On Saturday, I bought an iPhone 4 off of Craigslist, met the guy in a parking lot (dumb move #1). The phone seemed to be working just fine, but we later discovered that the camera was malfunctioning. Turns out there was some water damage, zero percent chance that we caused it. (dumb move #2 was not checking for the water damage first).

Obviously the guy that sold it to us is now not answering text messages, but I did some googling and found his full name and place of employment on Facebook.

Anyone have some advice on what to do to get my money back?

I doubt you can do anything to get your money back. You could try finding his work email and explain your situation, and hope that he's an honest individual. Other than that, you're probably going to have to cut your losses. Sorry that you got scammed... I've been there too!

Time to write this down as a learning experience. You had the chance, in person, to check it out fully. Contacting him at his place of work could easily earn you harassment charges.

Since you have his name and now, place of employment, you could easily take him to small claims court.

Have you contacted Craigslist for advice?

Not an attorney, did not sleep at HI Express...

but, if the ad or communications about the phone were intentionally deceptive you might have some recourse.

While you did not perform due diligence, that does not excuse fraud. Accountability is a good thing in my book.

Step 1: post information on GB
Step 2: ????????
Step 3: profit!

It is most likely deemed "as is", unless he said it was perfect and it's not or something similar.

Small claims court over buying a non fully functional item off craiglist?
LOL..now I have heard everything

That would be like going to a garage sale and asking "yeah what kind of warranty do you offer with this 1983 Atari"?

Should have bought a droid.

There is nothing easy that you can do, I'd show up at his work and ask to speak to him.
Resell on eBay and disclose all problems you will get some of your money back

Let’s review the facts:

• you bought a used product
  
• the product was sold “as is”
  
• you tested the product when you bought it and, as you stated, it “seemed to be working just fine”
  
• you paid for product and left
  

Once you paid and left the product was yours. You own it and all its problems.
 
You already admitted to two dumb mistakes, don’t make a third by trying to hunt this guy down or harass him at his work. If you showed up at my work, I would call the cops.
 
Also, who on earth buys phones out of parking lots and expects great things? Seriously?
 

Ouch. I'm sorry to hear of your experience. I was reading other posted suggestions, and I would strongly caution you about going to this man's place of work. I would not confront him in person...you never know what he might do (i.e. draw a gun on you, report you for criminal tresspassing, etc.) I think you might have bigger headaches if you confront him in person.

I'm not a lawyer. My suggestions are just what would come to mind if I were in your stuation. Can you take a look @ his ad and confirm that he said it was in either "perfect" or "new" condition? Did he list it as used? If new/perfect, I would give a quick call to a local attorney that offers free consultations; I'd make the time to set an appointment and discuss this. Bring with you the printed information/the ad (you'll need it for future documentation). Find out what leg you have to stand on and proceed from there. If the atty says you have some sort of small claims court, you can find out how to go about filing that yourself. (I have found that attorneys are willing to tell you how to file in small claims, as they don't want to bother with the small cases. They'll tell you how to go about filing, the fees associated with same, etc).

So, that's what I'd do. I would not contact this man again, and let him be surprised with documents requesting that he appear in court. You've tried many times to contact him, and it's apparent he is done with this and has no desire to help remediate the situation. By all means, go after him! I would!

Best of luck to you.

Welcome to craigslist, buyer beware. Seriously, you bought a used phone as is, I would not expect him to take it back. You had the opportunity to check out the phone in person, but once the money exchanged hands that is the end of the transaction.

Think this through. Some guy without integrity sold you a broken phone in a parking lot. If the guy had integrity and money and he broke his iphone, he would have thrown it away/recycled it. Instead, he decides to rip someone else off. That is who you are dealing with.

Right now, he thinks that he passed his problem on to you. You are about to try to give it right back to him. What does this guy do, historically, when he has a problem? He demonstrates his lack of integrity. Do you think he can google you and find out your employer/home/etc? And what might he do if he gets that info?

