Won bid of a headlight on eBay at $40, the seller sent me a little featherlight toy .

you pursue action?

Buying something remotely, sight unseen, from someobody you don't know and never met is always a risk, via eBay or otherwise.

Report them and (attempt to) get your money back.

Looks like there are many victims of this seller in the last few days. Seems he/she stopped selling after scamming us. I have to wait 3 days before escalating the case.
(apparently the seller also used shill bidders)

Funny thing is there are a few buyers out there that bought 5+ things from the seller and is copy pasting reivews. Seller behavior prior to Dec 2013 checks out okay. Wonder what is going on here.

If I bought more than one within a short period and presumably received them about the same time, I might also copy and paste the same feedback. One possibility is that after making enough money, this seller decided to quit, but not before making a final sum by cheating, then dissappears without a trace. His/her "items for selling" is empty now. I am one of those who posted feedback so I think the others' feedback are genuine . It seems we all bought the items about 2 weeks ago and received them these days. Also some mentioned receiving similar toy ball as I did. This was the item I "won" (doesn't it look tempting for those frequenting this forum? )

Edit: or someone kidnapped the seller and took over his/her eBay account...

People can also go berserk. The seller was apparently sending frivolously different items to the buyers, than purchased, towards the apparent end of his Ebay career.

Why did he/she even bother to send anything at all? Can eBay or paypal eventually catch the scammer with the credit card and address info (do sellers have to provide credit card info to eBay when registering)?

As for end of eBay career, it's also possible he/she is still selling using a different account

it's a lot easier to get a refund if nothing was shipped. So shipping something complicates matters

Then the scammer is very experienced--probably this was his n-th seller account (lasted only 6 months).

At least I didn't receive socks as many others did but a little fluffy ball with two eyes--has a little comic value

Yeah, sorry about your loss, really hope you get all that money back. I am not saying this seller is by any means innocent at all. Just seems odd when the seller went crazy all of a sudden.

I agree with another poster that the sending of frivolous items speaks of a crafty con-man. But shipping anything from China to the US is not cheap so he is spending quite a bit of cash to pull this off. And I cannot imagine in any circumstance that ebay/paypal would not rule this case in your favor (socks for lights? com'on) unless either 1. the seller has some trick up his sleeve to prevent paypal from rescinding the fund 2. Ebay being ebay.

Hmmm, some time this evening that page was removed! (So was the item pages of the other buyers who posted negative feedback.) I wonder if the seller had the access to remove it or eBay did it.

Was your purchase Ebay-protected? I recall that many purchases I made had some sort of assurance from Ebay that they would refund e-thing, if the purchase went awry. I am not sure what triggers that kind of assurance, seller reputation? activity of a buyer? Still if you asked me whether my last Ebay purchase had that kind of assurance, I could not recall. However, going back into the records you might find s-thing.

2_i, I think you are referring to their "Buyer Protection" claim. I had high hopes for that until I read these complaints. However since there are so many victims to this same seller, hope I get the money back, though who knows how long and how many hassles it will take.

P.S. I would never buy things like a laptop on eBay. Those of you contemplating buying high end bikes, think twice...

P.P.S. It seems it's eBay who pulled all the item pages. Now I have to wonder whether this is an attempt by eBay to avoid having to pay all the victims the refunds under Buyer Protection. The pictures of the item disappeared first from my account, now even the item title is no longer there.

Don't know if is an attempt to avoid honoring the Buyer's Protection, but it is my understanding that eBay is rather aggressive in eliminating negative feedback on sellers and has been doing so for quite some time. They probably have an algorithm in place that alerts them to a higher than normal negative feedback and act accordingly to policy (whatever that is).

Note: I am registered with eBay (but never used) and I've used Paypal only once (for a third-party vendor that wasn't even listed on eBay).

I only started active on eBay very recently buying small items like rim tapes, knee warmers, spokelights...without any problem. Then I got "addicted" after learning how to bid, won a headlight for $21 claimed to be 1800LM which I mentioned in another thread. Should have stopped right then and there...

Edit:
This just confirmed what you said: that seller now is "no longer a registered user"; no more feedback is possible to be left for him.

That could just mean that they've had so many complaints that they got banned. I hope your request is already in the system.

link works for me, btw

I buy ONLY from sellers with a long history and 100% feedback. That is my only reassurance that they are in it for the long haul and wouldn't risk screwing up on ANY transaction.

I don't give negative feedback if the seller tries to make everything right (mistakes happen).

Only once in about 2000 transactions have I suspected skullduggery --and then I challenged the seller on what looked like shill bidding to me. (I upped my max bid because I would be away. So I had two consecutive bids showing. Within an hour two new accounts with zero history bid the item up to my max)

Too bad, sorry for that. I have been buying from ebay for years, I probably buy from China at least 3 or 4 times a month, sometimes that many times in a week. Hundreds of items total. I've also sold maybe 200 items. I've never been scammed by buyers or sellers. But it's gotta be a blow when it happens regardless.

For your entertainment:
Ordered: Trustfire 9000Lm 7x CREE XM-L T6 LED Front Bicycle Light bike Headlamp Head lamp (pic1)
Received: See pic2.

What do you think of the light btw? It's selling for $70-90+ by other sellers.

Update:
Got a message from eBay "The seller has asked eBay Customer Support to review this case and make a final decision.", followed by another message saying a full refund has been issued to me. (Still mystified by seller contacting eBay... Maybe the kidnapper was arrested? )

I'm glad you were refunded.
If you can for purchases on Ebay use Paypal backed by a credit card. That way you can go through your credit card for a refund if Ebay/Paypal does not work.

Thanks. Yes, I use paypal backed by credit card. Now I know I really should continue to do so.