Be cautious purchasing from...

[polargice]

I was (and maybe am again) in the market for a set of OEM M35/M45 wheels (non-sport) to be used as winter wheels. I found a set from the 03-04 generation for sale from a guy in California (teknolust72). He wanted $300 plus another $80 for shipping. I thought it was a pretty good deal and the wheels looked to be in good shape. We emailed back and forth a bit and I specifically asked if they were bent. He said no, just some cosmetic curb rash, etc. No big deal to me.

Anyhow, I received the wheels yesterday. One of them had been repaired and welded, likely from a crack. He failed to mention that to me especially when I specifically asked. I took them all to a good wheel shop, and after checking them out, he said that ALL four of them were bent. One of them severely bent and couldn't be balanced as is. It would cost me an additional $400 to have them repaired.

Anyhow, just beware. I will say that he responded promptly and shipped promptly. But otherwise he lied to me about the product and basically I'm stuck with wheels i'm not sure I want to use or invest additional money into.

[sergio1987]

hey, i hope you bought them through e-bay and with paypal...if yes, than tell your story to paypal and they will refund you the money and prosecute the seller somehow... Well....what can I say?! IT SUCKS TO BE YOU:)) Good luck:(

[polargice]

ebay wasn't involved, but I did pay him through paypal. I may try and do some recourse with paypal. we'll see.

[a.blanco0905]

What a POS... paypal should definitely refund your money OP.

[sergio1987]

I think i read somewhere that they cover the transactions...even off paypal...It doesn't hurt to ask

[SmoovC]

That sucks, sorry to hear. I had a similiar experience on another forum i belong to. Basically, the product was not "as described" (also in your instance), and I did file a grievance the last day possible. I originally tried to negotiate with the seller, but it seemed he wanted to get past the last date for filing by stringing me along about a refund; thereby leaving me no recourse. IIRC, you have 45 days from purchase date to file with paypal. I was able to get a full refund (minus additional costs to ship the product back.)

Obviously it serves all parties better if the seller was to do the honorable thing and refund the money, but it sounds like he was out to screw you all along, so the odds of that happening are not high. Document everything, and if it can't be worked out, paypal will investigate. Good luck, and I hope this information helps.

[polargice]

Thanks for the info guys. Here's a quick update. The seller has been pretty good about communicating with me. He does, however, insist that the wheels are in good shape. He says that he used them on his M for over a year and they worked perfectly. Although, he also told me that he never even noticed that one of them had been welded. If you've ever seen a wheel that's been repaired by welding, it's pretty obvious. You'd have to be really bad at attention to detail to not notice that.
He doesn't feel like they were damaged, and he thinks that maybe it happened in shipping. He said he would help me with a claim through fedex. Although, I feel like he wants that because then Fedex has to pay and not him. He also said he'd understand if I wanted to make a claim through Paypal.

So here's the deal. My wheel shop repaired the worst wheel already before I even knew it, so I had to pay a little bit. If i get a refund , then i'll have to pay to ship them back plus the money i paid to fix the one wheel. Do i even try to go that route, or maybe just sell them here on the forums and maybe get a little more since they are in better shape now?

[a.blanco0905]

Wow... that's major B.S. imo. You shouldnt hv to pay to ship them back if a wheel was damaged to a point that it needed to be welded, PLUS any wheel that had to be welded has lost all its structural integrity (not personal experience but reading around & other ppl's experiences I'm aware of.)

About your wheel shop repairing without you authorizing... man o' man, lol. That's just lack of communication.

As far as the main incident, I would file a paypal claim right away for a full refund (clock's ticking btw -45 days after purchase it will b very hard to get anything back... & that's from personal experience) in the meantime take a picture of the wheel & email/pm it to a NICO staff member so they're aware of the seller's poor handling & possible dubious behavior about this transaction & do something about it at their discretion, maybe a temp ban unless he does right by you or something along those lines. I hate this type of ish...

If he really wants to fix this, he has to refund you PLUS pay for shipping the wheels back or let u keep them & throw them away or whatever, especially since you also had to pay a little something to "fix" a wheel. This is B.S. & f*ckery at a high level... welded wheels are a no go.

[polargice]

Wow... that's major B.S. imo. You shouldnt hv to pay to ship them back if a wheel was damaged to a point that it needed to be welded, PLUS any wheel that had to be welded has lost all its structural integrity (not personal experience but reading around & other ppl's experiences I'm aware of.)

About your wheel shop repairing without you authorizing... man o' man, lol. That's just lack of communication.

As far as the main incident, I would file a paypal claim right away for a full refund (clock's ticking btw -45 days after purchase it will b very hard to get anything back... & that's from personal experience) in the meantime take a picture of the wheel & email/pm it to a NICO staff member so they're aware of the seller's poor handling & possible dubious behavior about this transaction & do something about it at their discretion, maybe a temp ban unless he does right by you or something along those lines. I hate this type of ish...

