Watch out for Alexandra Carter (eBay seller)
#1

Anybody done business with eBay seller Alexandra Carter (alexandracarter)?

She used a very neat trick on me.

I bought an HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab 8-Bit Computer from her (eBay 160080545681) and paid for it with a money order which was received on Feb. 3, 2006 (USPS tracking number 0103 8555 7499 5332 2386).

She then claimed to have sent the HP 5036A via USPS but has not produced a tracking numner despite the fact that I specifically had asked for one.

Anyway, when I pressured her about the item, she filled a non-payment dispute against me, to prevent me from posting negative feedback on her.

This is despite the fact that on Feb 9, she sent me an eBay message (sitting in my eBay messages folder) confirming receipt of payment.

So watch out for Alexandra Carter despite her 98.3% feedback rating.

**vp

#2

My rule of thumb for people with high feedback, is to be careful if they have less than 99.5%. It seems to me that, you should be able to deal with 200 people, without offending/cheating over 1, and I think this is being lenient. Someone with low feedback can get knocked way down by one or two negs, but an established seller should have any systematic problems resolved. 98.6% tells me that this person consistently (over 7000 feedback) has trouble dealing with 1.4% of her customers.

Thanks for alerting us to the trick though. It could come in handy sometime. ;^)

Edited: 23 Feb 2007, 8:59 a.m.

#3

Feedback is a very difficult thing to evaluate consistently.

Take me for instance. I have 2 negative feedbacks over 10 years of using ebay.

One was from an idiot who posted negative feedback when an email he sent me bounced. When I asked why he didn't at least try two emails, he said and this is a quote "I figured the negative feedback would get your attention".

The other was from a strange case involving a very nice Italian man who was buying something from me and it involved neither of us getting emails from the other. The emails were getting lost in cyberspace somehow on both our accounts. Very weird. So, after a month of not hearing from him, I hit him with a negative feedback. The NEXT DAY his payment arrived. So I certainly regretted my feedback. :-( I boxed up his item, sent it off and *emailed* him that it was on the way. Of course, from HIS perspective, my feedback claiming to have never received payment looked like I was trying to rip HIM off. So, he posted negative feedback on me.

Hence my 99.7% positive feedback. One idiot and one bizarre circumstance.

Now I know my % is above your cut off level, but it can be difficult to know all the time.

Add to that the increasingly common practice where sellers or buyers leave retaliatory negative feedback anytime it is left on them, and it is easy to understand some of the ways people can get negative feedback.

However, I tend to look through the feedback comments and see if there is any consistent thread...Slow to ship...item not as described...not communicative, etc. before making decisions.

Just my 2 cents and worth that much. :-)

#4

I agree 100%, Gene. I just meant that I am extra careful if the % is not really high on an established seller. I get on my toes to detect tricky wording or missing information, etc... And like you, I read the negs.

I know there are people who just can't wait to say something bad about someone, and will leave a neg for some non-issue. I often check out the neg-leavers, and find out they have 10x as many negs as the seller I'm checking out (presumably because they like to leave negs, and end up getting them in return), which would lead me to discount the neg they left for my seller. And I've noticed that the people with many negs often have lots of transactions with other people with many negs. It's like a little congregation of highly negative people 8^). Oh well - I'm starting to ramble.

#5

Yup, I completely agree.

I have 2 negatives ... one from a seller the sold me a completely broken PDA (the thing didn't power on and was severely scratched although he described it has "nice condition and working") ... after trying to return it, the guy always refuse stating that the auction said "all sales are final" ... well the auction also said nice condition and working.
So I had to leave him negative feedback although I knew he would retaliate ... and he did.

The other one was from a buyer ... I completely described everything that went with the calculator I was selling ... and I sent the unit without batteries since I never said it would take batteries (I mainly do this because of reducing shipping, batteries were cheap AA).
The guy left me negative because I didn't sent the batteries stating that in my auction pictures the unit was tuned ON :S ... so much for idiots in this world.

#6

I bought an HP logic analyzer probe from her, paid with a check. Payment cleared a few days later. After several weeks she filed non-payment. I emailed her an image of the cashed check, etc. After two more weeks of hassel, I only got my item after I emailed her copies of the federal mail fraud forms I was preparing.

