Found an eBay Store with Zaurii (HE\'S BACK!!!)

[whit]

Nada. Since his mailbox no longer being full shows that somebody is reading his e-mail, and since he\'s told people in the past that he\'s running his business to pay his medical bills (what, no insurance in Japan? are they as bad as the US on this?), and since it would make most sense to run this sort of business by buying the items to ship after receiving payment for them, I\'m wondering if he\'s diverted our money to his bills. I shouldn\'t be wondering this, but his not even asking someone else to get in touch with his customers to make excuses for delay ... well, his excuses better be good, or his odds of selling to anyone who checks this board (which is probably most English speakers with any interest in the clamshells?) approach zero. At this point, a real businessman would add some free merchandise in, or provide a partial refund along with the merchandise. We\'ll see.

[BalroG]

Yes, at the moment I would like to get my money back and then rather order from Japan-direct.com or hightech, *SIGH* I wish I went with those guys from the beginning, at least there are more than one person tending to the customers. What if the worst has happened to \"K\"? There will be NO way of ever getting either the goods or the money.

Now where did I place that Japanese Mafia contact number again?....  (Just joking, I\'m not quite that crazy yet!!)

[whit]

I once knew a bartender in New York who had one of his regular Italian customers ask him one evening if there was anyone he\'d like him to take care of, just as a favor because this bartender really does offer exceptional service, and the customer wanted to express appreciation.

Does anyone have a phone number for K in Japan? eBay is supposed to maintain current phone numbers for all its sellers, but all they have for K is an old number if Virginia. I\'ll certainly try to call, if someone can get me that - but trying to get it through Japanese information is just too daunting. Even if they speak some English, transliteration isn\'t a constant. For that matter I have a friend who did scholarly work in a Japanese library - evidently the lack of an alphabet means there\'s no such thing as alphabetical order. Then again, their street numbers aren\'t in order either - except the order of which was built first.

I get the impression that Japan-direct.com may be a one-man operation too - although more established. And I don\'t recall there being an option with Japan-direct that didn\'t require parting with the money with no guaranteed way of even getting a partial refund - same position you\'re in now, but would have been worse for me since PayPal claims to give $500 coverage on transactions with K. What we need is a merchant who simply takes credit cards, so we can contest the charges on nondelivery.

[BalroG]

I definately agree on the issue with Credit Cards. If there was a merchant that accepted Credit Cards, I\'ll be first in line. The cost of an international bank money wire is nothing to laugh at.

Of course the inherent security in a CC is you mention is very good. I guess some merchant\'s have been done in in the past with ppl contesting payment after having recieved the goods etc.

Why are there always a minority that spoils it for the rest of the well-meaning population out there?

[whit]

Keisuke\'s Hotmail box is full again, for whatever that tells us. There\'s nothing new listed on his eBay site, but he did sell a NEC Sigmarion on May 15 (that had been listed before he disappeared), so I assume there\'s one other person out of big money at present. Hmm, wonder if there\'s a board that would be the obvious place to find a Sigmarion fan - or at least warn others that Keisuke\'s a flake if he gets his business going again? By eBay rules even if the three of us give him scathing feedback, he\'ll still qualify as a \"Power Seller\" since 3 bad reviews out of 150 doesn\'t cross the 2% threshold that qualifies.

[whit]

I guess some merchant\'s have been done in in the past with ppl contesting payment after having recieved the goods etc.

If the merchant has a signed receipt for the goods, they\'ll win any contest of the payment. All they can possibly be out is the staff time to send a copy of the receipt, and the postage.

On the other hand, the merchant has to meet minimum requirements from the card issuers to be able to accept the cards, and may not want to bother trying to do that if they (1) aren\'t well-established or (2) don\'t have enough customers using a certain sort of card to make it worth the while to set it up.

[Zuber]

One of the biggest reasons for not accepting card payment is FRAUD. The banks are totally useless when it comes to preventing it (IMHO) though they are apparantly going to improve things \"soon\".

Some people do get annoyed when we start requiring confirmation of ID and stuff, but until the banks get their act together, you have to be very careful.

[whit]

One of the biggest reasons for not accepting card payment is FRAUD.

