Amanda O'Gorman (Meep) Unprofessional Transaction

What should have been a simple transaction has now gotten to the point of me actually posting this thread, which I hoped I'd never have to do for anyone.

Anyway, simple story - I purchased a Butter Female Ball Python from Amanda. We agreed to a price and I submitted a deposit via PayPal on 5/13 for $100. She advised she wanted to wait a week to ship to let the recent meal digest. I said no problem and remitted the remaining payment via PayPal on 5/19. We agreed on a ship date of 5/23. I wasn't sure if I would be available that day as I was scheduled to travel for work. I let Amanda know and then juggled the schedule to be here on Tuesday the 24th to accept delivery. On Monday, I received the following email:

From:
"amanda@hitailrabbitry.com" <amanda@hitailrabbitry.com> Monday, May 23, 2011 5:30 PM

To:
"Jim Moorman" <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Hi Jim,

Unfortunately I have some bad news. We ended up having to head out of state late last night due to a family emergency. The way it looks I won't be home until late Wednesday or Thursday. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to email you sooner, it was a rush to get out of town. I hope this doesn't inconvenience you in any way.
-Amanda

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: Jim Moorman <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 05:42:13 -0700 (PDT)
To: <amanda@hitailrabbitry.com>
Subject: Butter Female

Amanda-
I sent you a message on Fauna as well, but I just sent you the final payment and address for shipping in Paypal.
I'm confirmed as good for Monday shipping.

Thanks again,
Jim


I was bummed, but I understand that stuff comes up and, of course, family takes priority, but the reality was that I had to travel at the end of the week and would effectively be out of town on a big project for the better part of June, so I sent the following reply:

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Re: Butter Female
Monday, May 23, 2011 5:49 PM
From:
"Jim Moorman" <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Add sender to Contacts
To:
amanda@hitailrabbitry.com
Amanda-
This does, unfortunately, put a damper on things. Of course, I'm sorry to hear of your family emergency and wish you well in short order.
I was supposed to travel for work today, tomorrow and Wednesday. I pushed it off to be here for the delivery, so now I travel Wednesday through Friday. Next week is the holiday and then I'm out of town for 3 weeks on a big project.
Had I known we would have had such a rough schedule, I would have waited to pay you in full for her and free up the $.
As it stands now, I'm really not going to be around from next week through July. Why don't you just go ahead and issue me a refund and re-post her. If you get a buyer in the next couple weeks, cool. If she's still around when I get back, I'll gladly pay you for her (the amount we agreed to) and get her then.

Let me know if that will work.

Jim

Her reply:

Re: Butter Female
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 4:53 AM
From:
"amanda@hitailrabbitry.com" <amanda@hitailrabbitry.com>
Add sender to Contacts
To:
"Jim Moorman" <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Hi Jim,

I had just transfered the paypal money to my bank account, so it will be a couple days before I can send it back. I'll send it over as soon as it clears!

Sorry again!

Amanda

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: Jim Moorman <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 17:33:02 -0700 (PDT)
To: <amanda@hitailrabbitry.com>
Subject: Re: Butter Female



No worries, right? Since that communication, however, I asked for a couple updates and didn't receive a reply.

Sent this last Thursday:

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Re: Butter Female
Thursday, May 26, 2011 8:40 PM
From:
"Jim Moorman" <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Add sender to Contacts
To:
amanda@hitailrabbitry.com
Any update? Let me know. As I said, I'm out of town now, but checking email fairly regularly. I hope all is well with the family emergency.
Thanks
Jim

No Response

Sent this on Saturday

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Update request
Saturday, May 28, 2011 9:55 PM
From:
"Jim Moorman" <jamesa2580@yahoo.com>
Add sender to Contacts
To:
amanda@hitailrabbitry.com
Amanda-
I messaged you a couple days ago requesting an update on the refund and haven't heard back. It's been 5 days, so I'm hoping everything cleared. Please let me know.
Thanks
Jim

No Response

I sent the following this morning:

Amanda-
I've sent you two emails and haven't received a response. I'm just looking for an update on the status of my refund. It's been 8 days, so I'm guessing everything has cleared?

The last thing I want to do is submit a Paypal dispute and write a negative BOI thread. You seem like a nice person and were initially very good about communicating, so please let me know where it stands.

If I don't hear back today, I'm going to have to go the dispute route. I'm left with little in the way of other options.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Jim

I received the following delivery failure message:

This message was automatically kicked back as undeliverable

Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address.

<amanda@hitailrabbitry.com>:
Remote host said: 550 in an RBL, see Blocked - see http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?98.138.91.40" [RCPT_TO]

I sent another message just to be sure before I posted here, and received the same result - Blocked.

So now I have disputed through PayPal and will have to wait until the 20th to get my $ back. It was a crummy set of circumstances that led to this, and I was just hoping for a better interaction. I'll get my $ back as I never received the snake, but I'd be remiss if I didn't post this to other buyers to (as always) buy with caution.

Thanks
Jim

You are being too kind in calling this an "unproffesional transaction".

I'd call it a scam and theft.

Does this mean she blocked you from email contact or am I reading this wrong?

Remote host said: 550 in an RBL, see Blocked - see http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?98.138.91.40" [RCPT_TO]

correct - she's using spamcop to block incoming messages from my address

It looks like she put a filter on your Email to auto block/delete it.

Test that by emailing with a different email and if same applies then the account could have been closed.

For your sake, hope the money wasn't transferred into the bank as the dispute will be pointless as paypal wont be able to get any funds back.

Amanda apparently has a company with a website that is up and running (and has a slightly different email) to which you could send a message. I am including the name of the business,

Hitailrabbitry

so that a Google search for her company will bring up this thread and perhaps encourage communication on her part.
In my opinion you should not have had to wait for a refund at all. I hope your refund from paypal is smooth and without incident.

Hitailrabbitry.com

Wow. It looks like she blocked your email altogether.

To get a message kicked like that she had to set it through the spamcop website. Here is a link to the page where you see the blocking process, you can also run your IP address through it to see if you are blocked.

http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml

Originally Posted by East_Coast

You are being too kind in calling this an "unproffesional transaction".

I'd call it a scam and theft.

I agree. I commend you for being so nice, but at this point it's heading more and more toward scam. The email blocking is kind of the kicker.

Good luck, I hope Paypal comes through for you.

I sent a message to the rabbitry just so she would not think that the problem could be handled simply by blocking it.