Requesting legal advice about an Ebay/PayPal purchase.

[ScammersAngerMe]

Hi, I'm not too sure if anyone here can help me, but I figured it is a good place to start since you guys are generally pretty helpful and intelligent.

I bought an item on ebay in about mid December. The item was for 2500 dollars. I paid through paypal with 800$ of existing funds and 1700 through credit card. I received the item, but it was NOT as described, and the valuable goods that were supposed to be contained in the package were fakes / not what was auctioned. I still got some value in the item, it was maybe worth 500-700 dollars. I immediately contacted the seller and told him that he better refund my money completely, and I would send him his junk back OR I was disputing the charge on my credit card. He didn't refund my money, and instead tried to stick up for his scam, so I issued a chargeback for 1700 since that was the amount put on my card.

Fast forward 2 months, I won my chargeback dispute because the seller never responded to PayPal's inquiries regarding the dispute (he had 10 days to do so). Even if he had, I strongly believe that he wouldn't have won anyway simply due to the fact that PayPal's SPP doesn't protect sellers based on goods that were "significantly not as described" not to mention their user agreement also specifically states that buyers are perfectly entitled to seek credit card chargebacks.

So, what it boils down to is this: I ended up paying about 800 dollars for something that is worth about 500-700 dollars. To me, this isn't too terrible of an outcome but I would STILL rather have just gotten my money back completely and sent this scammer his junk back.

Anyway, the reason for my post is this. Today I receive a voicemail message from the seller threatening to take me to court for 2500$ + fees (such as travel expenses for him to fly to my state etc) to a maximum of 7500$ allowed in my state (or some BS like that). I'm really not worried at all, and intuitively, it seems that he has no leg to stand on. I mean, I followed all the proper courses of action that I am legally allowed to do, and HE was the scammer and HE never responded to the dispute. But then again, I really have no knowledge at all about legal matters. So, I am hoping one of you can shed some light on this for me and tell me if I really do have anything to be worried about. If no one knows, perhaps you know a website where people do help out with this sort of thing.

Thanks!

EDIT: Forgot to mention what state I live in. I live in Minnesota, and the scammer (seller) lives in Washington.

 

[divgradcurl]

Hi, I'm not too sure if anyone here can help me, but I figured it is a good place to start since you guys are generally pretty helpful and intelligent.

I bought an item on ebay in about mid December. The item was for 2500 dollars. I paid through paypal with 800$ of existing funds and 1700 through credit card. I received the item, but it was NOT as described, and the valuable goods that were supposed to be contained in the package were fakes / not what was auctioned. I still got some value in the item, it was maybe worth 500-700 dollars. I immediately contacted the seller and told him that he better refund my money completely, and I would send him his junk back OR I was disputing the charge on my credit card. He didn't refund my money, and instead tried to stick up for his scam, so I issued a chargeback for 1700 since that was the amount put on my card.

Fast forward 2 months, I won my chargeback dispute because the seller never responded to PayPal's inquiries regarding the dispute (he had 10 days to do so). Even if he had, I strongly believe that he wouldn't have won anyway simply due to the fact that PayPal's SPP doesn't protect sellers based on goods that were "significantly not as described" not to mention their user agreement also specifically states that buyers are perfectly entitled to seek credit card chargebacks.

So, what it boils down to is this: I ended up paying about 800 dollars for something that is worth about 500-700 dollars. To me, this isn't too terrible of an outcome but I would STILL rather have just gotten my money back completely and sent this scammer his junk back.

Anyway, the reason for my post is this. Today I receive a voicemail message from the seller threatening to take me to court for 2500$ + fees (such as travel expenses for him to fly to my state etc) to a maximum of 7500$ allowed in my state (or some BS like that). I'm really not worried at all, and intuitively, it seems that he has no leg to stand on. I mean, I followed all the proper courses of action that I am legally allowed to do, and HE was the scammer and HE never responded to the dispute. But then again, I really have no knowledge at all about legal matters. So, I am hoping one of you can shed some light on this for me and tell me if I really do have anything to be worried about. If no one knows, perhaps you know a website where people do help out with this sort of thing.

Thanks!

EDIT: Forgot to mention what state I live in. I live in Minnesota, and the scammer (seller) lives in Washington.

Don't worry about it. If he does sue you in your state, fine, let him explain to the judge how he is entitled to the benefit of his (scam) bargain. Keep copies of the eBay ad, everything you have sent back and forth, the PayPal stuff, etc.

It's unlikely he would bother anyway. You can't sue for travel expenses and the like in small claims court, which is why it is usually not worth it to try and sue someone else in another state -- all he would be able to sue for is the $1700 plus court costs, and, like I noted above, he would have to convince the judge that he is entitled to that amount in the first place.

Probably nothing to worry about, but keep copies of everything anyway, just in case.