Right, but remember we're discussing a hypothetical seller who already has used the "U.S. shipping only" option in their listing, perhaps both in the header and in the actual auction description. That person has made their wishes clear.

Normal international bidders, like our non-U.S. members here at The Acaeum, will shrug and move on.

Cougar, on the other hand, will assume the rules don't apply to him, and bid anyway, hoping to bribe or intimidate the seller at the conclusion of the auction.

What I'm trying to say here is that a given seller who, for whatever reason, decides to ship in-country only is best-served by finding and using that eBay preference. Because just claiming "I don't ship overseas" is not enough to keep out the riff-raff or to automatically have eBay take your side in a dispute.

For Cougar specifically, the best thing to do is to block him, but sell to other international bidders. The problem, as I mentioned, is that most eBay newcomers don't see him coming: they've never heard of him and have no idea of the misery they are about to encounter.

No, that particular preference is all-or-nothing. However, a seller could choose to not use the preference at all and rely instead on the options from the standard "Sell Your Item" form, which include things like "North America," "Europe," "Canada and Mexico," etc., etc. If you look closely at the header information on some auctions, you'll see sellers who have opted for this.

As for "whitelisting," yes, I think that's possible, but I've never done it (I think our own bclarkie has, though; maybe he'll check in here). So it should be possible to, say, block most of the world, but still add "killjoy32" or "deimos3428" or any other Acaeum members to a list of "accepted buyers." Actually, I know it's possible, but I can't remember what the exact link is or what the procedure might be. (Currently, I'm mostly selling smaller items that wouldn't even be worth the effort to ship overseas, so I'm just going U.S.-only for the sake of simplicity).

This is Danteisevil.  I warn you this is a long read.  I know you banned me, that's fine, I violated your forum rules. I apologize but I lose nothing being banned from this site.  Yes it was childish but here me out because this is the last post I will have on your oh so inviting forum.  I received word this morning that all mbag shipments sent to the uk have been received by the buyer of my auction.  I received positive feedback from the buyer.



Now, I want to clear up everything anyone has read on this forum and I am going to summarize everything with email correspondence so that it may show the truth on this forum. I was very insulted, very intimated, and very pissed off from the members on this forum. Not only that, everyone jumped the gun on me without ever hearing me out. So, I pulled some "I am going to kick your ass" wording that I thought would piss all of you off. Childish or not, it got me what I intended to get, a funny laugh.



I find it repulsive and disgusting the likes of some of you. I have read some very off the wall stories about how I and this ebay seller have any type of connection what so ever. This should prove all doubt and if you lame guys want the freakin copy of the charge to my credit card for the ebay listing then so be it. I don't believe any of what I am about to type will convince any of you. Some of this forum's members come up with some off the wall, out-there ideas that have nothing to do with reality. In fact, I find it amazing and somewhat ridiculous at the same time that some of you would go the lengths to sit here and think about this ebay seller this much. It is an obsession for some of you and actually quite sad. If you ask me, it's pathetic and a last chance at getting some attention. The mere fact, that some of you dwell on this guy so much makes me laugh at best.  While this guy is making a fortune, you others sit here and waste your time complaining about it. How can any of you have the audacity to actually accept yourselves as human beings living in this guy cougginards shadow?  He is getting the best of you.  I bet this guy has a life, and has something other than work going on. It's quite sad and to me, some of you should stop wasting your time and GET A LIFE! Outbid him on ebay if you really want revenge.(If this sounds insulting, I am only referring to one rude member-you know who you are)



Story from my point of view: How it actually happened:



1.   My friend loves d and d. He saw an item on ebay. Asked me if I had an ebay id. I told him yes.  My friend wanted this d and d set and said that he would pay me back if I bid on it on ebay to get it for him. If you look at my original bid, you will see I kept bidding until I outbid the previous seller. That put the price very high. I won the bid for around (blank$$).  I spoke with the seller and we arranged the shipment via the post office.  I was told that another bidder wanted to try to bid but didn't get a chance or something of that nature.



