In need of a CCKA short block.

[Eugen]

Oh no, really sorry to hear that Bob. Hope you didn't lose any money on this.

[myerslawnandgarden]

Oh no, really sorry to hear that Bob. Hope you didn't lose any money on this.

I think I'm going to eat this one, Eugen. Might need to start a "Go Fund Me" page, lol. Will post details later, the story is quite lengthy.

Bob

[myerslawnandgarden]

part 1:

So, regarding this item.....,guessing everyone has read the thread up to this point.

The listing was of interest, but here is a reminder... "if it seems too good to be true".... you all can finish it. Second reminder..... due diligence must be done in these cases.

So, my curiosity being what it is says "why don't we just order one and see if it is legit?" That being said, it was after 10 PM on Tuesday night and I will admit to possibly having hoisted a couple of pints by then which may have impaired good judgement. But, the thought process at that time was " why not?, PayPal/Visa-MC always protects the buyer if the goods are not received as advertised or received even if it takes a few weeks".

Placed the order and paid with my Capitol One Visa Business Card. After checkout, the site displayed an order confirmation with an order number which I printed off. So far so good. Did not receive an email confirmation but ok, it's late and I will check tomorrow. Tomorrow morning still no confirmation so time to do a bit of digging since an uneasy feeling is setting in. I did receive an email from PayPal noting that I had made a payment in the agreed amount using my Visa for funding. Which is ok, I also use PayPal to process bank card payment when anyone orders from our website. It's just simple and they are for the most part cheaper than most CC processors. First red flag....... the PayPal account goes to a name "Celeste Care LLC". I google it and it is an assisted living/memory care facility in Texas with 3 locations. The selling company is in VA.

Start to worry a bit! The physical address for the company is a valid street but the exact address in Fredericksburg, VA does not exist according to Google Maps and the USPS. The phone number when dialed goes to a cell # which is turned off, you receive the common message "the wireless caller is not available........" I do a "whois" inquiry of the domain and find it is owned by Alibaba whatever in China. So the next day I notified Capitol One that I felt the transaction was fraudulent, they froze my card and are sending a new one. The charge still was shown as pending on my account. So far so good.

I also went to my PayPal account and opened a dispute for the purchase, you have to choose from several reasons and "non receipt of goods" was the closet description. Dispute filed and the seller has 10 days to respond. In the meantime I have emailed the support address on the website requesting a tracking number, that email eventually was returned undeliverable "connection timed out" I emailed the address tied to the PayPal account which was a string of about 20 random letters @ hotmail.com requesting a tracking number and got no response. So at this point pretty confident that I will be reimbursed for the purchase as nothing was shipped.

[myerslawnandgarden]

Part 2:

Here's where the wheels start to fall off the bus.....

Friday, I get an email from PayPal saying that my dispute has been closed in the seller's favor. Reason? "Item has been received, seller provided the following tracking number". Look up the tracking number on USPS.com and it shows the package was delivered "at/in mailbox" at 10:11 AM on Thursday. Now, I remember exactly the contents of the mail on Thursday. There was a Priority Mail box from Jason at caseingersollparts.com who was helping me with a couple of items that were out of stock, a recall notice from Ford for my wife's new 2023 Escape with 1100 miles on it and a postcard for each of my kids to remind them of the upcoming NIU University homecoming weekend events. No Onan shortblook in the mailbox, by the mailbox or anywhere in site. Thinking that the rural carrier would remember an 80 lb box. So get to thinking, why don't I track the box from Jason to see when it was delivered? 9:58 AM. Hmmm.

Take this info the the post office Saturday morning, of course a part time employee is working. I was hoping that the package had been brought back to the office after the carrier had scanned it delivered but perhaps thought better of leaving it by the mailbox or at the door. Not there. Ask about the difference in delivery times, could someone else run the package out since it may not have fit in the carriers mail truck? No. So why the difference in the delivery times? "I don't know, I don't know how these people think". Is your building 13 minutes off the road from your mailbox? "No I could throw a rock to the street". Then you need to come back Monday to talk to the postmaster and the guy that knows more about this.

