As the title reads, on April 10th I sent Carman34L $575 via PayPal for the skimmer in this thread:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9710700#post9710700
but now, over 2 month later, I've come out empty handed.
I thought that the skimmer was a solid deal and so I PMed him about it. He gave me his phone number and I PayPal-ed him the 500 bucks while I was on the phone with him, plus an additional 75 to cover the shipping - I would cover the difference if it ending up costing more. He said the skimmer would go out in the next three days.
I kept getting promises that the skimmer was going to be shipped out every time I that I e-mailed or called him. He told me that he was having some personal issues and so I made a point of being patient, polite and understanding. I said that there wasn't a great hurry yet and that there are obviously more important things in life than a skimmer. And so I waited more with contact here and there.
I spoke with him over the phone about three weeks ago and I said that I would really like to get the skimmer so I can replumb my tank with it and chiller at the same time before the hot weather arrives with summer. He told me that it was already shipped but that he didn't have the tracking number on him. He offered to e-mail me the tracking number as soon as he got home but I said that it was fine as long as the skimmer was definately shipped.
That was three weeks ago and I haven't heard from him since. He doesn't answer the phone, respond to my voicemails, reply to my e-mails or to my PMs.
I have a lot of sympathy for whatever problems that he is having but I can't just let go of $575 dollars. I just can't believe that he can't even just pick up the phone instead of voice mailing me.
Personally, I try to be decent and I would be ashamed of even thinking about stealing a dollar from someone, much less $575. I know that people work too hard for their money just to take it from them and I worked hard for that $575 just the same. I'm definately not rolling in the dough and not having that money means that I can't buy another skimmer for a while.
He seemed like such a genuinely nice person, so I am a bit shocked by this. While I wish him the best with any problems he's having, I'm going to make every effort to recoup my money. Any suggestions as to how to go about this would be appreciated immensely. If I don't hear from him tomorrow, as I told him in my last voice mail, I'm going to get the ball rolling with PayPal and beyond. While PayPal is probably a dead end as I doubt that he left the money in his account, I'm thinking of looking into contacting the local law enforcement and asking some lawyer and law enforcement friends if they have any ideas as to what I could do.
So for me: Once bitten, twice shy. While I know that there are many decent people here on RC, I've learned my lesson never to make any exchanges unless they are in person.