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I would damnsure make others on that forum aware.

5 days is a bit premature to go posting on the Internet about it! But it is suspicious that he just quit communicating with you. Hopefully he's got something going on and will soon deliver on his end. Good luck!
JT

Well you could just pucker up and kiss that money good buy. Sounds like an experience I just had. Ain't really much you can do when it comes down to it.

Zaba.com search, for a couple dollars you can get a lot of information on a person. Even get a satellite picture of the address you are send payment to, you will be able to see there car or truck in the driveway.

Powdr.....my post was not tic, between my father in law and his circle of buddies (all avid outdoorsmen) that have lived there in excess of 30 years, I will most likely be able to tell you all you need to know about the guy. Just PM me the specifics.

Or just use PayPal

WTF is wrong with you people, 5 day's with a weekend in the middle and you all are ready to crucify him!

Phil

When you send $$$$ to perfect strangers, chances are you're going to get a [bleep] every once in a while.

Just include that in your cost of doing business with total strangers, and file it under experience, the best kind, the kind that is bought and paid for.

Ever try Paypal?

Yes, it IS mail fraud. Contact the US Postal Inspector's Office and make a formal complaint.

With a USPS MO you pretty much get what you get with everything run by the government. Nothing! You can't stop payment. You must pay $6 to get a copy of the cashed MO, when you already know it was cashed. To report mail fraud you fill out a form on a government run website and wait 3 months for a canned response without problem resolution.

With paypal, in a buyer/seller dispute, if the seller cannot provide proof of shipment to paypal, paypal will refund the payment to the buyer. paypal then debits the sellers account for the amount of the refund. You lose this buyer protection and this does not apply when you send a paypal "gift" to the seller as payment.

I experienced both processes, screw the fees and go with paypal.

I bought a pistol from a guy in Florida years ago. I sent a US Postal Money Order with tracking. As soon as the payment arrived, the guy disappeared. His phone was disconnected and his cell phone came back as mailbox is full. No response via e-mail for two weeks.

I contacted the US Postal Inspectors: https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/

The day after I called them, here was the seller on the phone with me, sounding like he was in a panic. He was shipping out the pistol that day and requested if I would please call off the postal inspector.

This is a true story - and mail fraud is a federal crime.

Good luck!

Doc,
You are the exception and not the rule..

I use PayPal all the time, but if you buy something on their "no-no" list, you'll not be covered if something goes sideways.

From PayPal:

"You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:

violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation.

relate to transactions involving (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia, (c) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity, (d) stolen goods including digital and virtual goods (e) items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime, (f) items that are considered obscene, (g) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (h) certain sexually oriented materials or services, (i) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (j) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law."

Then the problem is compounded when using the "gift" option. Even ordinarily covered items will not be covered if PayPal's policies are circumvented in any way.

I do not use paypal due to their anti-gun policies. I use USPS Money Orders and have done well so far. I would not hesitate to take a trip if I got ripped off.

You like the USPS gun policy better than Paypal? I don't give a rats ass how they feel about guns if the money gets transferred.

I've seen that different people have different ideas about timing, communication, etc. I can easily see someone being hammered at work, family issues, or taking a long weekend and not getting back in touch in five days.

Personally, I'd give it a bit.

I often have a tough time getting to the bank to pick up a cashiers check or getting something sent - I just try to over communicate so the seller knows my timing.

Also, I only buy from long time forum members with a lot of posts - most people that are engaged in a forum want to protect their reputation.

It is much better to be ripped off on this forum than others��..

with paypal if its gun related you are screwed

For the only been 5 day crowd.

When I sell something online. I send a confirmation about receiving the funds and the day I expect to ship on the day it is received. If I plan to take a long weekend, I make sure to communicate that with the buyer. I expect the same, when I buy! I consider it proper business methods.
If someone passed or an emergency comes up, most people have phones in there pocket to send a quick message as to there being a delay.

I guess those who put their faith in Paypal haven't read any of the horror stories about Paypal. Do they just whistle by the cemetery thinking that Paypal only makes mistakes against "other people" and wouldn't wrong them?

Even if Paypal is wrong in just 10% or even 5% of transaction disputes, and it would be very surprising if the number was less than 5%, that's 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 transaction disputes in which they side with the wrong person. On any given transaction dispute, yours may not be the one that comes up on the wrong side of the odds, but there are enough people who have been wronged to be sure that somebody's number comes up.

Some people understand that risk comes in various forms, and some people don't, or at least choose to focus on just one aspect of overall risk. With a transaction involving a USPS money order, there is ZERO chance of Paypal taking control of your bank account if the other party makes a false allegation (or even has a legitimate beef when something beyond your control went wrong).

Also, if having a transaction payment reversed is as easy as some have indicated in this thread, isn't it likely that some transaction payments are reversed when they shouldn't be due to a savvy/sneaky/fraud-minded party building a convincing, albeit misleading, case?

In fact, I'll go as far as to say that people who rely on just Paypal's dispute resolution process to protect them from theft/fraud aren't being wise in their transactions. With any transaction over the internet, one needs to make a judgment on the trustworthiness of the other party because no dispute resolution process is foolproof or fraud-proof.

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Back to the subject of this thread - IMHO five days is a little early to start calling down legal fire and brimstone on someone. I understand the more money involved the shorter the fuse tends to be, at least that's the case for me, and $400 is not a trivial amount for most people including me, but if you trusted the person enough to send money, I think you have to give the person at least a little space to make good on the transaction. The seller SHOULD have been communicating AFTER receiving the money order so there wouldn't be reason for concern by the buyer at this point, but temporary problems do arise sometimes, and we all know some sellers aren't sensitive enough about communicating what's going on if there is any kind of delay.