Won ebay auction at 60K for E90 M3, BMW of Lincoln refusing to honor

[addy85]

okay so did dooma end up getting the car or what, I got lost after page 1 million and 3

[nusevad]

Originally Posted by addy85

okay so did dooma end up getting the car or what, I got lost after page 1 million and 3

Yes he did, but under certain "conditions"

Im betting they are going to brand the car.

[0.02eurocents]

Originally Posted by 3aficionado

They say fraud is only 1%... if you believe that I have an M3 in Nebraska I will sell you for $60k

If fraud is really 1% what good reason would eBay have from hiding information from users that would help them detect fraud (negative feedback & bidding history). The evidence is out there. I'm with you and would like to see a reporter crack this story.

HAH! 1%. I think any biz model that leaves 1 out of 100 customers conned would be closed down be the authorities sooner or later. If that is really their actual figure, that must have upped it considerably in the past. I have an article from 2002 here that states:

Although the company downplays fraud as affecting only one one-hundredth of one percent to one-tenth of one percent of all auctions,

http://www.news.com/Fraud-lingers-de..._3-940427.html

However, it might be a terminology thing. This article talks mainly about downright cons, like escrow fraud and identity/account theft. Maybe the legalese department of ebay has redefined fraud to "complete loss of money" and does not count shilling and baiting tactics as downright fraud but as... well... "creative capitalism without the folly swaddles of consumer protection and seller accountability" or something.

More interesting reading fodder:
eBay Auction Fraud Spawns Vigilantism Trend
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y02/m10/i12/s01

And it seems that some "official" authorities have woken up but are just understaffed:
http://www.news.com/FTC,-states-take..._3-999009.html

[yosemitemtb]

I just wanted to add my support, enjoy your new Bimmer!

[ideliver]

Originally Posted by Laszlo

Found this online:

Online auctions, eBay in particular, can also be risky, with fraud common, with counterfeit scammers setting up shop on eBay for years, and with eBay doing very little to try to stop this. eBay contends that the rate of auction fraud on its service is very low. It has reported that only one "confirmed" fraud occurs per 40,000 eBay listings. That is indeed a low rate -- 0.0025 percent.

The FBI, on the other hand, contends that the figure is much higher. As a part of its "Operation Cyber Loss" project, it determined that the rate of online auction fraud is about one in a hundred, or 1 percent. This is a very high rate of fraud, a whopping 400 times higher than what eBay contends.

Link??

[wrxgoose]

Oh my god my eyes! They burn! I should have stopped reading this hours ago, but I was hoping to see what the conditions were.

And now it's 2 am, and I have class in 6 hours. I HOPE YOU ARE ALL HAPPY! :sad:

[BlueBliss]

Originally Posted by wrxgoose

Oh my god my eyes! They burn! I should have stopped reading this hours ago, but I was hoping to see what the conditions were.

And now it's 2 am, and I have class in 6 hours. I HOPE YOU ARE ALL HAPPY! :sad:

Seriously....I spent a good portion of my day on this thread. Woohoo

[motionmonk]

Holy cow... I made the mistake of NOT keeping up; I posted somewhere near page 14, and now 30+ pages later... WOW.

Dooma350, congrats on the good news so far, and thx for the props many many pgs ago.

I freely admit that I registered so that I can show my support; we may drive different beasties, but that doesn't mean someone can cheat a consumer so blatantly.

It was really interesting reading thru the hate wars between people... I think we forgot why we are here-- to back a fellow consumer up in a deal. MalibuBimmer, I appreciated your perspective on things, and I really hope Dooma350, that you do have a lawyer at your side. There are plenty of Van Tuyl dealership stories that float around here locally, so I sincerely hope you get what you won: a good car at a good price.

I also hope that someone/anyone at the dealership can look you in the eye, shake your hand and honestly say "Hiya. We screwed up. Let's make things right."

Keep us to date... and dammit, there better NOT be a quiz on this thread!

regards,
Eugene / motionmonk

[Illan]

Congrats on the win Dooma, i told you that car was yours! I hope the condition are reasonable. just a friendly car nut reminder. REMEMBER TO PROPERLY BREAK IN YOUR CAR(see owners manual for detail).So if you were planning on making victory doughnuts on the dealer parking lot please refrain from doing it. LOL.

[masmole]

bump.








haha jk.

Congrats Ken! Glad to hear this mess will finally get resolved and the consumer doesn't get screwed for a change.

Definitely the most exhausting time-wasting yet entertaining thread in a long time

[MelsM3]

Originally Posted by dooma350

Sorry its taken so long to post a update. The site is very slow (understandably). This morning, BMW of Lincoln has agreed to sell me the car at a price of 60K, with certain conditions. I'll be going over the conditions with the dealership tomorrow, and I hope to have everything finalized by tomorrow afternoon.

But one thing that I would like to make everyone aware of is, BMW of Lincoln is proactively working to correct the situation that they screwed up. And yes, they screwed up big time, no doubt about that.They are trying to do right, so please don't harass the dealership right now. No phone calls, threats, emails or fake sales calls.

That said, I would just like to take a step back for a moment.
The past few days have been insane. Just thinking about what has transpired, leaves you speechless really. How did this thing go from a M3post.com rant to what it became today? In 3 days, the site amassed
650+ comments and 200,000 page views, with people posting from all around the world, lending their support and help. Thats people I dont even know! Amazing stuff, and probably the coolest thing I have ever
been part of, leveraging the internet in a way that I have never seen before. People I have never met, making calls on my behalf, contacting automotive sites, supplying information, just doing anything and everything possible to help out.