2.  My friend doesn't have the money to pay for this item. I thought he was good for it. But he couldn't come up with (blank)$ in time for my credit card payment. So, I had to sell this item on ebay in hopes I would make a bit of money or just break even with shipping costs. I have not sold anything on ebay ever. I have bought a few printers and such for school a few years ago and that is all. Say what you want, keep spending the rest of your life trying to search for something but I assure you, that I do not have anything to do with dungeons and dragons and nor will I ever buy anything relating to this hobby ever again unless a friend needs a favor. I do not play the game, I do not read about it, I do not visit websites about it unless something directs me this way.

3.   I had correspondence with another ebay seller that told me he would buy it for the price I was asking. This correspondence and all fees were negotiated and everything was agreed upon before the auction was setup.  This was setup as a private auction to the bidder. That is as simple as everything is. I made a few bucks, I sent the item, everything was paid by the buyer quickly and that is all.

4.   After I setup the auction and everything was paid for I shipped the item. This item was sent via mbag at the sellers request. Even the auction itself specified this.

5.   I then get an email on ebay several days later directing me to this website. I go and look at this thread and read about the ebay seller(cougginard) of which I am associated with on this particular sale. I also read, that mbags are not traceable and it does worry me a bit. I further read on this thread that many people have had problems with this ebay seller.  I also read that my ebay auction is posted on this forum and being talked about.  I read that people are saying they think I am this uk contact's American connection for some sort of dungeons and dragons underground selling ring or something.  
Well, these things start to worry me a bit but what can I do about it? I have already sent the items to the winning bidder in the uk via mbag.  I then start responding on this website to what people are saying. I am a bit pissed off at this time because my ebay tag and mention of my address is being mentioned. I find this intrusive as well as tasteless and I do get very pissed off about this.  So I admit, I start talking about conspiracy theories and kicking ass to piss you all off. I wanted a reaction. I got it, I got a good laugh.   I feel this is intrusive into my life and it has nothing to do with any of you. Take if for what you want but I started explaining myself on this forum and all I had in response was negativity. I was not taking anyone's side on this site(the members or cougginard) I simply thanked everyone for the warning but at the time, it was too late. I didn't feel it necessary to worry for the two to three months that it takes to ship these mbags to the u.k. Why would I stress myself out for two to three months thinking that I am out a big chunk of change when I can worry about it If it happens. I want you all to notice I said IF.  I didn't know whether I would be screwed or if everything would go smoothly. How can I know this?
I did read this forum weekly to figure out what was going on. I kept up all email correspondence with the buyer. The buyer responded timely and mannerly in all responses. All correspondence with the winning bidder was cordial and not confrontational at all. I wasn't told any lies and everything went smoothly.  I gave feedback for the bidder because he paid that day. If the bidder pays that day don't you generally leave good feedback? I know I do.
If you notice, I don't use ebay that much. So, you can call this auction whatever you want; ignorance on my part for not checking into the mbag issue(which I knew nothing about) or naivety on my part for not knowing. I hardly use ebay.  I don't read the rules, I don't sell much on ebay. Mostly I buy things when I need them.   I looked at the ratings on the buyer and everything was phenomenal. He was a power seller and I saw tons of good feedback. Maybe I overlooked some of the negatives but I figured if someone is selling this high a volume of material then I don't have any reason to think that it's a small % of loss due to the high volumes. Sometimes the post office screws up. Believe me, I hate ups and usps. I have had many issues with them over the years.  I have had things lost, damaged, and completely missing without any idea or help from them.  So to assume that this guy was just screwing this many people over didn't even come into my mind until one of your forum members directed me to this website and I read this post.
I think it's tasteless to hold a grudge like some of you do. Call it a learning lesson and move on. If not, do something about it and stop talking about it.  I saw a post earlier from xaxaxaxa. He made the most sense out of all of you. He rationally thinks these things out. He doesn't stab at me and try to make up some conspiracy theory like this COCKFAG ATOM does. xaxaxaxa was talking about the seller in question here being an a$$hole or a pure genius. Well, if the guy knows how to work the system then in my opinion he is a good business man. If you can't compete don't play the game in my opinion. This is what xaxa wrote.