#7

Looks him there again :-) Link to HP5036A of the vp :-(

Edited: 23 Feb 2007, 11:42 a.m.

#8

Well, try my quick-and-dirty trick:

Ask the seller in advance if you can come and pick up the item (regardless of where you live). If they hit you with a resounding "NO", then you have every right to be suspicious.

Tony

#9

Couldn't one argue, in this case, that the seller sells an item that no longer belongs to her? So she sells a "stolen" item?

My ebay experience is the following: most problems occur with power-sellers and people who sell an item they are not familiar with. I try to avoid these sellers.

#10

I think a seller who does not immediately give positive feedback to the buyer once the money clears, is essentially being slightly less than straightforward. As far as I can see, all the buyer owes you is the money.

So I give feedback to a buyer once she pays.

And I will not give any feedback to a seller until he gives me feedback. Unless of course something goes wrong and he doesn't come clean.

#11

They guy who negatived you for the batteries should have had the courtesy to contact you directly first! Jeez, I'm sure if I'd been in that situation (as the seller) I would have simply credited him $2 for the freakin' batteries.

Some people are so combative.

And so nowadays I think it pays to review the feedback record of your winning bidder, too. Of course sometimes they have zero feedback.

#12

That's interesting.

#13

I would never ship a calc with batteries! I received a very nice CX once, but it wouldn't power up. Turns out a battery had leaked in transit (best I could tell), causing significant corrosion. In fact, the post office discourages (bans?) shipping batteries, as corrosive agents.

#14

I would begin with the Postal Service. I believe what she is doing constitutes mail fraud. I would also call the police in her area and report it as theft. She had a contract, you paid money, and can prove it, and she is not only holding your item, but trying to sell it again.

Reading feedback, this isn't the first time she's done this, and won't be the last till someone comes down on her for it.

#15

She originally listed five of them at the same time, and only one sold. I doubt that she's reselling one that already sold.

I bought one item from her about four years ago, and didn't have any problem with that transaction.

#16

I have many ebay sellers refused local pickup and all of these are near me. At one time I bid on one and won but the seller refused to let me pick it up so I didn't pay and he posted a negative feedback on me. However, many people told me that the sellers did have legitimate reasons not to allow local pick up. Security is usually cited as the reason.

#17

Some time ago, (1 year) I asked alexandracarter politely about shipping to SPAIN and she refused saying that she will not ship to countries or people who didn´t vote for his beloved president Bush, incredible but true!!

#18

Not surprising.

People are lemmings. They run right off of cliffs on account of being deceived by the appearance of shrubbery.

#19

She needs a history lesson.

Were it not for Spain (and Portugal, and France, and Italy, and England, etc.) her beloved land would not exist as she knows it.

What a dumb reason not to ship someplace.

I haven't bought anything from her and I want to leave negative feedback for her just for the hell of it.

Sheesh....

#20

A shrubbery!!!!

Get me a nice one.... Not too expensive :)

#21

Thanks David, I'll try to do the same and let everybody know.

**vp

#22

I had the exact same experience with her couple of yeras ago.

#23

Try asking her about combining her (already high) shipping charges for multiple auctions...

#24

Quote:
Some time ago, (1 year) I asked alexandracarter politely about shipping to SPAIN and she refused saying that she will not ship to countries or people who didn´t vote for his beloved president Bush, incredible but true!!

Can you really believe someone who overcharges and expects to stay around? It would be something a wiseguy teenager might say to defend something stupid he was doing...

#25

I feel bad for starting this thread, because the machine arrived today. The postage stamp indicated that it had been posted on February 16 (more than ten days ago -- so I was making all this fuss when the machine was already on its way).

Having said that, Ms Carter is really mad. If she had simply given me the date she posted the package instead of filing the non-payment report I wouldn't have blown my top.

Anyway, thanks to everybody for their support and helpful suggestions.

**vp

#26

I can understand sellers not wanting to give out their home address, but I'm perfectly willing to meet them at their place of employment, a local burger joint, or whatever. It irritates me when sellers insist on charging me to ship something less than twenty miles to me. Oh well.



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