Lets do it again sometime, I hope to be there for someone when they are in need.

Thanks guys, there are good people in this world after all.
I'll post again tomorrow.

Regards

Ken



MelsM3 <<<<<<<<

That's GREAT news Ken!

Be careful what you sign...

Do NOT agree to ANY Bull Sh*t conditions!

Stand Your Ground!

[Tallest]

Originally Posted by masmole

bump.

good one.

Congrats to Dooma, hopefully conditions are reasonable. An M3 for 60 grand. Now we gonna be all so jealous of you!!

[Avenger]

CONGRATS KEN. You made it.

As for their conditions, I suggest you have a counter-offer as well. I don't know if it's possible but I would counter something like: free shipping, different M3 with the same options with the color of your liking, etc.

Either way, i hope everything will pan out great for both parties. We're still behind you.

Can't wait for the outcome and eventually, pics of the glorified M3. AND THE SAGA CONTINUES..............

[Geeky1]

Been reading since ~page 5, just now got around to posting. I just wanted to chime in and congratulate you. Hopefully the rest of the transaction goes well, and all of the involved parties can come to an agreeable resolution.

Good luck, and be sure to post pictures of the car when you get it!

[Hula-Hula]

This thread is AMAZING! I'm glad it worked out for you! It's nice to see the help of all poeple here! ROCK ON!

Let's see pics of her when she arrives!

[nikanasz]

congratulations Ken!

i've been following this thread for two days. glad the matter has been resolved, and glad that all car enthusiasts, regardless of what car they drive, have united to support you from all over the world (i'm from Malaysia).

as for people in the BMW lincoln side, especially artpe and mooseman, i'm pretty sure you're both just jealous Ken is getting an M3 for $60k.

oh yeah i'm bookmarking this thread for updates, if there is any.

[robb]

Congratulations buddy, enjoy the car

[Avenger]

Ken, it would be nice to have the event on camera if you happen to fly there. It will be a big hit on YouTube I bet.

[BritBoy]

Well, I finally made it through all the posts. I've read more on this forum than on all the others I've ever visited put together! It's been a wild ride and it's not over yet! I would like to add the following points to those already made:-

1) Congratulations Dooma! If the conditions are acceptable, it looks like you got a great deal on a fantastic car.

2) By raising this and garnering so much support, you may (just may) have made others think twice about how they go about their transactions on eBay. Now that sellers are aware of the huge amount of bad publicity and hatred they can generate for themselves, maybe there will be less of this sort of thing. I am sure this happens all the time and it needs to be stopped. We live in hope!

3) Although it's been a quick result for Dooma (and I'm glad), it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the dealer had stuck to his guns. I would certainly like to know how eBay would have handled this. Judging by some of the posts on here, it didn't look too promising had they been the only people Dooma could have approached to sort this out. I think that says some thing really bad (but which most of us suspected!) about ebay. I hope they now review this case and realise that, unless they deal with cases like this swiftly (if Lincoln BMW can get someone in at Easter weekend I'm damn sure eBay can!) they risk generating a lot of bad publicity for themselves, even if they weren't he perpetrators of the wrong doing. Ultimately, both buyer and seller are eBay customers and eBay need to ensure that the rules are properly and swiftly enforced (and seen to be enforced!) when they are broken, or people will loose faith in the site and they will loose money! I can understand (with some difficulty) the people at Lincoln BMW not seeing the possible consequences of their actions sooner (doh, doh and double doh!) but eBay are a global organisation and should have jumped straight on this. They would have looked a whole lot better here if Dooma had been able to report that they had contacted him and were investigating the matter, but for all we can see they did nothing and just sat it out, hoping it would be resolved before they had to act, which is very poor! You'll have a hard time convincing me that nobody at ebay saw how this was going.

4) The same goes for BMW. They can't have done themselves any favours here - dealers reported as selling models at way above list and refusing to sell when an attempt to do so goes pear shaped. Hardly make them look like the 'cut above the rest of the industry' image they portray.

5) I have to say, in response to those who think Dooma will get stuffed at service time, that the dealer would have to be completely retarded to give Dooma anything less than the red carpet treatment from here on in.

Well folks, that's my contribution.

I look forward to hearing how you get on Dooma. You may soon be the owner of the most famous M3 in the world - enjoy! You'll be dining out on this one for a long time to come! Go to a BMW rally and you'll be hailed as royalty!

LOL. Best of luck.

[rainsux]

Originally Posted by Ron21

I'm pretty sure this dealership is involved in Shill bidding. check out the history for the past 30 days :

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...=3&completed=1

They use two other accounts to bid : 5***i and r***c

There is no way that this is just someone buying multiple cars.
Same bidder on m3, GTO, Z06, lx470... and others..

Good work! Keep digging - there may yet be a pony here. Shill bidding
is VTAIG's nightmare scenario. It's an election year and there are a lot
of prosecutors that would dearly love to have a $6B scalp.

[snkpkp]

hi, i am from forums.e60.net and i signed up just to let you know that we can kick some lame ass dealers butt, I am glad they agreed to sell the car at agreed price, but dont take any garbage they offer, they should just give you the car plain and simple, no if's no but's.....

[snkpkp]

Originally Posted by MMMMM3

When is this thread going to end? Make it stop!

Just kidding.

The END is inevitable Mr. Anderson!