"Here's the second part of the problem: Cougar, for all his many faults, is an absolute genius at playing the eBay system. He's like an eBay savant. He knows how far to push, which rules are flexible and which are not, and how to register his complaints with the right parties. Seriously, he would have been kicked off eBay 25 times by now if he didn't know how to play the system.



So he complains to eBay that you are a non-performing seller whose listing stated "worldwide" ... and, technically, he is right. I'm sorry, but he is. Technically. You should have cancelled his bids and blocked him, according to eBay logic. He complains that you mention another website in your feedback and, technically, he is right. He's probably also reported you for email harrasment and God knows what else. Again, he knows how to play the system.



(And, sorry, but that listing is just way too full of holes. "Please ignore the box at the bottom of this auction which says shipping is $5/$12?" All due respect, but that's the sort of thing that needs to be fixed by the seller before it even appears on eBay. Again, mostly because clowns like Cougar will be sure to try to exploit it somehow).

It's not worth any of that ... unless you've discovered another auction site with more than 120 million registered users. I'd start letting it go ... secure in the knowledge that Cougar has cost himself tens of thousands of dollars over the years by slowly but surely alienating most of the D&D collecting community. The man is a joke: he sells $1 modules and brags about his feedback. That's it. He's a parody of himself, basically. He's not worth the heartache. Time to move on.



+++++



Sidebar: none of the above, of course, does anything to explain the absolutely horrible way that CougTard treats other people or the fact that he is a confirmed thief and liar. There are no explanations for those things.



I'm just pointing out that when you challenge Cougar, you're taking on someone who knows how to work the eBay system. "





If anything, take this dookie up with ebay, blame them, do something about it rather than sit on your cool d and d forum and talk trash. Be active, if anything most of you know posting here will do nothing for you but give you a good laugh. Or just leave the guy alone from what I know about him, he has a life, a wife and a business. Figure out a niche that you all can work with and make a successful business. Put forth some effort and imagination (which I am sure most of you have) and come up with a great idea. To me, cougginard is years ahead of you guys on this. Just stop the childish complaining!



Here are some of the emails just to get my point across. My point is: I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH COUGGINARD AND NO CONNECTION TO HIM WHATSOEVER. THIS AUCTION WAS LEGIT AND EVERYTHING WENT SMOOTHLY.



Take it as you want but I have put forth quite a bit of time because I found it necessary to prove some of you wrong because you pissed me off! The only thing edited was the price and anonymous member names. That is none of any of your business! I did save every email sent and received. This is just a snip. Most of the end emails are concerning arrival of items and end up being the same few words each email.


Email to ebayer from me originally the first email initiated. April 17, 2007



I spoke with the ebay seller about this set I just won via bid. He informed me that you may be interested in this collection as I am just purchasing this for resell. (This is after I have found out that my friend cannot pay for this item by the time I need him to)What would you offer as a fair price? I can setup a private auction for you if you are interested. I should recieve the shipment sometimes this week or early next week. Let me know before I put this back on ebay when I recieve it.



 

Response from ebayer: april 17

as long as it was complete as was sold I could go to (blank) plus surface M bags shipping @ $1  per lb?

what were you thinking ? price wise?

you can see my rating I do this full time for a living

the seller did give permission for me to bid but forgeot to add me to his exempt list (as I am in UK) and he was not present at auction end for the emails i sent reminding him of the evening of the auction, I even stayed up half the night over here special

LOL

thanks for email



--dave



All of this information was verified earlier before he stated any of this.





My next email to him: april 19



Dave,

 

(blank) USD sounds good, plus shipping to the UK and any taxation would be up to you.  Would you want insurance for the delivery?



If you give me a full shipping address, once I recieve the goods, I can setup a private auction on eBay. I can send you an email once the goods arrive. This will be everything that was included in that auction set. You will be able to see it when the private auction is setup to verify that all pieces are included.  Yeah as soon as I saw that auction, I gobbled it up for my buddy. I saw one the other day go for more and it was in much lower condition than that bid. Hopefully, you will get good use out of it.



Response: april 21

where di we leave this?

sorry i am ill & cannot remmeber what we agreed?

did you get the M bgags info i sent?

