I recently purchased a small lighted “RECORDING” sign from a seller that trades as jackninatreasures. At the time I had been a Ebay member for over 3 years with perfect feedback. The item I bought had a $31.99 starting bid on it but it also had a buy it now price, so I bought it. It was around 45.00. No big deal right ? Shipping seemed kind of high at $15.00 and another mandatory 2 bucks for insurance but I thought, that’s ok. It would be worth it for careful packing.

I paid for the purchase immediately after winning with paypal. And I waited. Three weeks went by with no contact at all from seller. I emailed him and he stated that it had just shipped. I received it via US mail about 4 days later. Upon opening the box, I saw the sign was simply placed inside a standard post office mailer box with no additional protection at all. The result was the top of the MDF frame was broken.

Regarding the workmanship, I am a cabinet maker for a living and I could easily tell that the sign and frame was a home made affair from MDF with a clear acetate for the printing (which was probably done on a ink jet) behind a semi transparent white plexiglass window. The dark (almost black) splatter paint clearly showed where someone had stuck fingers in it while wet. The listing showed the box as being painted white.

The sign was lighted with a candelabra bulb (no switch at all) and when I plugged it in, it didn’t work. I then checked the wiring to the lamp base and discovered that whomever had assembled it, had forgot to tighten the wiring screws. Additionally, and in violation of NEC code, the wiring was wrapped around the screws backwards and in such a manner that when the screw was tightened, the wire would try to come off.

So, I emailed jackninatreasures describing situation. I received no reply at all. Remember please, that I was forced to pay for insurance and I needed the insurance info to file a claim.

Finally, after a couple more weeks of futile attempts and upon realizing I was being ripped off to the tune of about $62.00 I left the seller neg feedback.

Jackninatreasures immediately left me neg feed back stating “Worst Ebayer ever - Does not contact seller if there is a problem -AVOID. ” That’s when I began to look real hard at the feedback he was currently receiving.

I discovered he had previously traded on as garage_backlits

I had never encountered anyone like this seller before on . I have purchased many thousands of dollars of expensive recording equipment and had always had very good results. I thought to myself, surely, does not condone a seller treating a buyer this way. Someone with perfect feedback, that had always paid INSTANTLY using paypal and in this case for insurance AND had also tried very hard to contact the seller.

To sum up their reply after many emails and to keep this short, Ebay stated, we won’t fix this nor get involved.

And I thought all along there was suppose to be some kind of rule about sellers holding a buyers feedback hostage.

So I spent a lot more time researching ole jackninatreasures. It seems the seller leaves the same neg feedback for anyone that leaves him a negative report and there are and have been many others similar to my situation. He did quiet down for a very short while and desist leaving bad feedback to those that left him negatives. I attribute this to all the correspondence between me and Ebay and assume they were watching him closely.

In summary, If you plan to buy one of these products, CHECK his feedback. Then Google toolhaus.org and do a 90 day neg search on jackninatreasures. Currently, even though says he has 98.2 percent good feedback ( which would leave reasonable folks to think everything is fine), he is really currently over the 5% 90 neg policy.

I also paid square trade $29.00 to mediate and help get the negative feedback off my record, because I knew this seller was out of line. They spent 4 days working on it and wrote back that the seller didn’t want to negotiate. In the end, they did refund the 29 dollars.

He did however begin to negotiate with some buyers because about a week after he left my bad feedback and as he was approaching a true 5% negative, 5 neg feedbacks disappeared from his account in just a few minutes and suddenly they showed on his account as mutually agreed removed.

Something very weird is up with all this imo. A search will reveal this seller often has 500 - 600 items for sale. Careful study will show every single item is a neon sign or clock of new construction using some famous firm or organizations copyrighted or trademarked logo and artwork. My research into Ebays policies revealed this is clearly a violation of s policies. Hands down and a no brainer. His listings are described in such a way that most reasonable people would think they are bidding on a old piece of artwork. Just to be sure Ebay knows what he is doing. I sent numerous links to some of the items.

A little time searching the feedback he leaves for other buyers that have had trouble with him will show that he has hurt a lot of innocent buyers that had perfect feedback before getting mixed up with this guy.

Personally, I have exhausted every resource I could think of and I have learned EBAY will not intervene on behalf of a buyer in a case such a this. In the end, I realized I should have just told paypal to take it off my account. But that didn’t seem like the right thing to do because I did have a sign, even though it was broken.

So, a word to the wise - Be careful - I learned YOU WILL BE TOTALLY ON YOUR OWN AND YOUR EBAY REPUTATION MAY BE PERMANENTLY DAMAGED if something goes wrong in your transaction with jackninatreasures.

EDIT: Whoa . . . it appears he has begun trading under a new name in addition to jackninatreasures -

jacknine_collectibles. Exact same wording in listings, exact same wording in neg feedback.