I want to warn everyone on RCU about a crook on eBay. The eBay store is Hobby Magic RC out of Orlando FL. Their ads feature a blue pegboard background.
This guy Joel sold me a Hitec 645mg with a description of "great shape". I installed the servo 4 weeks later when the plane was done and ready for radio gear and when I put a control arm on it there was 10 degrees of slop! Not a big deal I emailed him and asked what to do, he wrote back and said send it back for a full refund, so I did. I emailed 1 week later, nothing. 2 weeks, later nothing. 3 weeks later, an email saying "so you bought it 2 months ago and broke it". I responded with a copy of all the emails. Then nothing. This guy has kept dragging this out so my time to file a claim expired. He kept my servo and my money. What an F'ing crook. Please don't do business with this guy.[:@]

Sorry about your problem. Thanks for the heads up. I've had good luck on Ebay over the years, but every now and then, one of these jerks pops up.

If you paid with PayPal, you should have some protection. Iwould file a complaint with Ebay anyway.

Don

whats his ebay handle

The sellers Ebay handle is DR350Z. He sells lots of servos and RC car stuff. Watch out! A PayPal rep felt bad for me and gave me a 50% credit (no kidding) The point is this guy is a thief! He waited unitl the dispute filing date was past before he acted so I was stuck.

Thank you all for the Honest dealings in the RCU buy and sell.

Donn

If the Paypal payment came from a credit card you can dispute the charge and get a full refund. I'm assuming you have left feedback already, right?

Good Luck-I bought a kit off of Ebay- Berkley C-170 72inch-paid thru paypal-recieved the box-it was full of scraps -someone had already built it years ago and the plans were to a buzzard bombshell-Seller was a jerk and would not communicate about it

Guess what PAYPAL did nothing nor did Mastercard-There attitude was that you did recieve something and it was advertised as NIB but no returns-although I left bad feedback and tore up my mastercard I was out $225.00 for a box of wood scraps-PAYPAL SUCKs-they got their fees and goodbye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

when you get things from ebay...is important to test them fast and do it again...so you can avoid this kind of problems. There is time limit to make a dispute on ebay...and paypal. I dont like their policies, i lost a lot of money when i was selling some parts on ebay......one time one person put a claim ONE YEAR later saying that he didnt like what he got!!!!!!!! and paypal gave him the money...i couldnt belive it....si i stop to sells things after that...cause it really sucks.

I used ebay once.............................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..................................

Oh I guess I was not fast enough-I open the box and contacted the seller and paypal, mastercard the same day I recieved it-This guy was a rip-off and along with PAYPAL and Mastercard-If I buy anyother larger ticket item I will make sure the seller will accept escrow and I have found that better sellers with nothing to hide will use this service.

I have learned (the hard and expensive way) that if a seller says "Returns Not Accepted" or something similar, I do business with someone else. The odds are that if they will not accept a return, they are typically a jerk and/or a rip off.

Stick with sellers who have more than just a few feedback too. People who sell often and have done so for several years aren't going to risk losing their credibility just for a couple hundred dollars.

The sickest thing is I can't open a case or leave feedback because the jerkwad knew the system better and drug it out long enough that all my options expired.

This guy has an Ebay store and trys to act like a honest vendor

It was only $25 but the principle drives me crazy.

Hi All I bought a box of scrap NIB wood of ebay to about a year a go. I don't know if it was the same guy or not but he done the same thing to me. Here is what a friend told me to do. He said that all email has the time and date on it and that it can not be edited by you,seller,ebay or pay pal, What I would do is to forward your old emails to ebay and pay pal between you and the seller and point out the dates and the time delay it took the seller to respond and ask them what they are going to do about thier buyers protection program to protect people from sellers that dodge thier time limits by not answering email or contacting the buyer. You get the idea. Hope this helps.

Worked for me.



Thanks

donnspadbauer
Did you leve negative feedback . Ihave just look at this bloks feedback and no one has replyed to his responce . It always gives more punch to this type of seller he is, to give them the second comment as there is no reply. For example I obtained a Top Flite Mustang Kit with no plans .It was stated Two plans rolled in the discription his argument was that the plans were extra and I was an unskilled builder as plans were not needed for the construction. I was able to have the final say which left no dought to who was the ripe off person. He actually sold the plans during the emailing .And Ebay not interested and did nothing. now go back and have your second say, and make every letter count.

I don't use E-bay to shop for my RC planes or supplies. I go to my LHS and order what I need. In these times it's the local small business that need all the help. Also I haven't had a problem with anything from my LHS. I had stuff that was broken during the shipping, and the owner of the LHS on his own accord re-ordered the part for me and gave me the broken part anyway just incase I could fix it or use it for spare parts.

E-bay is like a box of assorted chocolates, ya jes dono what yer gonna get.

Pete

I just wanted to throw in a plug for a vendor that I did get great service from. It just happens that I bought the same servos that the original poster had problems with.

On a recommendation from another board, I ordered four Hitec 625MG's from Tom's RC. He gives quantity discounts, and I got all four shipped to my house for about $119. This was the best deal I could find anywhere, and I had them in my mailbox within a few days.

