[Closed] Just been stung for 2k by foum user

Pitchforks at the ready !

Blimey,he's sold a lot of stuff!

How did you pay?

Three rocks, two with pointy corners and a bag of gravel

It wasn't me, I didn't do nothing, I was dead at the oh no wait it actually wasn't me, suitcases down, passport back in drawer, act like nothing happened....

in vgc

Well obviously not!

2k for a second hand carbon bike....rather you than me, that doesn't excuse being ripped off but when dealing with amounts of money like that I wouldnt do business with some bloke on a forum.

Another classifieds only user with dubious morals

Small Claims Courts

Well it turns out its true. You shouldn't buy from forum members who only/mainly sell.

when dealing with amounts of money like that I wouldnt do business with some bloke on a forum.

hate to say it, but I agree with this.

2k and carbon would make me want to see it in the flesh first. Although he's clearly a tool.

Forum history of only trades, no discussion forum contributions - and ad copy that read cut and pasted from ebay (likely buyers here don't need to be told what a Scalpel is, they'll know if they are in the market).

Sorry you got burned. Kick a fuss with Paypal if that's how you paid.

My first stop would be citizens advice...or trading standards. Get some legal/consumer rights advice then email the seller with the results.

Good luck getting your cash back.

cracks around both bottle cage holes

Any photies?

You shouldn't buy from forum members who only/mainly sell.

Not really forum members are they, it's just someone with a login posting ads.

How did you pay?

[IMG] [/IMG]

Just sue him - moneyclaim.gov.uk

Easy, cheap, let the sod get a ccj and as your £2k down, might as well baliffs to his life for a little extra.

[img] [/img]

just goes to show that having faith that people aren't gits is never a good idea. Small claims as above? Did you pay via pp, and if not then you'll have his bank details? Can you post them up so I'll know not to every deal with the guy once he's changed his user profile and assumed another identity.

I feel your pain...

God, I bet you feel sick, I would. I hope you get it sorted.

Lots of Devines in BT phone book for Glasgow, but no Ns. Do you have any other details about him? His address for example? How did the frame get to you? By courier? Did it have a 'from' address on the despatch note?

Did you not think to inspect the bike before handing over 2k?

Still not right of him to be like that and you do have a recourse, hopefully you paid with paypal!

If all else fails check out a carbon repair place. Its in such an unstressed area that a small repair could solve problem???

It's DEFINITELY not a sticker?

That really sucks, hopefully you paid with proper paypal or with a CC?

I'd suggest reporting him to the mods so he can't rip anyone else off but they don't appear to do anything to ban people who scam members on here.

I don't want to give too much away regarding my next steps, don't want to pre-empt anything.
Be carful out their chaps, some right tosses masquerading as decent folk.

Keep um peeled

Sherifs court, rather than Moneyclaim for Scotchland.

Stolen from MSE...

If you're buying second-hand goods from private seller (someone who doesn't sell goods for all or part of their living) your rights are nowhere near as strong as when buying from a shop.

The only protection is that it's correctly described and the owner has the right to sell it. Here it really is a case of caveat emptor or 'let the buyer beware'.

So if the seller says nowt or little about the goods and you buy it, then that's it. Even if it's shoddy, you weren't mis-sold, so have no comeback. Though if they lie to you – you do.

Basically if he said it wasn't cracked, you have a case. If he said nothing about it - you have no comeback (apart from stalking him on facebook, and driving up to stage a hanging)

In seriousness, I hope you have some form of redress. Did you get pics of the frame, did he hide the cracks in them?

I hope you have some form of redress.

As a seller I always try to arrange face to face for anything in 3 figures, and I don't sell cracked frames...

A quick google of his email address shows he uses it liberally. try conventional methods first, but I'm sure the STW Vengeance Machine could make his life hell, indefinitely... just say the word 😈

Do you have his home address?, if so i'd be having a quiet word with him but i take it you are not local to Glasgow seeing as you got the bike delivered. He described the bike as vgc so it should be a relatively easy proposition to take him to the small claims court.

