clownstep

I was working on a deal to get business cards printed from somebody local who contacted me through craigslist. Well, the person misread the posting and thought I just wanted 1 design printed. The deal he was offering was too good to be true I was skeptical from the beginning but, he said he's a freelancer and gets wholesale prices on printing. Showed me his website and even offered to meet up with me to show samples of what the business cards would look like when printed. When he made that initiative I said it was ok that we didn't have to meet up and I put the order through. We communicated very frequently through out this.

I put in my payment via PayPal on Monday 3/21/08 he immediately withdrew the funds, when he got my designs he told me he couldn't get them printed since it was only for 1 design. He said he'll give me a refund or I can get some webdesign created. I thought about it and went with the refund.

He says he's going to wait until the funds are deposited to his account within 3-4 days and send me the refund. Even though it was his fault for misreading the post, I said that was ok.

Well by Friday night, it's been 4 days he said he hasn't got the funds yet. I thought that was odd since I've had a PayPal account for several years and I've always had funds deposited within 3-4 days.

I e-mail him on Tuesday for a followup he says he sent me the funds on Sunday. I checked my PayPal account and online banking, I couldn't see the transaction. Which was also odd since if he didn't receive the funds by Friday night how can he receive the funds over the weekend since banks are closed.

I haven't heard from him since I tried to followup on Tuesday, asked for a transaction id. I opened a PayPal dispute on Thursday gave him another day, and escalated to a claim on Friday. Still haven't heard from him when previously our conversations were frequent.

Now, I have to wait a month for PayPal to go through all this BS.

Can I report him to the local authorities for theft? I'll wait about a week though, it's not something I really want to do. I don't really know him but, from our conversations doesn't seem to be the kind of person to steal a $100. The whois info for his website and domain e-mail check out. So, I'm not sure what's going on.

shithappens

I'd go buy a gun and a mask.

radarig

The police probably won't do anything about it. Between the small size of the transaction and the fact that it was online they'd probably consider it a waste of their time. Besides, you gave him the money, which sort of removes theft from the equation; in any case you're more likely to be referred to a small claims court which almost certainly isn't worth your time.

I'd just let the paypal dispute go through and hope it gets resolved that way. In the meantime, if you have his phone number you can harass him into coughing up; that works for me when I'm dealing with someone that has to answer their phone, i.e. someone reasonably reputable that can't just turn off their phone or change their number.

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