Hi, this is my first post here and I’m hoping for some advice. It’s long, but please bear with me.
I ordered a custom made product for my car (a bumper) from abroad, from Singapore, and was first told it would arrive in early February. This is a custom design and that was when I was told to expect it. I asked for a couple of small changes but was told nothing about there being any delay (I had ordered during the Christmas holidays so 3rd-sh week of December).
February comes round and no answer, I ask maybe 3 times what is going on over Facebook messenger and I’m being ignored. I can see he’s online but ignoring me. Around the 20th I get fed up and open a case/dispute with PayPal.
As soon as I open this he starts to answer and first implies I’m the problem completely but when I point out if there was a delay he should have informed me rather than ignoring me he apologises on PayPal and says he is working on it was gives me a timeline, mentioning too that I will get a tracking number.
After more back and forth I’m still feeling uneasy and decide to escalate the case. He asks me to close it. I say I will close if I can get a tracking number as he is now telling me it will ship on March 16th.
I am flying about and get stuck abroad as war is flaring up in the Middle East. My flights get cancelled and I get sidetracked and forget to reply to PayPal, missing the 7 day deadline. I miss the email and then realise afterwards PayPal has closed the case because I didn’t reply in time so now the seller has my money and does not ship out the item.
I post on FB in a car owner’s group and the seller comes on to blame me completely, even accusing me of trying to extort him and saying I should have been more patient. He says my order didn’t go out because I got my money back. Barclays refunded me AFTER nothing was sent out on the 16th.
After I posted a I got a lot of backlash as the seller went on and said these things about me and I hadn’t included the fact I had been given delivery dates, was being ignored etc but amongst the backlash about my looks, saying I looked like an OF girl and how can someone with Botox and filler be trusted, I did receive messages privately too saying the seller had done this before and taken money but never shipped out what he was supposed to.
My order had been for a couple of thousand pounds but others had lost amounts ranging from hundreds to thousands. One guy contacted me with sceeenshots/proof he had lost 12,000+ dollars as he had placed an order and the seller had ghosted him. promising him his order was about to be delivered then went quiet. He never got his money back.
The seller is in Singapore and I’m a British citizen, so of course the bank covered me. Others weren’t as lucky and as I spoke out people thanked me as in Singapore they’d been bullied into keeping quiet with legal threats.
I’ve seen a couple of police reports and also a court ruling saying this seller owes somebody 18,000 dollars and he needs to pay up so I know these people aren’t lying. He’s a flash guy who used to drive around in a Ferrari, so was well known in Singapore, and then the car got repossessed. He was allegedly cheating to his wife too and being annoyed at the whole situation I posted ‘not only does he cheat his customers he cheats on his wife too.’ Not my proudest moment but I was so annoyed at the scamming.
Now I’ve gotten a letter warning me not to speak out and to remove all mention of him or I’ll be taken to Court. It also says I have to write he has never scammed anybody for anything or forged anything (not sure where he got the forgery bit from lol)
If I give in I’d be letting everybody down and also potentially putting other people at risk of losing their money/being scammed as well and how can that be fair if I got back my money? At the same time court costs can easily run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, possibly up to a million. I don’t have that kind of money obviously.
I’m in bits and can’t sleep 🥲 I feel massive guilt for the people who helped me, including the guy who lost his 12,000+ dollars and I’d probably be responsible if it happens to others if I keep quiet now.
Advice would be much appreciated