--dave

I have noticed that some packaging techniques leave a lot to be desired. Please box them inside the M bag, books alone don't survive, please pack out boxed sets with other books where possible to prevent crushing. Using a huge box without cutting it down and filling it full or paper or inflated plastic bags is really useless. A smaller snug fitting box cut down with minimal packaging is best please. They are not insurable but all my internet purchases are covered by my credit card so no worries. I have had well over 2,000 of these now no problems.

AND please include your ID & item number(s) so I know who to thanks/leave feedback for, thanks.

AND please include ITEM NUMBER(s), & your & MINE postal addresses on the internal box as I have recently had two boxes arrive sans M bag so that's the only way of knowing who from/to. STATE NON EBAY IF NOT EBAY PLEASE.

P.S. If you want to learn more about International surface M-Bags (Media rate) group 3 - go

> to:

> http://www.usps.com/global/mbags.htm OR

http://pe.usps.com/text/pub51/51tblb_00 ... nameref_19







My reply: april 21



Yes I recieved your mbags information. I believe we agreed to (blank) USD plus you pay for shipping and any taxes out of country. You wanted everything shipped m bags. I recieved the package recently and I am in the process of checking it and setting up a private auction for you. I will contact you via email when I set it up. I have been very busy moving recently so sorry for the slow response time for the email.





Response: april 24

great, supose thats a quick profit for you, and I can do something with it as well. thanks



I prefer the S&H methord as staed surface M bags, while they are not insurable I have had over 3,000 thus far successfully delivered and 50 or more en route, so I trust them



private auction sounds good, let me know the details when sorted, I'll pay asap, so thats its underway asap  that will alos make paying by pay pal easier, as links will be, well,   linked



heres the M bag info;



thnaks

--dave



I want you to notice something here. He suggested the shipping. He didn't hide any information from me, nor did he try to press me about anything! In my igonorance, I did overlook the uninsurable mbag part. Once it was too late, I decided if anything it would be a lesson learned. It was my ignorance, that would have lost me the money not him. I confronted him for the ebay sale, he did not approach me at all.



[u]Response: april 24[/u]

Yes I recieved your mbags information. I believe we agreed to (blank) USD plus you pay for shipping and any taxes out of country. You wanted everything shipped m bags. I recieved the package recently and I am in the process of checking it and setting up a private auction for you. I will contact you via email when I set it up. I have been very busy moving recently so sorry for the slow response time for the email.



Hopefully everything will be ready this week.


Email 1: april 25

Dave,

I am working on setting up this private auction now. It should be setup around 4:00pm EST (9:00p GMT +/-).  I will send you a link when everything is up. It appears the maximum weight for an M-Bag #260 (contents: books) delivery is limited to 44 US Pounds (20 kg, I would guess).   It does look like it works out to about $1 per pound.  So about (blank$$) USD would cover it.  I will go to the post office and verify that is the case and get the necessary forms to fill out. We should be ready soon. Sorry for the delay I am currently trying to move.




email 2: april 25



Dave,

All contents confirmed.  I setup the auction today.  Here is a link.  




** expired/removed eBay auction **







email back april 26am



Pay pal done

Sorry for delay

Feedback please

Please include item number with parcel so I can leave feedback too, I am now daily having to wade through 1,000 FB's to find anon item numbers/ ID's sellers could not be bothered to include, as a simple courtesy.

Thanks

--Dave

Shipping address provided but removed…Address was certified by paypal to the uk.





April 26th pm

Dave, shipment will go out tommorow. Thanks so much!



At this point, he paid on the 26th. So I posted good feedback for the buyer after I received the payment at 12:38pm.



Shipment sent April 27th.



The rest of the corresponding emails were about arrival of goods, receipts and such. That is all. I think this is more than enough proof for you. If you want, you can verify timelines and emails that were sent to me by your forum members. I corresponded with two people, one via America online.  



The emails from the buyer and seller ceased for a bit because it said shipping sometimes takes 2-3 months. It is now June 25th, 2007.  Everything was sent out via mbag on Friday April 27, 2007. They arrived in great condition in what appears to be 61 days.



