scammed! by! s4cr! out of thousands of $$$!

[WHOSHAUNQ]

I'm sorry to read this. it also makes me sick to my stomach. I am going through the same thing right now. I bought a set of rare wheels from someone on eBay. the seller has over 100+ good reviews, 0 bad. so I bought these wheels, got tracking numbers, for all four wheels. I Paid for them August 14th 2012, I received two of them within the next two weeks the other two have reached the US but one of them had an address error. One has been in New York customs since September 4 but I call customs and it's not in there call USPS and they said that the package has been either lost or damaged and couldn't be delivered. Since I am not the seller I cannot open up a case against the Package to find it. I've been contacting the seller back and forth a few times without any just keep saying the patient the patient be patient, It really sucks because he speaks no English so I'm using a German translator and somebody else that knows how to speak German and English very well. So since he's not really trying to open up the case I tried contacting PayPal the make up the claim and it says contact eBay. it had eBay's buyer's protection so then I go I call the To try and make a claim and I missed the due date which is 45 days so then I can talk to somebody else and she says we can override that to 60 days and come to find out I missed it by one days and I cannot do anything about it. I then try to tell the seller to open up of the claim and is going back to the post office a few times try to figure things out and he keeps telling me that he shipped the wheels and provide tracking information so he can't he doesn't want to fix this. So now I have one wheel thats lost in the US and the other one has been sent back to him because of an address error. I've been checking the tracking numbers and it's almost to his house now. I have his name no address so I have a lot of investigating to do. it's suck, I have two nice wheels that I bought in August and hope to have before H2O and then I didn't get them, then I figured I'd have them for first-class fitment which then I still didn't have. so whatever. I guess I'm beat for now. Sorry if thi doesn't sound right but I'm using an iPhone speak thing.

fable, I don't know if you remember me, we talked at the outcast meet. I was driving the red e36 on the white style 5's with the polished lip. we talked about the wheels I was waiting on.

[M.Burroughs]

Banned.

[FABEL]

^ good lookin' out Spastic. I can't believe this guy is still at it; makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.

I love our community & how the forums (especially SW & SH) can let people from other sides of the world build friendships, but evil slobs like this just sheit in our waters & it's up to the rest of us to filter this crap out.

really glad guys are still updating this thread & keeping the goodhearted stance lovers aware of Antonis.

Shawn, I will follow up with you in short time . . . but post any progress that's been made on your OZ's.

First off this really sucks, I know how it feels I just went through a similar situation with a a user on another forum.

Please use this as a buyers guide for how to conduct business over the interwebs. If you do this you will always be protected.

First off Paypal sucks.......here is why, you have roughly 26 days to file a claim for non receipt/ wrong parts/ damaged product. With that said if you happen to file a claim in that time frame and they find in your favor money will only be refunded if you were lucky enough to file the claim when the person has enough funds in their paypal account to cover the claim. However if they withdraw funds when they are received and their account is at a 0 balance their account will just be debited and hold a negative balance until new funds are deposited, well if they never use the account again will never see your money. It is for this reason that paypal always directs your method of payment to be through automatic bank transfer it shfts the risk away from themselves and on to you.

So how to avoid this you ask..........When sending payments never ever ever send funds as a bank transfer/ cashier check/ money order.

When sending money through paypal it will ask you how you want to send funds........these are things you should always avoid when sending money through paypal. Never send funds from your exiting balance, never send funds as personal unless you know the person you are sending the money to. Never send money through automatic bank transfer. HOW can I send money then if not through these methods when using paypal, simple the only option you should ever use to send funds through paypal is the pay by credit card.

Here is why........when you pay by credit card you have the option of filing a charge back directly through your bank. This means you can call your bank tell them the date and amount of the transaction and why you would like to fie the claim. Your bank will refund your money typically within 48 hours and they will launch their own investigation. Now what happens is you have your money and the bank will take the funds from paypal to reimburse you........when this happens you have no idea how helpful paypal now wants to be since they are the ones out the money and not you.

There are still time frames on when you can file a charge back but your banks will typically give you 60-90 days. You should contact your banks directly to know the allotted time frame so you know how long you have should you go through this yourself.

I hope this helps

Matt, that will help out plenty. thank you so much for informing what I hope is many. unfortuantely, most of us never know how all of this works until we're caught in such a horrid experience & it becomes difficult to know all of the tricks unless we post such replies as you have above.

thank you, thank you, thank you. hope we can all be more cautious moving forward.

Confirmed, "cortex" on VWVortex is Antonis. Also goes by the email address mt1addict@gmail.com. GET THE WORD OUT!

I found him on a dozen sites with the username "mt1addict" and I have registered and informed those users of as many as I could that he is a scammer!

I can't believe it!

I would have thought the amount of exposure & all of the links posted, photos, & messaging admins on differing sites would have secured his isolation, but clearly I see that it has not. I will continue to stay much more active in regards to standing up against Antonis Palekis evil ways. I just care way too much about everyone's well being not to throw as many hits as possible against his existence.

[melancollie]

Hey Fabel, i know this thread is a few years old now, but did your issue ever get resolved? I read through it all and was hoping for a happily ever after

[iamjosan]

Wow this thread is epic. I just read the entire thing and this sucks! I've almost been scammed before but by Nigerians not Lithuanians. Hope everyone learns a lesson here: do your research!

Also, thanks for that EXCELLENT advice HPG-Matt. I will definitely keep that in mind when purchasing through PayPal from now on.

[vdub2625]

Thanks guys. I actually found him that last time via a tip from someone who thought the posts looked familiar. So I ran with it and posted everywhere I could, once I was 100% certain it was him.

I don't wheel shop much anymore, so if anyone has any suspicions, post them (or, better yet, pm me, just in case), and I'll run down the leads and confirm it. I don't mind