Don't deal with Pjohnson

[waterhouse]

I tried to buy the ACOG listed in this thread:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250335&highlight=acog

I paid for it on June 10th, and received an email from Peter Johnson that it would ship on the 12th.

He never shipped it. After several emails that he didn't respond to, I started a complaint with Paypal for an undelivered item, and they found that he was in the wrong, but according to them he transfered the money out and they can't get it back. Amazingly, about 20 minutes after I filed the complaint he started responding to emails again.

His emails have ranged from polite to full of profanities. About 2 weeks ago he said he would just refund my money, but it never arrived and I have little hope that it ever will.

I tried talking to the local cops about it, but they basically said I needed to contact the cops in his jurisdiction. Paypal will not release his address without a subpoena, and I didn't get much help on that front from the police either. They did send me to ic3.gov to fill out some complaint forms, but I doubt much will come of that.

Anyhow, don't deal with the guy.

[shortydog]

How did you pay for it?
Whoops, never mind i see it was paypal.
Another reason i do not use paypal.

[Glock2000]

I think a lesson learned from this would be to avoid dealing with folks who have less the 10 posts to their credit.

Also, I'd hope our moderators would look into blocking this guy's IP address if you were able to provide them evidence of wrong doing. Not sure if it's possible, I'm not a computer guru.

Thanks for the heads up on this guy though. Sorry to hear you were taken for a ride.

[FL-Flinter]

If you paid via Pay Pal using a credit card, call your card company and file a complaint with them, if they are any good like American Express, they'll go after Pay Pal. We only use AmEx, nobody screws with them (just ask Fed-Ex) and they do take very good care of their customers.

If you paid in any other way using PP, file a complaint with your local Post Master because you made the payment on an item that was supposed to be shipped to you. That falls under mail fraud and it gets the Fed's involved. You may never get your money back but you can make life very miserable on the alleged seller.

[Billy Sparks]

What is interesting is that he sold me the same ACOG and I had the same results. I always try to give someone the benefit of the doubt due to low posts but I got taken this time. The interesting thing is that when I threatened to go to PayPal is when he stopped talking to me.

[buzz_knox]

Have you asked a mod to close the thread so he can't delete it or otherwise change it?

[waterhouse]

Billy, what has been your outcome? Did paypal refund your money? If you haven't done it already, please go to www.ic3.gov and fill out the form. They might be more likely to help if they get more complaints.

I would like the original thread to stay open, as I've linked to it in my emails to authorities and such, but the mods might want to put a warning or something at the top of the thread.

[JoeBlackSpade]

I know this thread is old, but another option is to obtain his IP address. Of course if you don't know how to get his IP address, it will be in the information attached to the sender's email. With a large email service like YAHOO, you can use the settings inside the control panel, and set it up so that it will show you ALL the details from the sender, including the originating IP address.


Once you have the originating IP address, run it through a "Who Is?" search like this one:

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp



This will tell you who the internet provider is. File a complaint with them. If you succeed in getting a subpoena, you can present it to the Internet Service Provider which you found at Who Is, and, in some cases, they can give you his contact information. Once you have that, you can pursue him in court, etc.

[Eghad]

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250336

[Billy Sparks]

PayPal setteled it in my favor.