Canon EOS 6D Digital Camera with Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM AF Lens, eBay scam

[realtape]

I bought a Canon EOS 6D Digital Camera with Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM AF Lens from the seller beststopdeals on eBay as a friend of mine was going from Chile to the USA from May 18th to May 27th (at 11:35PM so she would have time to received the packages before her flight), now the problem was that she had to return earlier on May 23th so she was not gonna be there when the boxes were date to arrive.
Instead the friend where she was staying received the packaged the 27th and re-shipped them without opening the boxes on June 2nd to Chile.
I received the packages on June 26th I was pretty excited so I opened them right away, I first opened the accessories the I bought from B&H (which I received without a problem) saving the camera for last, then I opened the camera package and it was full of mini iPad case empty boxes.
I was on disbelieved for an hour before I realize all this wait and all the projects that I had with my new and first Full Frame Sensor Camera fell apart.
I’m still paying for the camera and I will paying for the next 3 months as I had to get a loan to buy it.
I opened a case on eBay before the 45 days limit (I had like 9 days left) and I was so upset (and from what I researched I needed to do that right away) and also contacted the seller beststopdeals without getting a fast reply.
I lost a case in which I forgot to add information which is absolutely relevant.
Case: http://res.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ResolveCPSCase&caseId=5062170251
The seller sent a package that weights 0.1 lbs
Tracking: https://www.fedex.com/fedextrack/index.html?tracknumbers=905834515539979&locale=en_CL&cntry_code=cl_english
That weight does not match at all the product that I bought.
And actually a received a package full of empty boxes that weights 9.14 lbs
How could that be possible? It is completely wrong from what I bought.
The camera body plus the lens in the kit weights 3.16 lbs combined (Data from the seller and B&H) I supposed that is without package, that still far from the weight of the package i received and from the package that is recorded on FedEx.

I attached pictures with details and the product that I got. If there is any information that it may be relevant please let me know so I can keep updating this post.

You can find the photos on my blog: http://www.tapephoto.com/canon-eos-6d-digital-camera-canon-24-105mm-f4-0l-usm-af-lens-new-ebay-scam/

I definitely need help from anyone that be willing to do it.
I hope a solution for this, seriously.

PS: If anybody needs to contact me please do it on my contact form www.tapephoto.com or my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/tapephoto

Best Regards,
Carlos

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Lots of people have apparently had issues with them, and CPW has published some comments.


http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/warning-deceptive-warranty-card-practices-beststopdeals-delisted/


Canon Price Watch Pulls No Punches when it comes to listing scam stores.


http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/warning-avoid-abes-of-maine-and-other-bait-switch-retailers/

 

[realtape]

Hi, I just updated the original blog that I wrote about it:
http://www.tapephoto.com/canon-eos-6d-digital-camera-canon-24-105mm-f4-0l-usm-af-lens-new-ebay-scam/
All the details can be found there.
I'm very upset that they sell the same iPad Cases that were into my box and they are not willing to send the serial number.
If anybody has any helpful feedback I will appreciate it.
Thanks.

 

[mackguyver]

I'm very sorry to hear about this and think these people should be taken out to an island and shot.

That aside, how did you pay for it? If by some luck you used PayPal and used a credit card as your funding source, you should contact them to dispute the charge. A colleague of mine was scammed out of several thousand dollars for a apartment rental in Paris and didn't find out until after the 45 day deadline. He contact American Express and after a number of correspondences with them, he was able to get his money back.

Good luck and I would also recommend that you follow up with eBay on the lost case. I would also consider contacting the attorney general's office in the sellers state if they are from the US.

 

[keriboi]

How sure are you that it wasn't swapped during the reshipping?

 

[mackguyver]

How sure are you that it wasn't swapped during the reshipping?

That's pretty uncommon while the box of crap is a very common eBay scam.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

That aside, how did you pay for it? If by some luck you used PayPal and used a credit card as your funding source, you should contact them to dispute the charge. A colleague of mine was scammed out of several thousand dollars for a apartment rental in Paris and didn't find out until after the 45 day deadline. He contact American Express and after a number of correspondences with them, he was able to get his money back.

That's why I always use a credit card for my purchases. It give you so much control over scams like this. Just be sure to pay it off though.

 

[AlanF]

I just checked on eBay Beststopdeals. They have sold 63070 items with a 98.6% satisfaction rating. It's not stellar, but that is not feedback indicating scammers. I also looked at the two links given by Mt Spokane for CPW. They are not on the "bait and switch list", so I don't know why it was given, and the other link is a notification that beststopdeals will replace free of charge a 60D + 24-105 deal. Again, that is not scamming indictment.

