When i first came across this website,, i jumped a little inside, excited about all the people with the same interest, then I saw the classifieds and i was sold, it appeared like a more personal ebay, without all the BS. .. Needless to say, I grabbed the opportunity to try and sell / trade my Blade CX3 electric heli, simply because the heli world is not for me!. I promptly recieved a trade offer for a CEN nitro truck, I thought, sure! why not!, I knew i had no feedback on here, and this fellow had about 5 good, and 2 "ok",, So I had no problem shipping first.

We talked on the phone and worked out a deal, I would ship mine friday afternoon, send him the tracking #, then he would get the truck out saturday morning. .. Well friday came, about 8 AM, i sent out my heli, all packed up extremely well (spent about 10 bucks in bubble wrap and tape), shipped priority mail, insured, with delivery confirmation, the works ya know, like i'd expect. I quickly emailed the gentlemen and told him it was shipped gave him the info, and he assured me the truck would be out saturday...

..., Saturday came.. no email... no call.. nothing.. I assumed he was busy and gave him a day.. Sunday came and still no contact by sunday night, so I called him, he appologized he didnt get it out, explained he didnt have any money to ship the truck, but it would go out, ect ect.. He even told me "its going out later today once my sister gives me the money" ... I explained to him its SUNDAY... he was completely dumbfounded and replied it would go out first thing monday...

..Monday came.. no contact again, I called him, he explained to me he didnt make it to the post office in time, and it would go out the next day,., now this is when i started getting a bit irritated, i explained to him that this was not what we agreed on and i really didnt appreciate how he was treating me in this deal.. He didnt understand the problem and had no clue why i was upset.

Tuesday came.. I recieved a voicemail from him stating he was getting the money to ship the truck today and he would call me back with the tracking number when he shipped it later that day..

Again.. no contact after that voicemail.. I called him up,,. again,.. it wasnt shipped. I stayed calm and talked to him, played the nice guy because i really didnt want to get shafted you know...

The next day, i recieved a voicemail, stating that he has shipped my heli back to me "because he didnt want to deal with this"

...NOW.. MIND you my heli tracking # reported it being picked up at 6 AM monday morning, that means it was picked up, signed by him, scanned, etc. !!!!!!

I got over it, stopped contacting him and just waiting for my heli to get back here and hoped it was in one piece..


...When i came home from work today.. there was my package... i was disgusted, the box was torn, ripped, tape to hell... I regretfully opened it.. only to find.. NO PACKING. my heli and all its parts just thrown in this box.. both bodies to it completey smashed and useless due to the no packaging, none of the parts in bags, just thrown in the box, two of the blades on the heli broke, almost all of the screws on the heli loose, one of the LIPO packs scuffed up. ..

I havent even bothered to contact him, he acted so arrogant and cocky and clueless I would only get angry ... its just sad.

Someone like that ruins this site for me..

A trip to the hobby shop, 35 bucks and the heli is flyable again and back up for sale.. I havent even bothered leaving him feedback because i know he will just do retalliation feedback and make my first one horrible.. it just sucks man.. its really discouraging.

I hear ya ! I sold my Brand new Futaba 12FG about this time last year to a guy and for some reason the buy kept stating that he didnt receive it. I did follw through with the postal service back tranking where the transmitter was and after about six weeks I got an email from the buyer stating that buyer received the shiping package but when he opened the package the radio was gone. Inside the package was that transmitter case, the wall charger and manual, but no transmitter and receiver.
At about 3 weeks after the transmitter was shipped, the guy contacted PayPal and told them that he never received the Tx in the mail and requested a refund.
PayPal then inturn contacted me advising that I would not be able to use my PayPal account until the buyer was reimbersed what he paid for the Tx. So I was obligated to pay the buyer back or PayPal would take he funds from my personal bank account or bill my credit card (witch they have the right to do) So I have to refund him the money and I never got my Tx back nor the contents that where in the shipping box that the buy received (he kept them)
I did insure the TX through the postal service buy since the tracking number showed that it had been delivered, the postal service would not reimberse me for my loss.
So lomg story short, Iam out a $800.00 Tx, Im out the money that was paid to me because I was forced to reimbers the buyer, and the postal service will not reimberse my for the loss of the TX.
I did contact Futaba, Hobby Services, and Radio South and advised them of my dalema and gave them the Transmitter and receiver serial numbers. (I even had to forward a copy of the Potal lost claim or kinda theft report to them. So if who ever has my Tx and sends it in for service then hopefully they will contact me and I can file charges against who ever has it. Then if and when the person is convicted, then I will either get my money back or my TX. So as of today I have not heard anything on the where abouts of my Tx.
So thats my story of a lesson learned. You are lucky you got your heli back. I didnt get anything in return. The guy I sold it to had all posative feed back and still has a clean slate still to day. But hopefully he will get his just reward in the end.
NEDYOB

I am sorry you are having a problem with another RCU member. What you describe is not common on this site.

Trades are the most difficult kind of transaction to complete. Both parties must rely entirely on trust, usually with a person they have never met who lives in a different part of the country.

All of this is now in the past however. What should be done going forward is to contact the other person and, while keeping the message professional and without emotion, explain the problems with the model as you received it back from him. Explain that it is he who back out of the transaction, not you, and that he will be expected to pay for the damages that occur ed due to his poor packaging. Give him a chance to respond. If he fails to agree to paying for the repairs, you should file a complaint against him for the damaged model. You will find the complaint form linked at the bottom of the Ratings & Security page in the marketplace. You should also be sure to post an appropriate rating to the other members account when this is finished so that other members will be aware of your experience with him.