I'd suggest reporting him to the mods so he can't rip anyone else off but they don't appear to do anything to ban people who scam members on here.

OP sorry to hear that and I hope you get some redress

m0rk - Member

Basically if he said it wasn't cracked, you have a case. If he said nothing about it - you have no comeback

Described as Very Good Condition, clearly isn't, so not as described.

If you paid by Paypal, and not gift, then they'll do some arse-kicking for you.

..if only stw towers felt as strongly about this as they did about TJ

The [strike]scammers[/strike] classifieds only users drive traffic - therefore advertising revenue - to the site, TJ probably didn't [most days] 🙂

Are we (the forum) able to see said cracks?

I think before we put a tyre round his neck, can we see this cracked frame,because at the moment its all just hearsay.

its all just hearsay.

no it's not, it's first hand

I'm still awaiting a set of Stans Valves that I bought off here over a month ago. This thread has reminded me that the situation could be worse!

Did he try to claim it happened in transit? Or just a straight up 'sorry your issue'?

Having said that its frightening what a quick google of an e.mail address brings up isn't it? If I was a dishonest scammer I'd perhaps have sense not to use my normal e.mail account to do business from so that some dusgruntled nutter and his pals didn't turn up at my house/place of work demanding 2 grand.

I thought it was 2nd hand?
Get ya crack out lets see it.

Chuckled at the description here:

http://www.mtbe.co.uk/cannondale-scalpel-carbon-1-2011-may-take-px-t27980.html

[i]'it's a cracking bike'[/i]

I learned my lessons last time. Bought a pair of gloves from 'bert', never seen them, or the money. Was only 7 quid, so not comparable to your loss at all. I now never ask to buy or sell with PayPal gift, or buy off a classified user only. Hope you get some joy mate, you must be gutted.

I'm in Glasgow if you would like me to have a word just ask. That's if you show us this cracked bike of course.

How is it a piece of piss to get an address from a car registration number?

From the dvla website

Release of another vehicle s keeper details

You can obtain the name and address of the registered keeper of a vehicle if you can show reasonable cause for needing the information.

Members of the public will need to complete form V888. Companies can either complete form VQ3 or apply in writing giving full details of the reason for the enquiry and the vehicle registration mark. Both forms are available from DVLA.

The fee for information at a specific date of event is 2.50 per vehicle. If further information is required, for instance, a copy of a document or additional keeper information, a fee of 5 is required per vehicle.

Send your application to: Vehicle Record Enquiries, Vehicle Customer Services, DVLA, Swansea SA99 1AJ.

It is an offence to unlawfully obtain personal data which is contrary to Section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998. Unlimited fines in the Crown Court (or to a maximum of 5,000 in the Magistrates Court) exist as penalties in respect of these offences.

I've used it a few years ago to find someones address for a similar problem to the OP.

Failing that he's advertising for a new full sus mtb on mtbe.co.uk as below, get someone to open up a false seller email correspondence with him and there you go, scam him back with a non existent bike and find his address.

[url= http://http://www.mtbe.co.uk/wtd-full-suss-mtb-26-or-29er-t28118.html ]scam the scammer[/url]

If his number is up on his car *cough* accidentally *cough* make a claim for him hitting you.

This may be useful: [url= http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/54 ]Sale of Goods Act 1979[/url] (search for the term '[b]merchantable quality[/b]')

i bet he's loving reading all this... NOT ! what a wnkr !!!

That's me, pebblebeach and glasgowdan all up for a visit.

You could always try ringing him at work?

the FB page lists his employer

Add him as a friend on Facebook and see if he accepts then just write all over his wall how he ripped you off. Or add his wife and try the same.

Might bring it home to him that it's silly to rip people off and it can get very close to home very quickly.

i have his house address if you want it.......i sold him some stuff.

email me if you do.......addy in my profile.