Do the banks hold the merchant responsible even when the card\'s billing address matches the ship to address? I know credit cards are a newer thing outside the US, but it\'s rare to find any merchant at all here - other than someone selling collectables on eBay or holding a garage sale - who won\'t take a card where the address matches. Are banks still able to screw the merchant even if the merchant has followed the normal verification steps? If so merchants, working together, have more political power than banks (both more of the economy and a lot more employees), and should get appropriate laws passed.

But I know in the short run that doesn\'t help.  :?

[ZeeUser]

Well, there has been some feedback left for Ryouma in the past week. Some of this feedback is for items won at auction earlier in the month, but some is for Buy It Now items. You can click the item number shown next to the feedback comment to see the item page. The pages for Buy It Now items do not show the date of purchase, though. Some of these items might have been purchased within the last two weeks. I suggest someone contacts those buyers to see if they can provide us with any helpful info.

By the way, I am also waiting on a pair of remote control headphones that I purchased from him May 17th. I have not recieved any emails from him.

[whit]

Here\'s his recent sales activity:

Code: [Select]

Item             Start              End          Price       Title                    High Bidder / Status



3095143122  May-04-04  May-11-04 16:58:21 PDT  $677.50  New Sharp Linux Zaurus SL-C860 w/ a S/P  See Buyers (*)

3095177746  May-05-04  May-12-04 06:48:44 PDT  $519.80  Sharp Linux PDA Zaurus SL-C750 with a S/P  No Bids (*)

3095615877  May-08-04  May-15-04 00:42:38 PDT  $489.80  NEC Sigmarion 3 NOT Jornada 720 728 MobilePro  See Buyers (*)

3093085632  Apr-22-04  May-20-04 02:54:09 PDT  $54.00  A Battery for Zaurus SL-C760/750/860  See Buyers (*)

3093872783  Apr-26-04  May-23-04 02:30:51 PDT  $37.50  Remote Control, (CE-RH1) for music player.  See Buyers (*)
Those your remote control headphones? The two 860s on the first line we have (un)accounted for here. The Sigmarion and the battery are the only other sales made in the last two weeks, so until we see feedback on one of those items come in, there\'s no evidence he\'s conducting business at all.

The battery was bought by rfspeed2 - I\'ve just sent him a message - the Sigmarion I can\'t get the buyer (or buyers - there were two on offer) id - guess it only shows on the item\'s page if there was a single item listed? - but he sold at least one according to the listing above.

This info is at http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcI...&sort=3&rows=25

You can also crank the \"since\" variable in the URL to get a longer listing. The last new item he listed was the Sigmarions on May 8 - one of only three listings he put up in May, while in April he added something new on average every other day. He last feedback about a buyer was on May 7.

Update: rfspeed2 says \"No actually I haven\'t heard from him at all.\"

[totaln00b]

Hi all,

The headphones listed above are mine, and no, I haven\'t had any contact yet, but it\'s early days anyway. I notice that rfspeed2 appears to have left some positive feedback now, so could we get an update from people as and when (hopefully) their stuff arrives? That should help sort out how big the problem is here.

Cheers

Jo

[BalroG]

Hi totaln00b - see Whit\'s post with the update from rfspeed2:

<Update: rfspeed2 says \"No actually I haven\'t heard from him at all.\">

Oh well, I have to sit it out and hope for the best - it\'s just money hey? *COUGH,COUGH,GAG,GAG* :cry:

[totaln00b]

Sorry for the confusion- if you look at K\'s feedback there is some from rfspeed2, posted on the 17th of May saying that he had great service. I assumed the item had now arrived...unless we\'re talking about a new order that he put in.

Jo

[totaln00b]

Ok, just realised that the last feedback given by rfspeed2 wasn\'t for the battery but for a zaurus that he brought at the beginning of may. Sorry...  :oops:

[Zuber]

Do the banks hold the merchant responsible even when the card\'s billing address matches the ship to address?  

If the details match up, then generally, we don\'t have a problem shipping. But we can\'t check all the details outside the UK...

Can\'t say for other countries, but in the UK, banks can charge back regardless of what matches for \"Cardholder Not Present\" transactions as they are known. If the card was stolen (or stolen details used) they can demand the money back.

At the same time, they can\'t give you any help other than the standard automated checks, because the information is \"confidential\". Also, most people want goods delivered to work, but card is registered to home and you are stuck...

Anyway, enough complaining and going way off topic.  Got a ton of emails to get through (big backlog after spam troubles) and 10 Zaurus units to update to English.