GuestFromTampa

Hey everyone,

Over past 3 weeks I had an unfortunate accident with purchasing fake
wheels from a seller that is listed on our forum. And I thought that I
should warn other guys on so they would not do same mistake I did and
loose considerable chunk of money.

So here is the thing, we have this posting from scoobyalty, who
claimed that wheels were real and “not some cheap knock- offs”.

https://mbworld.org/forums/wheels-ti...month-old.html

So I talked to the seller, we agreed at price and I wired him money
via paypal. Several days letter I receive these wheels and the first
thing I notice was the fact that these wheels do not look like
original at all. So what I did is- I contacted PayPal to immediately
start a claim about counterfeit product that was sold to me (
unfortunately that been going on since the beginning of June, and up
to now there is no resolution, Paypal asks you to submit tons of
paperwork and apparently they are so swamped up with work, they do not
have enough case officers to look into case promptly- I was told case
revewing might take more than a month and there is not a certain
timeframe- hey, so much for promised buyer protection with Paypal-
ironic huh?). So right now I am stuck with those fake wheels that I am
afraid to put on my car- safety is more important for me and I would
not risk putting fake knock- offs. Other thing is that I AM OUT OF $
1200. These money are stuck with paypal who apparently takes such a
long time deciding if to grant this money back to me since it was a
counterfeit sale . I mean I am stuck with the fake wheels in my
garage, that take space, but paypal is stating that they do not
authorize me to send those fake wheels back to the seller ( you think
this would be an easy case- send back fakes, receive my hard earn
money back and be done with that? – no!). So while Paypal thinking if
this is a counterfeit and what to do with that, I am out $1200 big
ones, upset and angry, pretty much.

Oh, and I did contact the original manufacturer of Incurve wheel- who
did confirmed that those were fake. So how do you know the wheels are
fake? Apparently very easy –the front wheels center cap area, the
fakes have a much more "recessed" cap area than the real ones, not to
mention the mercedes caps, not incurve caps.

So here it is, beware of seller- scoobyalty. Apparently he is in the
business of selling fakes, I had so much headache, fuss and paperwork
that I have to submit with Paypal- it been a real nightmare!
Especially the fact that Paypal customer service is not in US, but
India- so there is not even a live case reviewing officer that you can
talk to, only call answering reps that sure are not very helpful.

Be careful when purchasing used wheels, and always check with the
manufacturer first on the subject of authenticity.

jbec.keane

Once you have proved that the item is counterfeit, PayPal may require you to destroy the item in return for your refund.

According to PayPal:

A spokesman for PayPal said: "While we cannot talk about this particular case due to PayPal's privacy policy, we carefully review each case, and in general we may ask a buyer to destroy counterfeit goods if they supply signed evidence from a knowledgeable third party that the goods are indeed counterfeit.

"The reason why we reserve the option to ask the buyer to destroy the goods is that in many countries, including the US, it is a criminal offense to mail counterfeit goods back to a seller."

This is from an infamous case regarding a "fake" violin. (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1183687.html)

GuestFromTampa

Thanks for advise and valuable info,
well up to now I am still awaiting on the Paypal response on what to do next. Hopefully the logical resolution on all this will come soon.

UDWANIT2

lol....HRE fakes or ADV1 fakes i have herd and seen but Incurve fakes....wow lol the wheels original are 320 $ each brand new how much were u gwtting them for...

ydlee

Nit bad deal for $1200 with tures.

GuestFromTampa

Paypal told me to send these fakes back to seller in order to get my money back ,so i guess these wheels will be for sale soon enough...

acuteperformance

Very sorry to hear your experience with the seller. Wheels are something you cannot play around with and fake wheels should not be trusted for any car. Hope you get this resolved quickly

GuestFromTampa

Hey everyone,
I finally got results on my resolution case with purchasing fake wheels from Benjamin Altonen aka scoobyalty . Here are details - it might be useful for someone in the future perhaps. So few days ago PayPal finally decides in my favor and saying that I should send those fake wheels back, and once they are back I will get my money back. So I did send them with FedEx with delivery confirmation of course. Got the money back from PayPal- but to my lost i had to pay almost $200 for return shipping fees, which i dont think seller would offer to reimburse me for.

So i thought to myself- Benjamin aka scoobyalty - knew initially that those wheels were fake, tried to sell them to me. And when i filed a claim that item is fake, offered to give me a discount- just so I would keep them. I refused. Now when PayPal refunded back my money. Benjamin is trying another scam!!! Now he is trying to claim that he got damaged wheels from me- and this is ridiculous.
Well, you got caught when trying to sell counterfeit. wouldn't this be time to stop, I mean he even got his fake items back- instead of several cases when PayPal orders to destroy fake items- and this
person- Benjamin- is still trying to scam and to get money any way possible by trying to say the items he got are damaged.

Just be aware of this person and never ever do any business with him, as he is just one big scam.
I am fine with PayPal decision, at least I got my 1200 back, but I am out 200 which I had to pay for the return shipping and no one would cover than. I mean- PayPal said I can ask the seller to cover this- but do you think this person would do the right thing? NO- he is trying to scam again.