guy he claims was his "boss". I did a lookup on yahoo's phonebook and I did find a match in the same state that Ebay had him listed under(NJ), but I called that number and that guy claims he doesn't know about any hardtop. It probably is him but I wouldn't know unless Paypal gives me the real contact info.


If anyone has any info on experiences with Paypal disputes in matters like this, let me know the outcome. And for everyone else, stay away from these Paypal addresses:

njuplink@excite.com - Michael Bitondo (New Jersey)
competitiveparts@hotmail.com - Brandon Sakamoto (New Jersey)

However i'm sure this guy has already created new ones.

And if you live in NJ, please go kick thier asses.

 

dude, that SUCKS!

doesn't Paypal claim to have "$100,000 insurance" for each account against fraud?

 

nevermind, i just read through the insurance thing:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p...avelers-outside

 

The customer service lady at Paypal told me that currently they can only refund money from what the person under complaint has in their account. So if this guy doesn't keep a balance in his Paypal account, then I'll never see any money. They won't debit the bank account or credit cards he has on file. She said that their policies are changing, but that hasn't happenned yet.

I asked her, "So Paypal sees no problem in doing business with felons and the only way to punish them is if they put money into their account?". She said, "Yes."

But here's the kicker. Obviously he needs to be able to put money into his account or be able to accept money into the account in order for us to recoup any money from him, but that won't happen because his accounts are suspended so no money can be sent to him or transferred from him. So why would he want to put money in the account?

 

That sucks. Kind of makes me afraid to use E'bay. The only people I've known to use it seem to get scammed in one way or the other. Usually they don't get exactly what is described. Hope all works out for you.

 

Give me his name, website and e-mail or address. I can trace him and his current address. I have the capability. It will take me a day or two but he can be found.

One thing, and I'm going to warn everyone about this. If you enter into a transaction with another buyer especially with these kind of amounts you need to verify the individuals place of residence. Get a drivers license number. You can also use an escrow service which can save you a lot of heart ache.

One other thing, this type of activity amounts to Interstate Fraud/Theft and Transport and becomes the jurisdiction of the FBI and other Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. I suggest that you contact your nearest FBI office and file a complaint. These are serious crimes and have serious penalties

Remember "let the buyer beware." I can tell you if anyone enters into a transaction with me and pulls this crap. You can be found quite easily.

Pretty stupid thing to do!

 

Like it shows above, his email is njuplink@excite.com which he uses for Paypal purposes as well. The name he was using is Michael Bitondo and ebay said he was from New Jersey. I did find one Michael Bitondo in Trenton, but I called and he claims he isn't the guy I'm looking for.

 

Sorry you were ripped off. This scam artist, Michael Bitondo, is mentioned here too:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.php?...?threadid=28774

 

Is it possible this Bitondo guy is a member of this board?

 

I don't know. But I would assume if he's skated authorities to this point then "Bitondo" is probably an alias and we'd never know if he was a member or not because he's probably listed as someone else if he is.