Hi there dear reader.  Just a friendly warning to those of you who may choose to buy an item from the eBay member "love_2_buy_2". 

I've had a bad experience with this member, and looking at his feedback, so have many more people.  I wouldn't normally write like this over a one-off bad experience, but some of this guy's practises really rubbed me up the wrong way.

1)  No contact - I paid for an item literally 2 minutes after it finished, but was not contacted until 10 DAYS afterwards, after I threatened reporting him to eBay and claiming via PapPal.

2)  Lies - He then said he'd been in hospital for minor surgery so had been unable to respond.  After checking though, there had been many items listed on his account in that period, and there were a handful of feedback comments dating back months saying he had given the same excuse.  He also attributed his email communication problems to the amount of spam and viruses these days being sent to his email account.  An email account which I later discovered to be a Googlemail account, one of the safest and most spam-free providers out there.

3)  No stock - When he finally does contact me, he says the item is out of stock, so could only send it out when he'd gone and got some more.  Why list an item if you don't have it in stock??

4)  Excessive postage - I was charged £3.99 for postage that consited of a small Jiffy Bag (about 60p) plus the same again in stamps.  Where did the other £2.50 odd go?

5)  Blackmail - There are numerous references in the seller's listings to not leave negative feedback, as it will immediately be returned.  This means that people with genuine problems are afraid to voice them.  And after looking through the seller's feedback, there are masses of negative retings, from people with genuine complaints and problems, and who decided to speak up, which had not been sorted out by the seller.  He had then left these people completely un-warranted negative feedback in return, saying they had not gone through his channels of contact.  This is probably what annoys me the most, as it puts a slur on a lot of new eBayers when they have negative feedback left for no reason.

6)  Contact - To even get him to reply, I had to send a text message to his "Customer Services" number, which appeared to just be this guy's mobile.  I know it's only a few pence, but why should I have to fork out for this when everybody else on eBay just uses a simple email account.

7)  Misleading items - There have also been reports of very misleading items from this seller.  For example, a buyer quite rightly complained when he only received one beach towel, when the item said there were 3.  The reponse: "ITem clearly states that there is one towel, in a choice of three designs."  On checking the item, in massive letters at the top "PACK OF 3".  In small letters at the bottom "Auction is for one towel with a choice of three designs".

Im sorry if I sound bitchy or anything, but this is truly the worst eBayer I have ever come across, and Ir eally don't want other people to have bad experiences with this guy.  Avoid him.  And if you really really must buy something from him, keep ALL your PayPal receipts etc, because there's a very high likelihood that you'll need to claim your money back.

Thanks for listening,
James.