Send ton to give him a fist pie!

I am not sure what the solution is tbh but this will keep happening.

Deliver a sheep's head to his house.

This is getting somewhat ridiculous - the release of his car index, FB with work contact details, offers to disclose his H/A etc??

We have ONE account - and that's all at the moment and we still await to see the alleged defects.

Can I suggest we exercise a little more restraint and open mindedness?

We all need to keep a look out for his posts in the classifieds. just post a link to this thread under all his adverts.

We have ONE account - and that's all at the moment and we still await to see the alleged defects.

Yeah, as terrible as it sounds I'm with deluded on this: be good to see some pics of the alleged cracks.

If I were the purchaser I'd hope that I had some photos to hand, the sellers word for word response and a second opinion or two before lighting the touch paper, but I'm sure that'll all be revealed very soon.

As said though, the bottle cage area is very low stress area, I used my Principia for a couple of years with a split around the boss,eventually it cracked around the head tube. Patch it up and use it, you're not down 2 grand unless you were planning to sell it on.

[img] [/img]
So the pic isnt great but each of the two bottle cage bolts have at some point been over stressed. Probably falling sideways with a bottle in a cage. The bosses have torn the carbon so the whole area flexes.

He may have not known about this prior to sending the bike but the attitude sucks balls to just say ,not my problem NO REFUND.

I live in Hampshire so no opportunity to see him. Small claims are a totals waste of time in my opinion, in the past I've won a case but this doesn't get you the money back. It only proved you were right.

Thanks for the info guys , appreciated.

I live in Hampshire so no opportunity to see him

For £2k I would be making a journey.

For £2k I would be making a journey.

For £2k, I'd be looking in the sales and buying a new bike from a dealer. Not that this excuses the [i]potential[/i] problem here.

Put it on classifieds and hope no-one on this thread sees it. 😯

Seriously tho' looks nowt to me but if it does flex as you say then another reason to stick wi alloy for my next push-iron.

"the whole area flexes"...expand?

If you paid by Paypal, get a claim in. I had to recently and got my money back. You need to have not paid by gift though, and submit a claim as the item was significantly not as described.

Here's how I did it: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/possibly-scammed-advice-appreciated

just needs new bottle cage rivets imo, had the same on an alu frame.

Have you sought the opinion of a trusted local bike shop yet as opposed to all of the arm chair experts on here?

If i pull the bolt lightly to the left the whole are around the crack from 6 oclock to 12 oclock position will lift by a few mm.
Same thing happens with the bother bolt hole.

I don't trust any of the bike shops I know. They tend to be next to useless.
The bike arrived today and I looked at it this evening so not had a chance to do much.

Regardless of what happens to me. Let it be a warning to others that the guy is a retard and shouldn't be trusted.
I purchased a bike from a guy who I though was a decent chap, the end .......... You live and learn.

The guys does some amount of selling across a ton of different sites

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nickdevine81%40hotmail.co.uk&sugexp=chrome,mod=16&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=nickdevine81%40hotmail.co.uk&hl=en&prmd=imvnsfd&ei=eP1IUJC_H8fC0QW37oDoDg&start=0&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=2fec7a1f50583e74&biw=1280&bih=873

Knowing absolutely nothing about carbon bikes and therefore possibly offering a completely useless contribution, wouldn't that boss be made of alloy and be glued onto the carbon? Could it be that the glue has parted with the carbon rather than a carbon crack? It also just looks like a paint crack possibly caused by the different expansion properties of carbon and alloy under temperature fluctuations but you say the whole area moves so I return back to my 1st point.

Hope you get it all sorted mate, the attitude stinks, real carbon crack or not.

Here's hoping he has a change of heart pdq. Seem's like a normal enough bloke.

But selling a carbon bike without mentioning cracks in the downtube...........

May as well have robbed him in the street!