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/warning-deceptive-warranty-card-practices-beststopdeals-delisted/
Before you accuse a seller of doing a scam, present some better facts. It looks more like a delivery mistake plus poor service than a scam.

 

[Canon1]

How sure are you that it wasn't swapped during the reshipping?

That's pretty uncommon while the box of crap is a very common eBay scam.

I'm not convinced the OP is being honest about this (or that his "friend" who re-shipped didn't steal it. While there are 338 negative ratings for this seller over the last 12 months there are over 24,000 positive ratings.

I sell a ton on eBay and eBay has a system that is in favor of the buyer over the seller. Had this been a legitimate case it would not have been decided in favor of the seller so quickly. eBay would have asked for more information if the buyer hadn't provided all the necessary details.

Also, the buyer did not report the case to ebay for 45 days after purchase. Why so much time? International shipping to anywhere in the world is 6-10 days. Even if it goes to a friend first and than to the end buyer it should have been discovered and reported much sooner.

Sorry... not buying into the sob story.

 

[Ruined]

realtape: I would stop smearing the eBay seller, as your case has a ton of holes in it with a total lack of proof on your part. There are several areas in the chain after your friend received the package the contents may have been stolen that are not the eBay seller's responsibility.

1) The eBay seller was *not* responsible for anything that happened after your friend receives the original package; if he does not claim anything is wrong with the shipment, then the eBay seller is completely out of the picture. At the point your friend received the eBay package, your friend became the new owner of the camera and anything that happened after that is in no way the eBay's seller's responsibility. Therefore this is the first reason your complaint both in this forum and to PayPal is invalid.

2) Since your friend was the recipient and became the owner of the package, he had the opportunity to open the package to inspect the contents. This was not done per your report. Therefore, once again this is your fault for not instructing your friend to inspect the goods, not the eBay seller's. This is the second reason your complaint is invalid.

Given #1 and #2:

A) There is the possibility that in transit from the eBay seller to your friend a shipping employee stole the contents of the package, or that you were shipped the wrong goods by the eBay seller. If your friend had inspected the package upon receipt, an insurance/PayPal filing at this point would have been valid. The inspection was not done. This was your opportunity to ensure you got what you paid for, and you elected not to do it.

B) There is the possibility that your friend stole the merchandise. Perhaps unlikely, but once he received the item he became the owner of it, not you or the eBay seller. If your friend said he got the camera, then replaces it with a box of junk and ships it to you, this is not the responsibility of the eBay seller. There would be no recourse for you if this happened other than filing a police report that would go nowhere as you have no proof.

C) There is the possibility that in transit from your friend to you a shipping employee stole the contents of the package. This, too, would not be the responsibility of the eBay seller. To avoid this, your friend would have to purchase insurance and signature confirmation on the package, then you could open it upon receiving it. If not as expected, you file an insurance claim with the shipping company. But, since you never inspected the package in the first part of the shipping chain, this insurance claim in your particular situation would go nowhere.


IN SUMMARY
Despite your not wanting to believe it, this situation is 100% your fault, not the eBay seller's. You put yourself in a situation which allowed for options B) or C) occurring with no way to prove that situation A) truly happened. Bottom line, you are out of luck+a lot of money and next time do not put yourself in such a precarious and naïve situation.

What you should have done:
1. Buy the item yourself from an authorized Canon dealer, have it shipped to you, and inspect the package immediately. This is the best option by far.
2. If you 100% trust your friend, next time have him inspect the package immediately and following this if all is there, he would need to set up an insured delivery to you with signature confirmation; in this case, try to use a private carrier as in my extensive experience USPS shipments are much more susceptible to theft/loss than private carriers. Once you receive the package, inspect it immediately. Remember though, after your friend receives and inspects the package, the eBay seller in this option is totally out of the picture.

 

[unfocused]

I agree this sounds less like a scam and more like a massive screw up, complicated by some fairly serious errors/omissions on the part of the buyer. With the additional complication that the seller is also a known problem seller.

First, the buyer says on his blog post that he paid for the camera with two credit cards on Pay Pal and bought the item on eBay. That's about four levels of protection and he needed to pursue each one immediately. Contact the credit card companies, contact Pay Pal and contact eBay.

(The link he offered to the eBay resolution center doesn't work for me. I assume because it is only available to the involved parties. So it isn't possible to see why they may have rejected the claim or even what the status of the claim is.)