I then receive two emails from a member of this forum and ebay users. I will mention no names but here is the corresponding email.



Email from forum member on April 29 at 2am in the morning on ebay. I do not open this email until the next morning at work.



Email 1: Anonymous

Hello--



In order to avoid violating Ebay policies, I will be circumspect in what I say. I happened to come across this auction, and if you have not already finalized shipping, I would strongly urge you to consider a couple of points.



1. M-Bag shipping is not trackable or traceable. This means that if a Paypal dispute is opened for non-receipt of merchandise, it is impossible for the seller to prove the goods arrived.



2. Likewise, shipping to an address other than the Paypal-verified one also leaves the seller defenseless in the event of a chargeback.



I see you're somewhat of an Ebay newbie, so you might not have been aware of this. Some Google research may be instructive.



Email 2: Anonymous



Be advised that M-bags are not trackable and if the seller decides to do a Paypal chargeback, you are out the money. This has happened several times in the past as evidenced by the feedback.

viewtopic.php?t=5067&start=260





My response to the email on ebay about the seller after I read this forum post April 29th



it has already been shipped so it is too late. email me at (blank) please. thanks.



Forum Member Response 8pm Apr. 29

Hi--



You asked me to email you, so here I am. If you have a pre-existing

relationship with this buyer, I suppose you can rest assured that you

won't suffer any chargebacks. But if this is a one-shot deal, I

thought you might like to know what I told you, especially considering

the sums involved.



As a disclaimer, I should say that I don't have any personal

experience with the buyer in question, so I have no particular axe to

grind here. But if you've done some searching on google, you may have

run across reports of people on Ebay in situations similar to yours

who end up with subsequent hassles. I hope for your sake that's not

the case here.



best,

--(forum member)



My response to forum member later 8pm that night Apr. 29.



Hello (forum member),



I want to thank you for your concern. I was reading the link that you sent me. It does worry me.  I sent everything via mbag on Friday. I tried signing up on the forums to post my response but the confirmation email has not come through yet.  I hope everything works out well. I have no previous relations with this buyer and all of the comments on that board are far from the truth.  

The buyer has excellent feedback and the sale worked out for both of us. I have a friend who is very interested in d and d and originally this set was for him.  The friend didn't have an ebay account but I did so I won the auction for him. Unfortunately, my friend did not have the funds at the time and I cannot sit on that price for more than a week without pay. The seller that I won the item from informed me that another buyer tried to get in on the auction but it didn't work out.   He asked me if I was willing to speak to the buyer. Everything was negotiated with the buyer and I setup a private auction for the buyer.  I know none of this information is anyones business but mine and the buyer.  But, I want to clear this up when I read about something I did on these forums. It does disturb me quite a bit.  I needed to turn this item over quick and everything seemed to workout.  I made a quick turnover for what I wanted and my friend didn't have the money on hand anyway so I didnn't want to sit on this bill.  The ebay user had excellent pay time and everything worked out. I read some of the previous responses on this board and they are all wrong. This is the first time I have sent anything to the uk and probably the last. I only stumbled upon this auction for a friend and nothing more.  Now I have a sad friend and a little money in my pocket.  And to me, the buyer would make use of this collection much more than I can seeing that he is a collector. My friend is a big collector as well but doesn't deal with ebay. The sad thing is that he didn't get what he wanted. Now he will probably have to pay even more to get something close to this auction.

To address some of the comments. This is not a conspiracy or a contact of this ebay buyer. You all can say what you want and come up with any ideas you have but I assure you everything was done under ebay rules. - Danteisevil





You can post this at that forum with my permisson but please do not disclose any email information.  I have no ties or previous relations with any of these two ebay buyers or sellers and I assure you that everything that people posted above was pure speculation. I am sorry to those who have had bad transactions and hopefully mine will be good!





response from forum member later 8:30pm that night Apr. 29.



Hello--



Thanks for the response. It's both good and bad to hear that you don't

have any connection with cougarrinard...I will post over there and

inform them as such.



I think that what happened is that certain people jumped to the wrong

conclusions. You see, cougarrinard has had problems in the past with

people in the USA selling him stuff, and shipping it via M-Bag to the

UK. He then (reportedly) has filed Paypal claims for non-receipt of

the items, and apparently won, since there's no way to track M-Bags.

