Hi
Around Jan/Feb time i paid a supplier for "Lego Star Wars 10188/10179" It was a large amount off money.. To make things worse i pre sold items on ebay and aswell as my own savings i sent the money that my customer paid..
I paid for the items, than he tells me i had to pay for VAT and Customs which again i paid him.. He then tells me a need a License to do importing and exporting out off the USA..
So again i paid him grand total must be close to $6000 buy now..
So he emails me all the tracking numbers etc.. Only to read his next email claiming that he had to add more items to bring the shipping cost down i must pay him another $4500!! I was fuming because i had just sent him all my savings and my customers money! Ebay are dealing with that as i am writing this..
Is there any way i can get my money back?? The sad thing is i paid via Western Union :( I hate my self for it looking back at it but at the time i needed them items!
I have all his emails saved and also my receipts from western union..
Today they are still active i have asked for my money back but he claims he can not give me my money back!
I just do not know what to do as i am now in debt because off it!
What direction can i go with it, can i get my money back??
Nadeem
Hi Nadeem,
Before I write any further when you say "they are still active", do you mean the supplier has not yet collected the money from Western Union yet?
I'm guessing that isn't what you mean, but of course if they haven't collected the money from Western Union as yet, you can cancel the transactions through Western Union yourself if you still have all the receipt details.
If that is the case, contact Western Union ASAP and put a stop on collection!
I have seen a lot of victim's of scams over the years, but not much has made me feel sicker than what I have just read in your post. Sadly your trading inexperience has been quite costly.
Alibaba is what is called a B2B directory site, that is it lets suppliers list their products for sale to other business's. There are quite a few sites such as Alibaba on the Internet, and even though the service that Alibaba themselves provides is quite legitimate, these types of sites attract a large amount of scammers.
Absolutely no doubt this has scam written all over it, but in reality even if there were products they were going to send, being a Chinese supplier the products would not even have been authentic, so you still would have found yourself in trouble.
Just to clarify things like taxes, a VAT stands for Value Added Tax. It's a tax system used mostly through Europe. Here in Australia we have a GST. Same tax, ours stands for Goods and Services Tax
These types of taxes are collected by governments, never by a supplier. That said, there is no such tax system currently in place country wide in the US.
Of course you may well realize this now, but Western Union should never be used, never under any circumstances be used to pay for anything from any supplier, no matter how ;long you have been doing business with them, let alone a new supplier.
Always use safe payment methods, credit card is the safest as you are able to file a charge back if you are not satisfied for what ever reason. Scammers will never offer a credit card payment option as of course they know you will always be able to get your money back.
Failing a Credit Card option, PayPal is the safest option. Linking a credit card to your PayPal account is also a good option.
