On occasion I partake in online sales. These usually take the form of Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace listings and an in-person meeting to either buy or sell an item. The vast majority of the time, things go according to what’s agreed upon. But to say this environment is a cesspool is an understatement. It can bring out people intent on the shadiest of things. Today, I offer a bit of a different story.

And I’ve spoken extensively about how to spot these scams and even outlined in two parts the experience of confronting counterfeiters. Facing thieves and scammers in online marketplaces is as common today as a street intersection with a Tim Hortons. It’s important to protect yourself, but sometimes, I’ll go further and find them. Shame them.

Previous to this, I’d sold a fellow two hard drives. They were supposed to be 500 GB and while the price for them was a meager $20 each, selling him something meant I needed to honour the deal. He contacted me later and explained that one of the drives was not the same size, that it was 320 GB. Through a few photos, it was easy to confirm that I’d made a mistake and given him the wrong drive. Through a little communication and a few apologies, an appropriate drive was shipped off to him and for his troubles, I let him keep the 320 GB drive. We’re going to make mistakes, and I think that’s how things should go when we do.

In today’s example however, let’s look at Dipshit (not his real name), he’s a seller in Oshawa and was selling a Lenovo laptop that was billed in his Facebook Marketplace advertisement as being in “Used – Good” condition with the ad copy looking like this:

T470 intel i5, 8gb Ram & 256 gb ssd, windows 10 pro. A bit of cosmetic damage chip .. see picture but everything else works. Comes with 2 batteries installed and charger.

Notice that text indicates no major issues. In his photos and in the text, the “cosmetic damage” does indeed look minor. The two batteries he’s touting are the default for this model of computer, not some extra feature. We connected and made a deal and a place to meet. On arrival, he had me park in a place that away from his house and walk up to me. It’s a smart move to protect himself, but clearly he lives in the area. We meet, he hands off the laptop and it’s clear it looks worse than in the photo. By looking at the separation in the bottom part of the case, the thought of a swollen battery came to mind, but there were no tools handy to tear apart the laptop. Further, you shouldn’t have to dismantle something to check its fitness. After seeing the machine boot, I decided to take it.

The next day, this was on my mind. So, the only thing to do was investigate. Taking off the back cover of the computer, it was clear as day that this battery had swelled and might have been stored in a poor location a long time. Add insult to injury, the drive he’d put in the computer was a cheap cut-rate, slow NVMe that he probably got for $20. Clearly this laptop was defective and he knew it.

It was then important to contact Dipshit, let him know what I’d found immediately and let him either take the device back for a refund or make this right in some other way. I explained to him in the chat what I’d found and included two pictures of the misshapen battery. Further, I pointed out that the battery would cost $60 to replace¹. It was at this point he ended the conversation and blocked me on Facebook. His approach to selling a bad product was to run and hide, not to investigate and ultimately not make it right. That didn’t sit right with me.

Naturally, I reported this to Facebook and deleted my previous positive review of him. Facebook and it’s unmanned A.I. were probably going to do nothing. Buying the battery and replacing it was a trivial process. This felt like a wholly inadequate resolution to being screwed over. Then I thought, why not create another account, connect with him long enough so I could leave him a poor rating (and a warning for others).

So I did that. With the help of some AI tools, another Facebook account was ready. The important thing was to wait a few days before contacting him, hoping he wouldn’t think I was anything but another buyer. It would be important for him to think his hiding is working. Knowing a small amount about this guy made it easy to find a plethora more about him. There’s no need to share any of it here, but it was a trivial process.

I made a real effort to chose different words and sound like an entirely different person. This isn’t so easy, let me tell you. With some effort, I managed to arrange a meeting time at 9:30 PM. I was not going to repeat the same mess that happened at College Park a couple years ago, so no in-person surprises. It’s just money after all.

I finally managed to get to the point I could rate him. I was eager to buy his Gopro Hero 3+, but not too eager, negotiating $10 off his $70 price. If all went well, he won’t be able to remove that rating no matter what he does. Immediately I started to work on how I would write this. A bit of an added benefit would be that it was raining and he’d have to walk from his house to the meeting location and get wet. The true test was to try and keep him waiting outside as long as possible.

WARNING: Seller sold a defective product and did NOT take it back or fix it. Instead, he blocked me and probably thought I would go away. I suggest he unblocks me and does the honorable thing! Do not buy from this person, obviously. Message me for receipts.

Worse though was that while giving this idiot the runaround in the rain, Facebook wasn’t letting me leave a review. Try and try, I could not do it. Through chopping off the text above, I managed to get the review posted in a much briefer format. My primary mission was a success. I gave up talking to him while he chased some random car through a townhouse complex in the rain thinking it was me.

Is there a moral to this story? Perhaps there is, as always, honour your agreements. If you make a mistake and it’s clear, make it right. Don’t be like Mister Dipshit. The world doesn’t need to stop for a $60 battery replacement (or even the principal), but what causes that behaviour shift, I don’t know.

1. A non-Lenovo branded battery, which works fine. ↩︎