[s] I used to be able to squeeze the downtube and (gently!) flex the bottle cage side to side on my old maxlight xc pro (the lightest one they did at the time with massive oval downtube), and there were no cracks anywhere on that, even after I rode the tits off it.

I would be taking it to a good bike shop preferably a Cannondale dealer and asking them if it is the laquer that's cracked or the frame itself. [/s] [b]Edit: took so long typing this that the preceding posts have rendered the above irrelevant. [/b]

Attitude of seller stinks. I would have had those bottle bosses properly looked at before sale and then been honest about whatever turned out to be wrong.

Hello

Sure is a nasty feeling when something turns up not as you expected - especially when the seller sounds like a proper piece of work.

Now, I am only going on what I see in your picture but I do have quite a bit of experience with carbon fibre as I'm an aerospace non-destructive test engineer for my sins and I asses supposed cracks in carbon fibre aircraft components (along with aluminium) quite often.

To be sure it's cracked the first thing you will have to do is take the paint off in the area of interest. It may sound obvious but paint doesn't flex nearly as well as carbon fibre and will look cracked even though all is ok below. If underneath it still looks cracked then the only way to tell how bad it is, is to use ultrasonics to see if the carbon lay-up has disbonded. Carbon fibre really doesn't fail like metals do and what would be a crack for sure in metal may well not be in carbon.

Drop me an email if you need any more information. I would offer to take a look at it but you're quite a way from me.

I know it's probably little consolation but you look to have some great kit on that bike. Worst case situation is you get hold of a new front triangle and move the components across, or break and sell. If you tot the parts up you may not lose as much cash as you think.

Hope all this helps 😉

attitude of the seller (though to be fair we havn't actually seen the emails he sent either) not very good - however the damage doesn't look world ending either - take it to a cannondale dealer, get them to tell you the score, and if it's no bother/fixable for a few quid, strike the seller from your xmas card list and move on.

for me, I think it's a case of live and learn. taking this to small claims will be very hard, considering the layman/magistrate probably won't see a small crack in a used frame as much of a big deal.

Would you really Ken?

I suggest posting him a wee in his shoes kit.. i.e. the diy version.
A small bottle of your own piss and serving instructions.
Enough to dose a pair of size 10 Loake shoes in an f fitting should be adequate.

whats the frame warranty from manufacturer

surley cannondale shuold replace or offer a heavily discounted replacement frameset as a goodwill gesture

id get his home address and drive up for a visit to be fair, but a phone call at work / to his boss would be worthwhile before hand

ill give you £150 for the frame??

So how did you pay for it?

a mate of mine did this once..

the heavies demanded cash in advance, when he met them to pay, they took his money and shattered his jaw..

he looked like predator.. 😆

surley cannondale shuold replace or offer a heavily discounted replacement frameset as a goodwill gesture

Why?

id get his home address and drive up for a visit to be fair, but a phone call at work / to his boss would be worthwhile before hand

What has his work got to do with a private sale?

If I'd been ripped off to the tune of 2k I wouldn't feel badly about letting is boss know what he'd done and the fact that the company name is associated with this thread.

I'm confused about the whole classifieds thing on here. I've just read the rules and it goes on about private sellers flicking on spare stuff and stipulating TRADE disclosures on ads that are from traders, but it appears to be a load of cr*p, doesn't it, cos clearly, if there's members who are prolific posters in the classified but never go near the chat forums then that's the definition of a trader, surely?

I never go near the classifieds myself, because I read so many horror stories. It's notable that singletrack towers are ever so keen to police / clean up / ruin / sensibly moderate* (delete as applicable) the chat forums, but they don't seem to have anything to say about the other half of the forum being scam city?

I realise that the bad guy in this is the seller, but it appears to me that singletrack have some sort of responsibility (morally or ethically, probably not legally) for providing a platform for scams and rip offs.

Why do they allow activity that is clearly in blatant contravention of the "rules"?