Has anyone,"but me" been ripped off on the gunbroker site? Thought i'd bought a ppk/s winds up all I bought was a postal money order. any other horror stories like mine, or any advice as to what to do? I've already filed a mail fraud claim.

Most of the "ripoff" I see are the asking prices on these auctions.

BTW, I love it when you guys post auctions for things like pre-ban Chinese SKS's with the bidding starting at $1100.  Keep them coming! [:)]

So far I've been pretty damn lucky, but I have heard of others who were not.  Hope ya get some sort of regress from the folks at Gunbroker.
W

Hey Raven, I agree with you and have said the same thing, and thats what should have set the little light off in my head. A walther ppk/s as new, for a buy it price of 300.00. Well I bought it alright, hook line and sinker. Just got excited and it was what I was looking for, will be keeping head out of ass from now on, thanks for replieing

Contact Gunbroker maybe they can cancell the deadbeats account. Sure you maybe still out of the money but at atleast you tried to do something.

Six

I've had a couple good experiences, but just won an auction today and I think I'm in the middle of a rip off this time.  Just seems to be strange how things are going. What happens if I decide not to send payment?  What could happen to me?

If you're thinking of bidding, read the seller's feedback. You can also email past buyers and ask about their experiences.
If you're still not comfortable bidding ask seller about using an escrow service.

When in doubt, pay using your credit card somehow...through a SECURE method.  PayPal/Escrow I believe handle both.

If the situation arises where your card gets billed, but you don't receive your order within an alloted amount of time, you can file a claim/suit against the seller and get your money credited back to your C.C. account within a matter of weeks after filing.  On eBay, I usually do money orders, but they're with people who have high feedback ratings, so I usually don't sweat it.  Gunbroker is an entirely different thing altogether...

[i]VISA...when someone screws you, it's everywhere you want to be[/i]
Jewbroni~

I always check the seller's feedback and will usually try to pay by credit card instead of money orders.

You were smart by filing the fraud with the post office as they will refund your money. Just keep up with it. Also, continue to e-mail the person and keep all e-mails on file.

Depending on how far you want to go, use the person's e-mail account to track them down. First let GunBroker know of the situation and see if they will do anything. I was actually able to locate a person on the internet using their e-mail address because they used their work e-mail. Also if its a hotmail account, you could contact the "HotMail" people to let them know someone is using their server for fraud purposes.

Maybe post the auction here and we all will send e-mails to the guy and flood his account.

Good Luck!!

I must be the lucky one.  I've never been ripped off once at either gunbroker or fuck-bbay, uhh, I mean e-bay.  

Did you go to the post office and do a search for the money order?  If it winds up uncashed, you will get a replacement in a couple of months.  If the recipient did cash it, you will have to jump through a few more hoops.  If it was written to a business, they will have to deposit the money order, instead of simply cashing it.  That should be simple enough to trace.  Same thing happened to me on a Mossberg 590A1, but fortunately the money order was never cashed and I was reimbursed.

I almost lost $800 for a HK USC NIB.  If its too good to be true it is.  This M Jacobs guy on Gunbroker.com put more than a hundred guns up for auction under three different but similar names.  He bid on his own auctions and gave himself a good rating.  He had a PO drop box in Madison WI (cant trust the damn cheeseheads!).  A lot of people called the local LE and ATF.  My money was returned unopened ad was the FFL.  The local LEs shut him down I guess.  I just spoke to another guy who lost almost $1500 for a set of Kimbers.  

Any business person will not be offended by you requesting escrow.  It may cost a few more pennies but the security is worth it.

More common rip-offs are misstated condition of the gun or high prices.

There are plenty of good guys out there too. Look at the feedback thread.