Buyers Beware; Deceptive Dealings at Doubleurdeals!

This post is to inform any potential buyers to steer clear of doubleurdeals.com. This seller holds ebay auctions and has a website as well. Be aware that the Motorola cell phone I purchased on ebay from this seller was manufactured and programmed for use in Europe. I only found this out after calling Motorola directly, when I could not get any satisfaction from the seller. The day I received the phone, I emailed the seller explaining to him that, "there is something strange about this phone, in that even with “English” as the selected language, some of the words in the “menu” are either foreign or displayed with European spellings. The predictive text feature utilized for text messaging, does NOT recognize English words. This phone came with a charger meant for European use, with a U.S. adapter." He wrote back completely ignoring the fact that various features of the phone would never function properly in the U.S., but rather insisted that the phone would receive picture messages and thus "works fine in the U.S."

I wanted to get to the bottom of this conundrum, so I called Motorola directly, and that's when the representative I spoke with confirmed that this phone was programmed with a software version that is not compatible for use in the U.S. This phone was programmed for use in Europe, and this information was never disclosed on the auction site, prior to the sale.

I tried again to convince the seller that he should send me a postage paid return label so I could return this defective phone to him, but he refused, stating that I could return it at my own expense. I did return the phone, at my own expense, which by the way was considerably less than the shipping I paid when I purchased the phone from him (dishonest ebay seller trying to cheat ebay out of their percentage by jacking up the shipping charges). Then the seller informs me that he's not going to give me a full refund, but rather he's witholding a 15% restocking fee. I told him this was unacceptable, since I didn't return the phone simply because I changed my mind, but rather because he [seller] misrepresented the merchandise. He failed to disclose that the phone he sold me was programmed for use in Europe, and that its features would never be fully functional in the U.S. Therefore, because the phone was defective I returned it and am due a full refund.

After more than 20 emails back-and-forth between this seller and myself, on May 9, 2007 he finally agreed to give me a full refund if I wouldn't leave any negative feedback, but as of today, he still hasn't refunded my purchase in full. I currently have a dispute pending with PayPal.

Buyers Beware of doubleurdeals.com... Matt Wiener is a deceptive and dishonest shyster. Mine was definitely not a positive buying experience!

UPDATE ON PENDING DISPUTE: Many thanks to PayPal for their professional handling of this dispute. After carefully considering all the facts from both sides of this dispute (it took them a few weeks, but it was worth the wait), PayPal found in my favor and I was finally awarded a full refund, which never would have been the case if the choice had been left up to Matt Wiener, the disreputable, dishonest shyster!