true that.

This. Exactly the point I was trying to get across. Thank you Ben.

Yeah, seeing how much some of these went for on eBay makes me wish I had taken my insider connection up on his offer to get them at $150 a piece.

Sure, but a lot of cases are opened after you've received your money and shipped the items. And if the transaction was done electronically... it can be voided and/or reversed at a later date without your consent. So if I were you, I would ask for your JLU winnings in cash, non-sequential, unmarked $50 dollar bills (they are harder to counterfeit and easier to cash.)

Alright, so send it with a tracking number. If you get burned using eBay and paypal, it's really your fault most of the time. Take the proper steps and you'll be good.

For items that sell for over $250, a tracking number is not enough. You need signature confirmation also. If you don't use it, a buyer can claim they never received it (even if the tracking number says it was delivered) and Ebay will refund their money. And it's those little "unusual" details that scammers exploit.

Look, this is not a competition between you and I. I'm just trying to give people a heads up because we are all friends here and some of them have already paid $200+plus dollars on some of these figures. So you know, a little friendly advise and some fun reading can't hurt. The alternative is finding out... the hard way.

Anyways, I did my best. Good luck to y'all.
http://www.newlifeauctions.com/ebay_scams.html

I recommend everyone here that uses Ebay check that link out. Some really interesting info there.

First up, it's freaking ridiculous that someone spent that much money on such a (yeah - I'm going to say it!) crappy figure. Really. WOW! You could probably have hired an actual sculptor to make a better, one-of-a-kind figure for less.

Also, thanks for those links and suggestions regarding Ebay purchases, gang. I guess I've been lucky so far to not have ended up scammed in a major way!

I mean I knwo this may come off as some how prejudice,though I am Italian, but I never ship to Italy EVER!I got scammed on a Heroquest boardgame years ago. I mean I know alot of people say only do Priority for international but I do First class all the time to Canada,UK and even South america and never had a problem in fact most of the time they get their stuff faster then priority lol.

Well I live in the UK, use ebay quite a bit for figures and first class or standard mail from the states has so far always got here ok. Thing is, if I order something from BBTS or get it sent over from a friend on here, I always have to pay custom charges, most of the time with ebay purchases it comes straight through the post. I always check the feedback from a seller when buying, and try to use the same ones.

Ahh, customs and excise, the bane of my life.

It SHOULD be that anything marked over a certain value will get charged VAT, plus Parcelforce's handling fees - I think the values are £26 for anything marked "merchandise" and about £40 for things marked "Gift".

Not everything is checked, and sometimes the customs guys decide to read $ as £. If you don't want to pay the customs charge you have to refuse the parcel. You can argue it, but you've only got two weeks otherwise the package is returned to sender or destroyed.

I could go on, but I can feel the frustration rising just typing this.

On topic, yeah... that's a crazy price. Mind you, if I had that kind of disposable income and really wanted it, I might have snapped it up.

But I don't. To either of those.

Jo
Is thinking that the house evacuation plan would have to contain a "getting Firefly out" section

That's not always the case. I sold a DCUC Grundy on eBay a few months ago. The item was confirmed as delivered using delivery confirmation. The buyer filed a chargeback claim with his credit card company more than 60 days after the item was delivered saying the item was not as described. He never responded to my eBay messages and he never returned the item. Paypal took my money, plus the shipping, plus a nice $20 fee and I have nothing to show for it. I lost what I originally paid for the figure, the shipping cost, the eBay fees, and the $20. The buyer totally screwed me on that one and Paypal said they can't do anything about it because they're at the mercy of the credit card company.

Wow, dude, that sucks. You know, it's one thing to do the "figure swapping" or whatever when you buy something from Wal-Mart and return it with something else in it's place, and it's even another thing to buy up a bunch of toys and charge over-inflated prices for them, but a toy collector who uses ebay and paypal technicalities to screw a fellow collector, man, that's just f***n weak.

Um...you can revoke paypal funds after they've been received?

Something doesn't sound right here.