Check his prices if you are in the market for anything:

http://shop.tomsrc.com/

Good luck

I personally will not use Ebay. This is a small enough community on RCU that your chances of getting stung are much less than hobbyist and non hobbyist on Ebay.

Man you guys are freaking me out!!! I know there are dishonest people on EBay but i have to be honest, I have had very good luck buying many items for Motorcycles, RC Airplanes and various other things to the tune of 278 buys. I agree that you should check the feecback on people and read some of them for sure. Have I just been lucky? just yesterday I recieved an Ace Cloud Dancer and a Sig Wonder from E-Bay sellers. Both were in superb shape and the Sig Wonder was wrapped in the original plastic. I have a Cub coming from Omni models but they are a regualar online Hobby Shop and I have a Vintage Smith Mini Plane coming soon, now I am worried about that one!!! one thing on E-Bay I noticed some sellers are ripping people off on shipping charges (or trying) I hope i continue having good luck but i am a bit worried now. Many sellers are very concerned about getting feed back and seem to really try to give good service. the only negative thing i had was a guy I bought a Scroll Saw from took a little longer to ship it than I would have liked, he was very apologetic about it though.

It doesn't take many bad sellers to ruin it for everybody. I stopped using Ebay when the Paypal thing became mandantory. I only had one bad seller, and thru the years, 3-4 auctions that I had a problem with, and returned it with out problems.

Will

I also bought a box o balsa reported to be a kit. it had a good amount of 1/16th full sheets and some good sticks but was just a box of wood. It had poor pics but the price was low.
The rule is ONLY buy planes with EXCELLENT photos detailing the contents. Very high ratings,
and very good verbal descriptions. It is still a good place to find OOP kits. Never buy anything started or part built, even good pictures won't show a warped part.
I have bought numerous kits, motors and tool and have been very satisfied. I am scared to touch any radio gear there though.

Hey Daddyo57, I have also had great luck on EBAY lots of buys and great deals only two issues in 6 years. The first was buying a $4,000 M&K home theatre set and when it arrived it was damaged in shipping, I had paid for insurance but I didnt know the shipper was the one insured. He got the money and split. I waited for UPS to pay me long enough that the ebay time limit was up. And the other was this A S S who took my money on purpose and got away with it.

Good luck.

That's kind of what I look for. You can kind of "read between the lines" and tell who is a hobbyist and has used the item, who is a professional business who buys and sells these items and who trolls estate sales, yard sales and flea markets and has no freakin' idea what they've got but it's "vintage" or has "good compression" and charges you 15 bucks shipping on a half pound item that'll fit in the palm of your hand but if it "fits it'll ship"! (sheesh) I kind of weigh the ad itself, their language, the quality of the pictures, their feedback, etc and if I get *any* kind of bad feeling or "if it's too good to be true" I automatically pass. I've gotten a couple things I kinda said "Hunh....." when I pulled them out of the box, but I've never gotten anything that I felt I got "screwed" off of eBay. My biggest complaint these days is people bidding prices up over regular old "retail prices" any more and I can't find any good deals any more just because they don't know what the he77 they're bidding on but apparently they've got money to burn! LOL GRRRR.....
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Oh yeah, I'm with you OzMo I wouldn't buy any electronics either.  You never know when you're going to get something "intermittent" until something hits the ground!<div>
</div><div>Well..... if it's an established "store" and you buy something brand new..... maybe.  Or it was someone you had extensive experience with, maybe.....  you know.....   </div>

I buy and sell on Ebay all the time. My 10C was bought on Ebay, saved be about $100 from Towers price. It was NIB as advertised. I've bought over four dozenservos and probably six or eight recivers as well as batteries onEbay. All way below what I could get them for any place else. I buy water filters for the frig and towner for my printer, ink for my printers, you name it. Many brick and mortar retailers sell on Ebay. If you pay attention to the ratings of the seller and not just the numbers, but read the comments, espically if there is a negative, you will be OK. It's the guys with a 80% positive with only 10 feedbacks that you shy away from. Same with the guy that has been a member since yesterday. If you stick to established sellers with reasnably good feedbacks, your chances of getting stung are minimal. As for selling, I treat my buyers like I want to be treated. I'm not a big time seller, or buyer, but I've only had one complaint and that was because the guy didn't like the content of a book he bought. I've had shipments go bad. Fedex crushed a display case and sent it back to me without explanation. Irefunded the buyers money before he contacted me and told him what happened. Another time, I tried the fixed rate envlopes and it broke open and spilled the contents out. The buyer got his package, but it was empty. Irefunded him fully as I had not packaged it well. I got a positive feedback from both. Stuff happens. However, when you receive something like the box of scrap wood that is susposed to be a kit, start raising hell until you get a resolution. And don't forget the feed back. It may not help you, but will otheres later.

Don

I have a search set up on EBay for Shoestrings. It keeps turning up a guy who wants over 300 dollars for a Berkeley Shoestring, which is a tiny little thing. He artfully shows a photo of part of the box lid, expanded so that it looks like a larger model.
Someone else sold an identical kit a while ago and it just broke 100 bucks if my memory serves.
I'm not saying the guy's a rip-off artist, but he's trying for far more than the model should fetch.
Interestingly, he's not had a bite in about a year, so we're clearly not as stooopid as we all look(?)