This is me now, "so should I go down the road 13 minutes to see where my package was delivered to?"

After this, the clerk decides to check the tracking number on their system which sometimes has more detail than what is shown to consumers on the UPSP.com site and offers that the package was 4 oz not 80 lbs ashipped from Medinah, OH and would have been in my mailbox.

My guess is that the very clever scammers shipped a small box or envelope with the tracking number that they provided to PayPal but not to our address, likely by entering our address into Google Maps or a similar database found an address that was serviced from the same post office. That way, the USPS tracking shows it arrived at the post office,went out for delivery on our carriers hand held scanner and showed delivered on her scanner but at a later time than she was at our address, likely at different location. That way, when tracked, the USPS information would show all of that including that it was left at/in my mailbox. Likely my name was changed or not shown so that a neighbor would not know to bring the misdelivered mail to me. So they have proof that the package was shipped and received and if the post office left it at the wrong address it's not their problem.

I am going to the post office tomorrow AM to see if they can see where the package was left so that I can possibly retrieve it and claim to Visa that the item received was not as described. As they now scan all mail in their system to provide customers pics of incoming mail under their "informed delivery" option, and their scanners are gps linked just as our cell phones are they should be able to provide a pic of the label with a return address as well as have GPS longitude/latitude coordinates of the address that it was delivered to. (if they want to)

Anyone having a question or suggestion please help me out!

Bob

[DavidBarkey]

Thanks for the run down Bob . The level of scamoligy today has got to a level that only was seen in spy movies before . I got word a local buisness got hacked when they had shut down for summer hollidays . Small buisness , they are devistated . As they all were away on holidays , no one was there to see what was going on . Not sure if they are going to survive . It is sad .

[Eugen]

Good call on paying with Paypal, Bob. As far as I know to be able to withdraw money from Paypal you need to be registered with a bank account. I suggest you open another dispute with Paypal and tell them not that you didn't get the parcel, but that you were scammed.

What seems odd to me is that the site does look quite legitimate; the list of items they have for sale have mostly pretty legitimate prices as well. Seems almost too sophisticated for a scam. Then again, if anything, scams and lies and cheating will only get better and more sophisticated in this day and age.

[myerslawnandgarden]

Good call on paying with Paypal, Bob. As far as I know to be able to withdraw money from Paypal you need to be registered with a bank account. I suggest you open another dispute with Paypal and tell them not that you didn't get the parcel, but that you were scammed.

What seems odd to me is that the site does look quite legitimate; the list of items they have for sale have mostly pretty legitimate prices as well. Seems almost too sophisticated for a scam. Then again, if anything, scams and lies and cheating will only get better and more sophisticated in this day and age.

Eugen,

I forgot to add that it looks like the shortblock information that the seller used on their site was copied from a legitimate business called OSMI Parts. They have an EBay store with many Onan items although priced as you would expect. I think the block was probably listed a couple of years ago during Covid, the first line of the description is "OSMI Parts is open and shipping Monday-Friday having been defined an essential business as a provider of key transportation, heavy equipment, and power generation parts. Shipping to the lower 48 states is included in our price."

Bob

[myerslawnandgarden]

Checked with the post office today and they confirmed that the 4 oz package sent by the seller was addressed and delivered to another address a couple of miles away. Now back to PayPal and Capitol One to open another dispute.

Bob

[RoamingGnome]

Sneaky little devils...

[JSinMO]

@myerslawnandgarden Great write up on an unfortunate situation. Thank you for sharing the story. Its certainly a warning to all of us to look before we leap, especially when we’re chasing hard to find stuff. Now that you got the information from the post office I hope you get a refund quickly.

My hats off to you Bob, I’d be so aggravated I don’t know if I could stand to do the leg work you’ve gone through to track this down. But I guess thats what scammers count on.