If he really wants to fix this, he has to refund you PLUS pay for shipping the wheels back or let u keep them & throw them away or whatever, especially since you also had to pay a little something to "fix" a wheel. This is B.S. & f*ckery at a high level... welded wheels are a no go.

I agree with you. I have asked the seller for a full refund and if we can do it without me having to make a Paypal claim, then that's good, but if not, then I will be filing a claim with Paypal.

[JDMlove]

Well, last year i sent around 32000 USD to my cousin friend, he's living in Georgia to buy for me a 370z. he was dealing with my cousin for a long time and sent to Bahrain allot of cars.

After i sent him the money, he did went and bought the car from the dealer (i called the dealer and checked)

after few days he told us the car was stolen ( he work at Atlanta motor sports dealer in GA atlautos.com)

anyways i told him i want my money back, he told me he dont have any money.... he started to send me small payments until the payments reached 12000 and stopped !! (during 5 months)

well, i started to call the US embassy in Bahrain but they cant do nothing, the guyz in 370z forum helped me and gave GA Police dept No. and they gave me the car fax of the car, so i planned to start a police report. ( because when i investigated i noticed that he lied and the car was not stolen, he sold the car for unknown reasons )

and in the last moment the guy called me and told me he want to solve the problem instead of going to a police or courts. well, with the remaining 20 000 he told me to choose a car from the dealer he work in.

i saw the m35 and i told him to send it to me!!

i lost from this deal around 2 to 3k ... and this is how i got my M

so my friend dont worry about 400 bucks!

[sunoco]

^ epic.


I live in GA and am familiar with Atl Autos. They are known for buying cars with frame damage or other damage that is reported at auction and doesnt show up on Carfax. I would never consider buying a car from these fools.

[a.blanco0905]

so my friend dont worry about 400 bucks!

Not everybody's rich & a lot of ppl on here have very different backgrounds & different ways to earn their monies, so some ppl value their bread more than others... even if it's just $50.

[polargice]

so my friend dont worry about 400 bucks!

Not everybody's rich & a lot of ppl on here have very different backgrounds & different ways to earn their monies, so some ppl value their bread more than others... even if it's just $50.

So true. Regardless of financial status, I don't think anyone should have the approach of "don't worry about $400". People that have money usually don't get that way by not caring about $400.

JDMLove, while yes your story is pretty crazy, I made this post more because of the principal of what happened and to make people aware of this guy. Sure my dealing with him was just a set of wheels, but the next guy could be buying something much bigger. Anyhow, thanks for your sharing your story, it is pretty wild.

[a.blanco0905]

People that have money usually don't get that way by not caring about $400.

Haha, quoted for the truth...

[JDMlove]

Am not rich or something, i barely have money to survive and service my both cars.

and i do care if i lost 400 USD! but am just trying to tell him try your best to get your money back or a compensation but dont waste allot of time and ruin your health for a 400 bucks!

about my story, am always ordering stuff from USA, first my Tribute then 350z and i sold it, i also ordered volk racing wheels for my 350z then i bought 19" oem infiniti wheels for my M. and i never been scammed !! and those who i order from are random people i find from forums and they were really helpful and friendly !! but the big shock is when my cousin recommended his friend in US and his friend the one who lied to me!!

[EniGmA1987]

I dont know how it is everywhere else, but it seems at least in the US you are much more likely to get burned by friends and/or relatives than random people as long as you use a little common sense when reading through ads. Sure there are exception, but the vast majority of all things I have done online for buying, selling, and trading has always been great. Ive probably done close to 100 transactions on places like Ebay, some here, and some Craigslist. Only a single time have I had an issue and it was a guy on Ebay. It sucks when it happens, but overall things tend to go fairly smoothly on the internet.

[polargice]

Ah what to do, what to do. I had the worst wheel repaired already (which wasn't the welded one), the seller has offered to replace the welded one with a new, or certified used one. That will leave me with two good ones and the other two are barely out of spec, probably not even noticeably out of round. Do I follow through on the paypal claim, or just resell the set with the new wheel and repaired wheel and then offer the welded one if the buyer wants it?

[sunoco]

I would have already filed the claim.

File the paypal claim asap. You were lied to....

[polargice]

Thanks for your input everyone. I have just filed a couple of claims (there were two payments made) with Paypal. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[polargice]

The seller finally agreed to the refund once he saw that I filed claims with Paypal. Still had to go through the Paypal process, but they gave me a full refund.

[kermit the guy]

im glad you got your refund back man !!!!!!!!!!!

[antzrus]

Even tho I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams-like my son blanco, I don't like getting ripped off to any degree.

[AZhitman]

^ THIS.

Also, is he a member here? If so, I got a little something for him.

[polargice]

^ THIS.

Also, is he a member here? If so, I got a little something for him.

He is. I think I put that in my original post, teknolust72 i think it was. It looks like he may have just created an account to sell a bunch of stuff. I haven't seen much activity in the regular forums from him.

I'm just glad he agreed to the refund finally, but I wouldn't recommend buying anything from him. Just wasn't a good experience for me.