Walk away. Chalk it up to a lesson learned.

Thanks for the responses. The guy finally texted back, accusing us of ruining the phone and trying to give it back to him.

I wasn't counting on getting the money back, just looking for suggestions on how to handle it appropriately.

I doubt he could get me on harrassment charges for going to Best Buy , but obviously I won't go there to confront him.

Lesson learned, in the end I shouldn't have expected honesty from a stranger.

quote:

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I doubt he could get me on harrassment charges for going to Best Buy , but obviously I won't go there to confront him.

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There is no reason NOT to go to Best Buy and talk to him.

THIS.WOULD.BE.EPIC!!!

Hey if that guy is throwing out scams on Craigslist you should have no problem giving his name out as your are doing the community a favor.

If that guy is doing scams with electronics and works at Best Buy you should have no problem letting us know !

I shop on Craigslist and I shop at Best Buy. If they have an employee scamming people I want to know about it and they should want to know about it. If you owned or went to a business that sold a product wouldn't you want to know if someone is scamming others in the community ?

I would imagine that giving this persons name, number and where he works could result in enough pressure being placed on him and his employer that you would have your money back by Friday.

Yeah go ahead and set up a time to meet him, his manager and whoever else wants to show up at BEST BUY and discuss this. I am free all week in fact I can bring receipts for the things I have purchased at Best Buy in 2011.

[This message has been edited by BlazeHarper (edited 1/16/2012 11:42a).]

Happened to my sister in law too. She told him that she was going to file a police report (whether you can or not for that issue) and he gave her her money back.

agreed, he probably stole it. Heck, he may have even stolen it from BB if it was returned. Who knows.

Probably not even his phone.

1. Go to Best Buy (if that is where he works)
2. Grab manager, explain situation, then grab employee while manager listens
3. Review the specifics of this case
4. Have Scruffy take blurry cell phone pics
5. ????
6. Profit

quote:

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Step 1: post information on GB
Step 2: ????????
Step 3: profit!

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This. It might not get you anywhere, but it would be fun to watch them go GB on him.

Now THIS is the bait and switch. Selling you an h2o optimized phone when you didn't ask for it. The nerve of those best buy people!

I don't see why the Best Buy Manager would/would want to get involved in something that one of his employees did in their free time. This really has nothing to do with Best Buy, right, since this guy sold it from invidual-to-individual with no affiliation to Best Buy?

I would think the Manager would bring this point up, tell you he's sorry, but his hands are tied since this was a purchase not associated with Best Buy. (I could be wrong though.)

Buying and selling on the internet...be sure to consider security the top priority.

Invoke a professional if necessary!

Best Buy probably has stacks of resumes of qualified folks wanting a job. I bet his managers would love to know what kind of person they really have working for them.

Yes you should DEFINITELY have him fired over a used iPhone.

I agree!

Girlfriends dad bought some home surveillance video equipment from a guy and it never worked. Called the guy and said your ad didn't say anything about these not working. Either buy em back from me or i'll file in small claims. Seller basically told him to GFY.

So he filed in small claims. Day after guy received the small claims notice he called and said "wow, you weren't kidding". Bought the stuff back plus the cost to file.

If you know exactly who he is, I would go ahead and file in small claims court. It's a fairly small fee and you can wrap it up in the judgement against him if you win. If not, at least you've made him take a day off of work, and made him come up with an excuse why.

Bonus points if you have him served at BB (although i'm not exactly sure how this works. I just envisioned a pineapple express type serving of papers being broadcast over all the demo tv's at BB)

If he really does work at Best Buy and he bought the phone on his employee discount, then he could get in trouble at work.

Dishonest people make it difficult for others. I want to buy an electronic for a gift (which I know nothing about) found a good deal on CL but I don't know what to check for so I'm going to end up buying new because of it.

JKS, it's been almost a week. What's the status? My hope is that you got the paperwork from Small Claims Court, have it completed, and filed. Please update the status...curious to know it's going.