In late October I signed up at Half.com to sell items to try and earn some extra money for the Holiday season. I had signed up and listed items with no problems, and I started getting sales almost right away. Within less than two weeks, I had earned a little over $1,000.00.
My very first bid/sale was a few minutes after I had started listing items, and the total was a little over $100.00. Half.com deposited this into my bank account with no problem in November.By the middle of November, I had earned a little over $1,000.00, which was supposed to be deposited into my account, BUT I got an e-mail from half.com saying that my account was suspended, and the money would be held by them for up to 180 days. I e-mailed to find out why they suspended my account, and they replied "suspicious activity." Then when I asked them what they meant by "suspicious activity" they replied that the item I had listed for bids/sales was not allowed to be listed at their site. (I didn't know this beforehand, had I known, I sure would not have listed the item there.)
... Since Half.com e-mailed me and told me that the item wasn't allowed to be listed for bids/sales at their site, I e-mailed them back the same day I got their e-mail and gave them every bidders info. On each order, EXCEPT for the very first bid and order, and I told them to give these bidders each a FULL REFUND.
The very first bidders' money had been deposited into my bank account, and I had mailed his item off to him, which he let me know he had recieved. A day or two later, I got another mail from half.com telling me they had issued all of the other bidders a FULL REFUND. I figured all was fine and that was the end of my selling at half.com, and then I found out that e-bay had also suspended my seller's account there, too! So, I gave up the idea of selling items online, and thought nothing else of the matter. This was in November.
In late January I went to the store to get money out of the bank and buy some groceries. I go to withdraw money to buy groceries, and the teller tells me that my account is NEGATIVE! He gives me a printout, and I see that Half.com had deposited the rest of the other bidders amounts into my bank account a couple of days before in January, but the very same day they went back and withdrew their money, along with the first bidders amount that they had deposited into my bank account in November! This made my bank account go NEGATIVE, and I wound up having to pay the bank almost $1000.00 because of Half.com's mistake, and bank fees! (This also had me wondering if HALF.com had even given each of these bidders their full refunds!) And it had and still has my finances messed up;I've had to borrow money from relatives and am still little by little paying them back to this day!)
After I saw this printout, I immediately went home and e-mailed half.com to ask them what was going on. I didn't hear from them for a few days and when they finally replied, they outright LIED and tried to say I'd told them in my e-mail to issue EVERYONE a full refund. I'd had a cousin over the day I e-mailed half.com & told them
to give all of the bidders a full refund EXCEPT for the very first bidder, (more or less as a witness to what I had e-mailed half.com,) because his amount was deposited into my bank account in November, BEFORE half.com notified me that the item wasn't allowed to be listed on their site, and because I had already mailed the bidder his item, and also he confirmed it via an e-mail to me to let me know he had recieved it.
I have e-mailed half.com several times since January asking them to deposit the first bidders amount back into my bank account, I have given them all of the information I had kept about each bidders order, etc, because I also kept each bidders information written in a notebook, and as of today, they still have not deposited the amount back into my bank account.
One of the last e-mails I got from half.com said that if I continued to e-mail them about this matter, they would ignore any further e-mails from me. After this, I e-mailed them one more time to ask about the matter, and they took almost TWO WEEKS before they replied. When they replied, no kidding it was A ONE WORD REPLY which said something like "denied", or "suspended." That was all that was typed in their e-mail response to me.
All I was asking them for was to re-deposit the very first amount from my very first bid/order back into my bank account, and they won't even do that, so all in all, I never earned one penny, but I did wind up in debt to the bank and to relatives because of Half.com's mistake!
A couple of weeks ago I was looking for information using search engines to see if any others had ever been "ripped off" by half.com, and I found a site called PAYPALSUCKS.com. When I read some of the people's stories there it shocked me, now knowing that so many other people have been 'ripped off' by the Paypal site, and by e-bay! Then, a couple of days ago while searching for more information online, the EBAYERSTHATSUCK link popped up in the search engine listings, so that's how I arrived here to post my story about the hassles I've had with HALF.com.
If anyone has any helpful information they can post concerning this matter with half.com, please do so, I really appreciate it, any helpful information on what can be done about them literally stealing money from sellers and keeping it. I'm putting it in a blunt and crass sort of way, but this reminds me of half.com site being a p*mp and the sellers being pr*stitutes... What I mean by this is that the sellers do the work of listing, selling, mailing the bidders their item (s) etc. Etc and when it comes time to get what you have earned from half.com, half.com can just snatch your earnings from you and keep it like a p*mp, and you, the seller can do nothing about it!
It DOES seem like some sort of underlying rip - off ponzi scheme to me, that half.com, and even from what I've read about Paypal & ebay, how they have so far gotten away with literally ripping people off for tens of thousnads of dollars! Not to mention, they can WIPE OUT your bank account without your knowledge, and you can do nothing about it, either!
I thought selling online was going to be something fun and interesting to do, along with earning some extra money once in a while, but after going thru this scam, I never plan to sell anything else online again, it's too RISKY!!!
If anyone can tell me anything helpful in this matter, please do... I appreciate it lots in advance, and I sure hope that this will be STOPPED SOON, even if it means these online sites have to be shut down, and EVERONE'S money returned to them. They can really devistate someone's finances, especially when you don't earn much in the first place, which is my case, or if someone does online selling for a full-time job at home, I hate to imagine how that could completely wipe their finances out! I'm upset about a little over $100.00, while there are posts by people at PAYPALSUCKS stating some have been ripped off for THOUSANDS of dollars, and that online selling was their full-time job!
Hope to get replies, and thanks so much for reading my story!
Ofelia
48214, Michigan
U.S.A.
0 comments