Ebay Frauds?

Just like many other ebay users, i sell and i buy from ebay. But as much as we want to be a honest seller, to give a 100% true and full account of the item we are selling, we expect other sellers to be as honest as we are. However, we need to know that there are dishonest sellers around!

Having many unpleasant encounters with dishonest sellers, the thought of giving up on ebay crossed my mind. However, instead of withdrawing from my bad experiences, i decided to write them and advise other ebay users of how they can protect themselves!

Recently, i made a purchase on ebay for a bag. Looking through the photos almost 20 times to make sure that the item is not a imitation or a fake, i decided to buy it. When the item arrived, the alignment of the print is completely out and it is obvious an imitation, a fake! But because the seller indicated 'do not accept returns', i could not do anything or report this seller to ebay!

What can you do to prevent things like this from happening?
1) Make sure that you check through the photos and the materials used to be real before even bidding for the item or make a purchase
2) Check whether seller accept returns, it is ok if seller DO NOT accept returns
3) Make payment with paypal and only in a single payment. DO NOT accept oversea sellers offering you a discount to make payment via transfers at a discount, especially if item is expensive

If after you have done all the above, but still you encounter the same situation as me, what should you do?
1) Contact seller and communicate with seller
2) Indicate to the seller the reason why you think it may be an imitation or a fake
3) Try to come to an agreement with the seller that you will be satisfied with. Whether is it a full refund, a partial refund or other agreements
4) In the event if seller is not responsive to your messages and have indicated clearly that they DO NOT accept returns, try reporting to ebay
5) However, there maybe times where item is not under the ebay buyer protection. Do not be despair. You can go to paypal solution center and file a case against the seller via the transcation
6) If seller still does not response to paypal solution center, you may then escalate to a paypal claim where the money will be withheld from both the seller and the buyer till paypal review the situation and come out with a reasonable payout
7) Be patient to let paypal review the situation but at the meantime, try to keep record of as much evident as possible, as paypal might ask you for some information

Unless seller tell you personally and guarantees that item is authentic, do not assume that it is authentic. There are many replica nowadays that comes even with the authentic card, so even if the seller has an authentic card, it no longer guarantees that the item is authentic anymore. So unless you get a personal response from seller that item is authentic, do not buy.

My 2nd case is as such. i asked the seller whether item comes with authentic card and seller replies yes. However after the first case, i wrote to the 2nd seller immediately to ask whether item is 100% authentic and his reply was that it is from a private seller and it comes with the authentic card. After prompting further, he could not give a 100% yes and say that if i receive the item and still do not like it then i can send it back but i will have to pay for postage and bear the cost of sending the item back.

SO BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN YOU ARE PURCHASING ONLINE. Make sure the seller could tell you and assure that it is a 100% authentic even before you make the purchase so that it will save you all the postage fees and the trouble of sending the items back. Postage fees can easily cost up to $100 per time, so be wise!

However, there are some items that you can live with even if they are not authentic, just like those i mentioned in my previous post on Real or Fake.

My Voice of Stand

I'm sure all over the world have heard about the City Harvest Church Singapore news that broke out last Tuesday. This is my view to the matter.

According to the charity code of government, there must be 100% transparency of how money are used to the executive members of the church, meaning members with the voting rights. CHC have actually not only been 100% transparent to the executive members, in fact they even voted for the project and how the money should be used during their agm in 2008, subsequently in 2009 and reinforced in 2010 after the first time this saga broke out. The fact is, CHC even post up their financial statement on their website yearly, after the external audit is done. However, the media is saying that the members of the public, which should be referring to the executive members, were not informed of what the money is being used for, therefore is a fraud. They did not objectively interview only executive members to find out the truth but have been interviewing people who happen not to know about what was going on or may not even be an executive member and blow up the matter.

This reminds me of the yearly speech by our prime minister on national day. Played on all locate channels and even translated in different languages and even played back on various timings. However, honestly there are still many who doesn't watch or listen to the speech. If questioning the members of public and found that they did not know about how the government are using the tax payer's money for, does not conclude that our government have not been transparent with the use of our money. In fact, honestly i think I really don't know how the government uses the tax payer's money. So if all who contributed have the right to know all the breakdown for the money used then I would be quite interested to know how are all our taxes being used too!

Then the question is, how transparent should transparent be? How accountable is being accountable enough? To what extend is an information suppose to be passed out to 'everyone' to establish the same understanding and not have any wrong idea of what it means? Should 'everyone' in the country or in the 'world' be informed or is the executive members of the organization good enough? Is there a need to let 'everyone' know and have an opinion over what they are doing or planning to do? Should all organization be taking in people's opinion all the time? Is there a possibility to come out with something that pleases 'everyone'? Is there any organization that does not face any oppositions from 'anyone'? 

There's always 2 sides to a story, no just true or false but we need to know that all truth are mixed with human emotions and personal perspective. If you are not for it, basically you are against it! You can say that you are very neutral but really, there is no neutral stand. Deep down inside, it is either you are for this or against this. If you are against, no matter how neutral you say you are, you tend to take in all the negative reports.

I advise that the media should not continue to blow the matter out of proportion and leave the judgement to the judge and juries. I pray they will see the truth and I believe that the just will stand! Websites like sammyboy.com, singaporedaily.net, sglinks.com, mememaker.net etc should be charged for cyberbully! Using presumptuous words and images causing others to have a wrong and wayward view of a matter. They should be seriously warned of the offense and if they do not take down offensive contend, they can be sued or even shut down. If the government allow these sites to continue, then they are sending out a wrong signal to the people that the use of cyberbully is ok. I'm looking forward to see what the government is going to do about this, with all said and done.

What is wrong with Sun? Is she 'judged' just because she is a pastor's wife? But if the husband is fine and the church is fine, then who are the 'outsiders' to judge? It's just like in a family, you want to do something and your parents are fine, then you got some random aunties coming to your house and murmuring about all that you are doing, gossiping among themselves, this and that. HAHA! Does it stop you from doing what you want? NO! So why should anyone try to stop others from what they are doing? The crossover project is a project of the church and 'outsiders' will never understand why they are doing what they are doing because the 'outsiders' are not them! In fact, i think the crossover is completely cool and i see that peoples' lives are changed, families are transformed and all the humanitarian works done are not 'broadcasted' so that the 'outsiders' will know!

I think Sun is pretty; she is hot and she can really sings well! Most importantly she touch lives by being out there in the different disaster areas to help, build schools and orphanages! In fact, all she has done in these humanitarian works and missions are my inspiration to start 'Shop a Cause', to donate out all my items and do something really meaningful to help others!

Lastly, judge not that you will not be judge but with the same measure you judged, you will be judged. Judgement belongs to the Lord!