On Sept 25, I replied to a job posting on Craigslist for Website Assistant Needed. Was contacted by email by Tom & directed to a website for Auction Sellers. The job is to list items that they email to you for you to list on EBay under your username.
The winning bidder pays to your PayPal account, you then transfer the payment less all EBay & PayPal fees and $8-10 as your payment, to Bill Berlin thru (his preference) CheckFreeWeb. It all sounded so simple and legitimate. You basically don't use any of your own money. He (Bill) gives you detailed instructions on how to set up everything.
I got started appr 10/4/05 and the first auctions ended with winning buyers around the 10th.
The customers paid immediately and I processed the 1st two sales thru the PayPal acct to my bank, deducted my $8 & transferred the balance to Bill Berlin thru WebBillPay.
A PayPal agent contacted me by phone & questioned this activity, I explained the entire process & he stated that EBay 'frowns' on using 'dropshippers'. PayPal then restricted my account & over the next 5 days, other auctions closed & paid instantly into the restricted account.
I relayed all the PayPal emails to Bill Berlin and explained that he needed to provide tracking information for the 2 customers items - he totally ignored my requests & repeatedly insisted that I use various Web Bill/CheckFreeWeb processes to send him the payments.
Bill Berlin refused to reply to the PayPal requests & then started telling me that it was my fault that PayPal restricted my acct & that I needed to get the money to him in a cashable manner some other way.
I have a brother who lives in the next town from the address Bill Berlin gives and found it to be a MailBox service. I found other reports on this site that detailed practically verbatim the experience that I have had with Bill Berlin. I told him all of this by email - his reply was that those reports were posted by disgruntled employees of his company & again, told me how to send him the money thru an instant cash method.
I have now received an email from the first customer that he received a totally different item from what he bid on & Berlin claims that the customer was sent and upgraded model that cost double what he paid, but that the customer could keep it anyway.
The second customer has to-date (12days) not received anything.
After numerous phone calls & emailing information to PayPal, the other 5 auction winners have been refunded their money. I attempted to stop payment thru my bank on the payments that I sent to Bill Berlin, but it was too late.
I now have to pay nearly $550 to those customers and the EBay fees. I have filed reports to my local police department, the FBI Internet Fraud Division and PayPal and EBay. But this Bill Berlin has other people listing items who probably haven't found out about him yet. Be Wary people!!
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