I had been shopping for a quality camcorder for months, looking for a good deal because I don't have much money. While on Amazon.com, I saw a Canon GL2 camcorder being sold in the Amazon Marketplace for $500. This is an amazing deal, since the list price is close to $3000 and even on ebay they rarely sell for less than $1500.
The guy's name was Jim Mabey and he said he the camera was an unwanted gift and he was selling it because he needed money because he was moving to Europe. Sounded good to me, of course! He suggested doing the transaction through an online escrow site, www.escrowd.com.
I checked out the site, and everything looked very professional. It said it protected both buyers and sellers. I deposit money with the escrow company, they confirm receipt of the money, seller ships the item, I confirm receipt of the item and they release the funds to the seller. Sounded perfect. Also Jim Mabey had apparently completed 41 transactions through escrowd.com, all of which had positive ratings.
At this point, I let my desperate yearning for a good camera override. It looked secure and like a great deal. So I followed the instructions on the site, which had me Western Union money to them. They confirmed receipt of the money, and Jim Mabey emailed me saying he had shipped the camera and I would have it in 2 business days.
Well, that was about a week and a half ago. I have emailed Jim repeatedly asking for a tracking number or where my camera is, but no response. So I searched his name on google and found other big ticket items that he is supposedly selling, as well as a bunch of warnings about escrowd.com. Great! Put a big fat stupid sticker on my head because I have been had. And I am $562 farther away from owning a good camera.
I really want to shut down these bastards and get my money back (although I'm not holding my breath), so if anyone has had similar experiences or knows how I can go about that, please let me know.
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