SCAMMED BY A BT'R!!!!! (Page 2)

Thank you all for your kind words, support and offers for help.  I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier, but were were out of town.  Here's the latest:

We still do not have the bike or our money. I got this email on the 15th.

"fed ex is picking it up today. i couldn't leave it in the front office when everyone was with patients, so that fedex could get it, so it was supposed to be picked up last week, but wasn't.  i've moved it to hallway, left a note on the door for fedex, and the pickup is scheduled."

Today is the 16th and the tracking number we have for Fedex says that it hasn't been picked up yet.  I am holding my breath until I see the bike or our money. The NC court system has our paperwork and should be serving her this week unless we do get something.

I just want this issue to go away...and if I DO get the bike, I'm going to have to take it to a Shaman or something to have it blessed and to drive the bad JuJu away! 

Just post a few pics of the bike and leave it to the BT community to wash away the sins.
That, and maybe hang a chicken foot from the aero bars on your first race. 

Here is the latest. She sent a long email last night. Here is the most memorable line: "The fact of the matter is, I've been lying to you from the beginning." That is the line that just keeps running through my head. Apparently, she is overwhelmed with life and has told lie after lide about getting the bike packed and shipped. In reality, in the past 30 days, she has done nothing but spent our $1300.

She was served with papers this morning and Paypal put a $1300 hold on her account, putting her into a negative balance, or so she says. At this point, we just want our money back and not the bike. She says, " a refund will take longer than shipping the bike, as I will have to resell the bike before I can issue a refund". She hasn't shipped the bike yet, so what makes her think we believe she'll ship it now?

My husband is taking over the negotiations from here as I am just too emotional about the entire thing. I am still flabbergasted that EVERYTHING She told me was a lie...about her son getting hurt, her sister with a new baby needing money, cleaning out her dead or sick mother's house, about taking it to the bike store to be shipped, or her friend at the bike store doing it for free, or even having it ready to ship. She even told us that she had a friend from work call and LIE to us about it being ready to send out. The complexity of her lies blows me away.

I just wanted to be kind to someone in need and help them out by getting them the money quickly. I hate that I trusted my gut and was wrong.

Thanks again for all your support. I appreciate the good BT'rs out there!

This is soooo weird. So she had the bike all along and simply doesn't want to send it to you, and on top of that confessed everything? Why didn't she just send the bike?

I thought for sure she had e-bayed it and gotten paid twice, and that the bike would be long gone. So strange.

A small voice of compassion is rising up within me and making me say this. I think she is completely, 100%, overwhelmed and unable to function in her life right now. I think it became the very last priority for her and instead of dealing with the situation, she just pushed it out of her head and pretended it didn't need to get done.  If some of what she told me is true, I do feel badly for her, and that is why we gave her so long to get it done.

 What I don't understand is all the lies and how she felt fine using our money, but not fulfilling her end of the deal. That is an issue of integrity to me and something I hold very dear.  I cannot begin to understand her anymore, I just want this to turn out ok and be done with, as soon as possible. 

I am so sorry to hear about all of this!  I like to think of BT as a relatively "safe" community, so someone taking advantage of that perception just turns my stomach.

Just in case you weren't aware, it looks like the "seller" still logs onto the site--her profile shows she was on this morning.

Melanie,

I was so disappointed and disheartened to see your post!  I hope you get your money or your bike soon.  The majority of BTers are so great, so I hope your experience doesn't completely make you lose faith.  Check out this post:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=92866&posts=41&start=1  

It gave me hope!  Maybe the one bad apple you've found on this site will come around soon and do the right thing. 

Has she had any correspondence whatsoever with you via the US Mail system?  If she has, you may want to look into charges of Postal fraud, which in many cases can serve her with having to pay triple damages.  I had a battle a number of years ago with an Ebay-er in Arizona who was scamming people left and right.  The Arizona state attorney generals office got involved.  I was eventually covered through PayPal, and the last I heard, the scammer avoided prosecution by fleeing to Mexico.

The bike is officially in the hands of ellasdad who will be packing the bike and getting it shipped out for me.  Thank you Edde for being a good man!

Sucks that you had to threaten her with lawsuit to get her to act, but you got the bike and we'll need to perform a BT Exorcism to get rid of all the negative mojo!  Be sure to post a pic after you get it's mojo back! It's an awesome looking bike!

Man...I'm so glad it worked out in the end.

Savor this one.  Way to stick to your guns, eh.

bts

The BT community comes through again! 

I'm glad to see this saga is almost over.  Enjoy the bike.