And alert D&D collectors have claimed to notice these "lost" items

subsequently showing up in his own auctions some time later.



Thanks to the efforts of some people on that forum, sellers have been

getting wised up to this potential problem. As a result, cougarrinard

has apparently been offering to have the items shipped to an associate

of his in the USA instead. (This is no better, really, since if you

don't ship to the Paypal-verified address you're also defenseless

against a chargeback.)



Since your auction was tailor-made for cougarrinard, people jumped to

the conclusion that you must be his associate in the USA. It's

unfortunate, really, that you aren't.



Let me know if you have trouble getting registered over there. I

mostly just lurk, but I'll see what I can do.



Instead of waiting for this guy to post that I have no connection to Cougginard, I just went on the board myself and did it at 9:28pm April 29, after emailing this back to the forum member. I took quite a bit of time explaining this to many of you and you didn't believe me. Hopefully, the forum member that sees this will confirm it to be true and then we can put this to rest. Every email was saved and I tried as hard as I can to put all the correct dates and times so that everything would help you understand this.

Forum member who corresponded, I am sorry for posting all of these emails without asking. I just felt it necessary because some of these guys were driving me insane. I didn't post any listing or info that would be bad.

I am not your man! I would never go willingly to this forum if my life depended on it( I'm not intending this statement to insult anyone who appreciates d and d for a hobby). I felt it necessary to clear my name and that is all. I don't like reading things about me on some forum I have never heard anything about. And no cougginard did not put me up to this at all!

And if you do delete this post to try and hide something, I promise you I will signup for as many names as I have to, to get this post read by everyone. I won't spam your board anymore, I won't even post anymore. I apologize to all members and moderators for the actions I have taken against your rules and in no way will I ever spam your board again. I wanted to get a point across and that is all.  And I want everyone to read this. If some of you had taken a nicer approach to this auction and asked me about it before you made your decisions then I might not have done or said some of the things that I did. Some of these members made me so mad, that I found it necessary to go out of my way to piss you off! So really, I am not supporting cougginard but getting my point across as an ebay user who feels violated. Just outbid the guy, how hard can it be? The pure principle of proving ATOM(conspiracy theorist extraordinaire ) wrong is just joyous in my mind. I can't wait to laugh at you CTE. You should in fact, change your tag to CTE(conspiracy theorist extraordinaire).
COUGGINARD DID ME NO WRONG! So I will not jump on your bandwagon to criticize him. Many of you have insulted me and caused me more stress than he ever would.  Draw your own conclusions, but this is my account of what took place.  

die2 wrote:This is Danteisevil.  I warn you this is a long read. .  

Did someone forget to flush the toilet? It's overflowing again....

Mike B.

Zoiks

Kingofpain89 wrote:CHRIST ALMIGHTY....I'VE GONE BLIND!!!

I just wasted 3 minutes of my life I will never get back.  

you read quicker than me so my loss was greater!But imagine the effort taken to type that out - JUST GIVE IT UP ALREADY!!!

Blackmoor wrote:To long, never read it  

Ah grasshopper, you were wise indeed

Damn die2/danteisevil,

If you can suck cougie like that over the phone can you suck-start my harley?

What the hell did you think he was going to do? With us (collectively) watching that auction, do you think he would be stupid enough to say that it did not arrive? What the hell did anyone here lie about anyway? The proof is in his feedback. Did you ever go to toolhaus.org? The proof is easier to read there. But then again , your just his biatch/stooge anyway.

I feel a new troll song in the works...where the hell is my beer?!?!

Oh and last thing:



http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... ugarrinard



Seems Dave has now edited his about me page and no longer includes his diatribe against the site.  The again, maybe he just ran it through a spell checker and it deleted the whole thing.

Isn't the whole point of this that we all KNEW the M-bag was going to arrive just fine, in order to prove how "trustworthy" it is, so that Cougar could leave positive feedback etc for it in order to make a point?

It would have been more of a surprise if it HAD got lost.

Cheers,
Malcolm