Just thought I would share my experience and hopefully prevent anyone els from suffering the same problem I have.

My wife wants to take up fly fishing so after some research I decided to purchase her a Sonik SK4 6/7 rod following other members reviews.

I found a company on Ebay called York Carp Ctr who were advertising two of these rods for sale brand new at £100 each incl free p+p which I thought was a good buy so I purchased one.

This was about 4 weeks ago and a week later the rod arrived and I presented my present to her. Unfortunately on opening it up I found that they had sent me a SK3 instead. No problem I contacted the seller thinking it was a genuine mistake.
The seller Paul Long assured me that he would arrange for a replacement to be sent and pick up the wrong rod.

Great I thought but a week later I still had heard nothing so I telephoned again to be told he had had to order an SK4 from Sonik but it would be with me shortly.

A week later I still had not received the rod and to add insult Mr Long was still advertising one on Ebay for sale.
I contacted him again to be told that the lady at Sonik who deals with his orders was on holiday.
I then asked for a refund and for him to arrange to pick the rod up.
He assured me that he would do the refund the following day via Paypal and arrange the rod to be collected.

Two weeks later still no refund and a further call to Mr Long resulted in him telling me that I must have looked at a Cashe site as he did not have another rod for sale and he has been having problems with his paypal accound as someone had hacked into it. Strangely the rod was still being advertised but was removed after my telephone call.

I have now opened up a Paypal dispute to get my money back but it has cost me £11 to send the SK3 back before they will refund me.This will obviously leave me out of pocket.

if anyone is thinking of buying from this company or Paul Long then my advise is don't.
He is a con man who tells lies.

may he and others like him rot in hell

Sorry to hear that will watch out for him The sk3 might be a good rod for her I believe the sk4 is fastish.


Pete

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Thanks to all who donated to 999 comp 2011
New rainbow PB 22 lbs Bangour 23/10/2011

There's still Ebay sharks about.

BK

Exactly Why I Don,t buy Anything on Flea-Bay. As they say Once Bitten Twice Shy! I honestly don,t know why people continue to use e-bay as rip-offs seem to happen more and more and instead of saving money you end up paying more and rarely do you get quality for it. Now I,m sure some members have no doubt had good experiences, but what about all the ones who haven,t???!! Fortunately it didn,t happen to me as I will Not use e-bay, but it cost my daughter a lot and she couldn,t even use the item she bought in the end and now it just sits collecting dust.

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The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

That's a real sh1tter Marcus sorry to hear of your experience. Hope it all works out ok in the end.

Personally I've never had any problems with eBay and have had some good bargains. 95% of people on there are genuine good sellers. You should always check there feedback and at the end of the day you can always open up a dispute through paypal if something does go wrong so you're quite safe.

Out of interest flytier do you have those views for all Internet shopping sites or just eBay?

I buy fishing gear, car parts, IT stuff and checking I have over 300 purchases over the last couple of years. Only ever had one problem with a £3.50 purchase that never arrived.
I think the most important bit is to check the feed back the seller has, I never buy off someone with little or no feed back unless I am collecting the goods in person.

Just E-Bay Charlie and as I said it wasn,t me personally but my daughter who suffered. I,ve no doubt like you most have had only good dealings-and long may that continue-it just pays to be wary of rip-offs on the net!

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The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

heres one to chear you up. I bought some ice skates off ebay and when they came they had been spray painted to hide the scraches.so i asked for a refund!! he said that was what i payed for and no refund. i then said you do know you put a return address on the parsel!!! he said so what!. well i left him good feed back as i didnt want any one to think it was me who called at his house. so i said to him once more will you give me my money back. he said NO! so i said dont forget it gets dark every night and ill be there waiting for you one night. he laughed!well i was fishing down near were his address was one day, and i set off early the day before and called round were he was. he lived in a terrible area very ruff. well i parked down the road it was getting dark. i was hungry so i was just setting off to the shop i had passed earlyer,and this lad came out of the said house. i passed him and just pulled up further up the road. well i didnt know if this was the right person and its not the first time ive got it wrong,so as luck would have it he walked to the shops and i followed. he went in the shop i went after him and he got aload of beer and i got a twix. as he walked down the street i spoke to him. and said is that steve. he then turned round and looked at me he said do i know you i said you do now and i said its dark isnt it.then his world closed in on him he did a little wee, as he walked into my fist. and what a sight he must of looked the day after. well i got aload of beer and a bottle of whisky and most of my money back. he just gave them to me wasnt he nice. well i hope to buy off himm again as i had such a great time.ebay great stuff.

phil

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stop buying bottled water we have,nt got enuff to fish in now so stop it get the water companies to do there job and clean the water every where!!!!

I sometimes feel eBay is safer than other online places to shop. If you buy something from a website that you've never dealt with before how do you even know if it's a genuine website?

Phil why didn't you just open up a dispute? Theoretically if the guy said the skates were in a used condition or selling them as 'used' you should expect scratches, I guess spray painting them takes the p1ss a bit though