I know this all very little consolation, but it is possible that the guy was telling the truth and someone else along the way made the theft. I bought a JR module from a guy on eBay, waited over a month for it to arrive after he said he had shipped it, and never got it. It still has never showed up. I asked him to just return my money including shipping, and told him I wouldn't flame him if he did, giving him the benefit of the doubt, see as he had a good record. I also told him in an email that if it ever did show up, I would return the item or the pay for it again. He did give me the refund and also said '"enjoy your free module". I was insulted and told him so. He did apologize, sort of. I also have a 100% rating and he had no right to assume that, IMO. Anyway, my point is, crooks are everywhere these days, but they aren't always the guys we are directly dealing with.

Sounds like he tried flying it, crashed the crap out of it....and didn't want to do the trade anymore. Sent back the rubble.

We are just a medium. All we can do is provide the tools and platform for you to try to buy or sell safely. Hopefully future transactions will be smoother for you and that you have the bad one out of the way. Statistically you could have traded for a few years and then got one bad deal but maybe in this case your bad deal came up front. You just have to be careful who you deal with and use our sites tools to at least help a bit but ultimately you are in control of the transaction and how it is conducted.

Jaredtowne,
Well mine was not quite that bad...I got it stopped before it went really south..
Had toy boat motor listed... member offered..refused..member calls we make a phone
deal.. member will mail MO in the am... 10 days go by..no MO Call member, e-mail member
PM member ... No replies. I've now lost two weeks of sales as item marked sold... three weeks
still no member... Blocked member and relisted Needless to say I was ticked but got
over it. Cannot leave feedback because original offer denied..... Oh well on with life.
RCU still a great medium...they do an OUTSTANDING job !!
Don - Basehor, Ks

****** Moderators note: Member name has been removed from this post. The forums should not be used to call out specific members.

Well, here's what happened to ME....

I didn't lose anything, but this guy manipulated the RCU Buy and Sell, and that takes a little doing.

This guy (we'll call him KK) Accepted my bid for a trade of his Hangar 9 Taylorcraft with a gasser engine for my Wild Hare Edge, and he sent me what LOOKED exactly like the official RCU E-Mail saying he accepted my bid. This means that when he “accepted” my official offer, he did so with a BOGUS look-alike e-mail. Why would he do that?

We talked on the phone and we were supposed to meet at a mid-point here in Texas and trade. I didn’t hear a thing from him after that.

I sent him quite a number of E-mails saying I was ready when he was, and got no answer at all. He would not answer his phone when I called. After several days and no contact I realized I had likely been screwed over by this guy.

I went to RATE him and it said that "I could not rate him as I was NOT INVOLVED IN THE TRANSACTION" !!!! WHAT??? I had the official acceptance mail (official-looking, anyway).

After taking a really close look at the mail and realizing what he had done, I placed a complaint with the RCU complaint people.

Suddenly there was a response from him. He lied to them and said that he had sent me an E-Mail stating that he dropped the plane. He never wrote me. He never called me, and he had my phone number as well.

I wrote KK and told him that although there is no way on earth I believe him, I will drop the complaint. All he has to do is send me one or two clear photos showing the busted plane along with a piece of paper with today’s date. Reasonable, yes? Easy way to solve it and make me go away less angry.

You guessed it. There has been no response.

Because he SOLD the plane to somebody else after he accepted my offer. Like we didn't all figure that out already.

A closer look shows this guy only has 2 sales to his member name. I’m guessing he’s been banned before under some other name, as he is suddenly selling quite a number of things, including a Dave Patrick Ultimate he came up with just about the (exact) time he "dropped" the plane he was trading to me..

Every reason he gives for selling items is different. He’s "getting out of the hobby" on one item, yet he wanted my Wild Hare 50CC Edge…that doesn’t make any sense.

Pretty obviously, this complaint will NOT be resolved, and I feel there is plenty of proof to support suspending him. Will RCU do that? How keen an interest will they take in this? I forwarded them a copy of his "Acceptance" E-Mail.

He's getting around them using mails that look just like the real thing, it even includes a link to "where to go to Rate me" !! When you get there it doesn't know why you want to rate anything, you never BOUGHT anything, as far as it knows.

He'll continue manipulating sales illicitly using bogus RCU acceptance E-Mails. People will be used, screwed over, ripped off.

Damn. I wanted that T-Craft, too. If he actually ever had it. That's pretty likely as well.

Just wanted to tell you guys what happened to me.


Jim

Jim,

If a user is not playing straight in our market we would suspend him. John, our marketplace moderator, will look at this when he gets back from vacation as he may already be involved.

However you were not ripped off based on your description. You just didn't get the plane. Did you send him any money and not receive anything in return?

Keep in mind a seller can accept your offer and then sell to somebody else. While it is not a good way to do business it does not make somebody fraudelent. Sometimes another buyer emerges who might pay more, be closer to the seller, be able to meet faster or whatever. Maybe the seller is more comfortable with another buyer with more ratings. All sorts of reasons and if you were the seller they may make sense. I still believe if somebody accepts your offer they should honor it. However that is not always the case and unless somebody gives a product and does not get paid or somebody pays but does not get a product OR if somebody pays and the product is misreprestented it is not fraud.