I'm concerned as to why he waited so long to pursue this. If I receive the wrong item, I contact the seller immediately and directly (which is what eBay always says to do first -- contact the seller through eBay so there is a record of it with eBay). To me this sounds like a shipping department error and the seller should be able to track that down and determine that. However, given this particular seller's reputation, getting them to own up to the mistake could be a problem.

In the meantime, open up cases with eBay, Pay Pal, both credit card companies and the shipper, so you are on record with all of them and they start their processes.

Other than waiting so long, the other concern I can see is that the OP was not the original recipient of the package. Since the chain of custody has been broken, I don't know what problems that could present. The person who originally received the package may need to be the point of contact. In hindsight, it would have been better to instruct the person he had receive the package to open it and inspect it before shipping it on to him. Perhaps some sort of a signed and witnessed statement from the addressee that they received the package and immediately forwarded it without opening might help. Hopefully, the original tracking number is still on the box.

As for the reputation of the seller: if you check CanonPriceWatch.com, the complaints about this seller focuses on the item not as advertised. Mainly, the seller claims an item is USA warranty and then ships a grey market product. In the case of this particular seller, there was a scathing, but now-removed blog post that pretty much spelled out that the company lied to CanonPriceWatch.com.

Contrary to urban legend, there are very few cases of outright fraud on eBay. They do a good job of policing their sellers and even CanonPriceWatch.com recommends going through eBay so you have the added level of protection if something goes wrong.

For reference, here are several relevant posts from Canon Price Watch.

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/woes-with-beststopdeals-so-cpw-will-give-you-a-warranty/

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/06/protecting-yourself-during-ebay-transactions/

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/warning-avoid-abes-of-maine-and-other-bait-switch-retailers/

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/update-on-eos-6d24-105mm-for-1899-unauthorized-dealer-via-ebay/

 

[mackguyver]

How sure are you that it wasn't swapped during the reshipping?

That's pretty uncommon while the box of crap is a very common eBay scam.

I'm not convinced the OP is being honest about this (or that his "friend" who re-shipped didn't steal it. While there are 338 negative ratings for this seller over the last 12 months there are over 24,000 positive ratings.

I sell a ton on eBay and eBay has a system that is in favor of the buyer over the seller. Had this been a legitimate case it would not have been decided in favor of the seller so quickly. eBay would have asked for more information if the buyer hadn't provided all the necessary details.

Also, the buyer did not report the case to ebay for 45 days after purchase. Why so much time? International shipping to anywhere in the world is 6-10 days. Even if it goes to a friend first and than to the end buyer it should have been discovered and reported much sooner.

Sorry... not buying into the sob story.

I was also confused about the buyer losing the case, that's very rare and is why I actually video myself packing, taping, and mailing the package. Yes, it's overboard, but it's helped me win a case.

As for buying the story or not - if he's lying, why would he post here? I guess to sort out how to get even more out of the seller?

 

[AlanF]

I don't think the OP is lying. Also the sellers do sell iPad cases and so I don't think someone switched - simply, the wrong order was sent and the OP screwed up because of the delays and the seller behaved badly. Maybe someone somewhere ordered iPad cases and got a 6D + 24-105 and decided to keep it. But, not a scam.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I just checked on eBay Beststopdeals. They have sold 63070 items with a 98.6% satisfaction rating. It's not stellar, but that is not feedback indicating scammers. I also looked at the two links given by Mt Spokane for CPW. They are not on the "bait and switch list", so I don't know why it was given, and the other link is a notification that beststopdeals will replace free of charge a 60D + 24-105 deal. Again, that is not scamming indictment.

http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/05/warning-deceptive-warranty-card-practices-beststopdeals-delisted/
Before you accuse a seller of doing a scam, present some better facts. It looks more like a delivery mistake plus poor service than a scam.

Alan, I posted the CPW link with the phone number to call. CPW originally listed the deals from their auctions, and were beset with e-mails from buyers getting cameras that did not match the description. CPW pulled their recommendation, and offered a 1 year warranty to those who bought because of their recommendation, and no longer show their sales on ebay.

I also included the link to the bait and switch outfits just to indicate that CPW is pretty harsh with poor companies.

 

[Canon1]

I don't think the OP is lying. Also the sellers do sell iPad cases and so I don't think someone switched - simply, the wrong order was sent and the OP screwed up because of the delays and the seller behaved badly. Maybe someone somewhere ordered iPad cases and got a 6D + 24-105 and decided to keep it. But, not a scam.

The op states that the box he received was full of "empty" iPad cases. This implies that the seller shipped him a bunch of trash meant for the recycle bin. I simply don't believe the buyer is being fully truthful here. I'm even wondering if the buyer is trying to pull off his own scam. None of it adds up.