Beware and what would you do?

[sspingler 0]

On Nov 23rd I ordered 17 5000M cones of Arc thread from a woman in Pennsylvania. She cashed my check (I don't have a paypal account) and said she mailed out my order on Dec 14th. After a week I emailed her that I hadn't received it and could she please send me a tracking number so I could find out what happened to it. I never heard from her.

After 2 weeks, I sent her another email asking her for the tracking number again or could she please reship it UPS with a tracking number.

I did get an email from her saying she would resend FedEx and send me the tracking number. I never heard from her again.

I sent her another email last week saying if I didn't get the order by Monday (yesterday) I would have no recourse than to file a complaint with the postmaster general for interstate mail fraud. I also filed a police report. The sheriff tried to call her but got no answer.

I would rather have the thread (17 cones of Arc for $84.78 will last me a very long time and is the cheapest I've ever found) but at this point, I won't except anything other than a money order.......if we can resolve this.

What would you all have done?

[sspingler 0]

I forgot to add that she also did this to 2 of the other girls on our site but they paid with paypal so they shouldn't have any problems getting their money back.

[Sheri Butler 364]

Where did you purchase this from. An internet site? or Ebay?

Just curious.

[GSmit 0]

Hi Sharon

I would have done the same thing, you go girl. If she was on the up and up there would not have been a problem.

Good Luck I hope you get your money back.

[Stagecl 13]

It angers me when others take advantage. I hope you get your money back. Did you give her a don't shop with her rating on Ebay?

Good luck.

You should publish her name here so we can avoid her.

Cheryl

[shadows4 0]

I bought some through Stagecl (Cheryl) and she was wonderful! Maybe it's best to try to avoid someone you don't have another personal link to, as on this site, but sometimes that isn't easy. It seems there might always be that danger ordering online.

The way to combat it might be as the others have said, to publish the name, at least here, so others can avoid her.

I hope they catch her. Good luck also.

[mrsbishwit 2]

It appears that you and the others were part of a scam, you are lucky that you even got a response, most don't respond at all.

It will be hard to recoup your loses especially if transaction was handled over the internet were anyone anywhere in the world can be or say anything. Who's to say this person is even at the address that was posted in the ad you responded to.

If so much time hasn't have gone by you could have stop payment on your check but since this is over a month old not much your bank could do. From now on if I were you only go through paypal or only with business that are trustworthy and established.

[Jhend 0]

I hope you didn't buy from her after you knew about the first 2. Again, if it sounds too good to be true....

For ARC threads, I buy from Melcomart. They have the best service and sales http://www.melcomart.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=24

I don't think I'll ever use up all the thread I purchased the last time!

[Primitive1 802]

This happened to me once at a Craft show, the person gave me a worthless check and when I went to her bank, I overheard them saying "wow, this makes a total of $5,000.00 in bad checks." I knew I would never see my money so I filed a police report along with several others that came forward and it ended up being a felony charge, however, I don't know if they ever caught up with her. A friend of mine suggested that I put an ad in the paper advertising a free fireplace screen (the handpainted item that she took from me) only that you had to call before 6 am....(the ph # on her check had a person answering that said she didn't know when this girl would be back so I thought it was prob her) I never did it but enjoyed thinking about it. I don't know how some people sleep at night...well I hope it turns out good for you!

Vicki

[sspingler 0]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

I don't want to give this womans name or site on any forum but if anyone wants to know who it is, you can U2U me anytime and I will be happy to give it to you.

[sspingler 0]

No she is not a member here. I got her site info when I googled Arc thread. I found that she had it for $4 where Melcomart had it for $ 7.30. $4 sounded much better to me.

A friend on another site asked for her name and after I told her, she responded that she had to ban her from one of her sites because she was a deadbeat. Wish I had checked into her before I ordered.

But I'm pretty confident I can get my money back since I filed reports with the postmaster general, the states attorney general and the police dept.

[JuliaDay 0]

I wouldn't publish her name on the site. You wouldn't want to get trashed for bashing her.

Other things you can do:

If eBay, you can notify them as a bad seller in addition to the poor rating

If you have her local information, you can turn into BBB Better Business Bureau, or local police. As the lady said above, sometimes it goes deeper than one order.

You can send a demand letter to her residence / address and threaten legal action (small claims court). You would have to file in her jurisdiction and also appear in court to receive judgememt.

BE PROFESSIONAL and good luck!

Julia

[mrmquilt 1]

With my experience with ebay several years ago.....

If you payed with paypal on your credit card they would NOT help you get your money back BUT I got my CC company to refund the money.

If they paid through their paypal bank account paypal will help you get your money back. If you don't wait to long.

I sure hope you get some resolution to this.

Michele

[sspingler 0]

The 3 of us just got emails from this lady. Simply said "the site was supposed to say that the store was closed from Dec 27th to Jan 7th" Says she works nights and when she gets off work in the morning she will drop our orders off with FedEx and send us our tracking numbers. Her husband was supposed to mail them but didn't. Said she was gone on vacation and didn't have internet access"

How does that explain that she was suppose to reship my order on Dec 29? And when I called her house on Dec 31, her son answered the phone and said she wasn't there right then but I could call back later?

And she had been changing her specials on her site almost every day?

We'll see what happens tomorrow.

[Jhend 0]

Sharon,

I only buy from Melcomart when they have a sale and they were less that $4.00 each. Maybe that is what this woman does. Buys on sale and resells them at a profit. Maybe worth getting on Melcomarts e-mail list. Just my thoughts.

[Susanri 3]

if you paid by check through the mail it's a Federal offense! Mail fraud is a big deal report her to the FBI get a copy of the check and her info and report it! That will get your package delivered or a refund.

[Susanri 3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_fraud

[sspingler 0]

Thanks everyone.

The 3 of us got emails from her yesterday saying she had shipped our orders FedEx, I will have mine by close of business tomorrow. I am getting current emails from FedEx as to it's location.

She said her husband was supposed to mail them out and didn't. Lame excuse if you ask me.

I did file reports with the states attorney general, the postmaster general and the sheriff. Even tho she did indeed ship the order, I won't pull the claims. She has to be made aware that she can't do this to people.

She said that her site was supposed to say that it would be closed from Dec 27th to Jan 7th but it didn't. And she was updating her specials almost daily.

If this woman is running a business, she needs to learn to run it properly.

[mrsbishwit 2]

Glad things are working out.

I agree if a person wants to run a business (above or below the table) they need be to responsible and if they say they are going to do something than they need to do it in a timely matter, and honestly...you can't push the blame/ resposibility onto someone else if you want to remain in business.