Tips on making sure another Skype user can't avoid talking to me?

Hmm first what is this online merchant?

yea, i was just going to say make a new account to check if they are trying to avoid you.

@rawrgrr: the user of a site called ioffer.com. why do you ask? they have cancelled their account there (not a good sign, of course) and for reasons I don’t feel like getting into, I did not make the transaction there anyway.

Did you use paypal? If so and it was recently, you can just dispute the sale and get your money back.

I didn’t use PayPal. I used a debit card. the transaction happened around a week ago. on August 31 they sent me a message via Skype saying to contact me. since I don’t often use Skype, I did not get the message until last evening. I did get a receipt in the e-mail so I can prove that the transaction happened, at least.

I would strongly suggest that you report that debit card to your bank as lost. This will put an immediate block on it in case they try to hit you for duplicate charges.

A debit card doesn’t carry with it the same level of protection as a credit card.

Better safe than sorry.

yea, since you didnt use paypal do what buttonstc said and call your bank. You might be able to get it back.

this is why i try and use paypal for online things. Its less of a hassle if/when you get fucked over.

Contact your bank. That’s what you can do independent of them. Other than that, keep trying to contact them.

@Buttonstc: I checked the bank account after the transaction went through and they did not, at least, clear out everything that I had. I will check again and tell the bank what happened. I won’t say that I lost the debit card because… well, I didn’t.

the seller, by the way, tried to dissuade me from using PayPal which I didn’t want to do anyway, seeing as it would have taken me longer to do it. so that perhaps serves as circumstantial evidence against them.

update: the daughter of the seller (who answered with the name of the company) said her mother would get back to me in twenty minutes. she has yet to get back to me. the daughter said something off-handedly about a problem with a server (though I didn’t even think they had one… perhaps she meant internet connection?) I now have a better feeling about this though of couse I would like to hear back from the mom.

@Ria777 paypal does not take longer at all. Go set it up, it takes two seconds. Onces its set up, paying for stuff online takes two seconds. No more having to type in your credit/debit card number all the time and filling out your info. Even shipping stuff. You just sign into paypal, hit pay and your done.

Plus its secure.

let me clarify what I meant by “taking too long”... it would have taken a few days to transfer money from my checking account to PayPal. I do use have a PayPal account. it simply doesn’t have a lot of money in it.

Uh… Its never taken a few days for PayPal to work for me. I don’t know how you’ve got it set up, but you’re doing something wrong if this is happening.

PayPal gives you a way to get your money back if you’re scammed. That is the primary reason I use it, along with the fact that you don’t have to give your info out to people who might not be reputable.

@Ria777 it doenst have to have money in it, you can link it to your debit card. So it just draws right out of there.

how do I link it? when I transfer money to my PayPal account, it has always taken a few days.

(incidentally, the seller did not clear out my checking account, so a point in favor of their honesty. still I would like, of course, to resolve this situation.)

@Ria777 when your looking at your account page there should be a button that says “Add Your Bank Account” It will ask you for all the account info. After that is set up, you should be able to use your debit/credit card straight through paypal without having to transfer money into your paypal account first and then paying with that.

I just list my debit card as a credit card. It goes straight through.