Andy's Auto Sport raceonworldwide Andy's has found an eBay loophole and is exploiting it to dump inferior products while maintaining perfect feedback. Morgan Hill California

Andy has an eBay scam going under the username raceonworldwide where he sells autobody parts, largely carbon-fiber aftermarket items. Many items are fine, but there are many that are found to have defects. Defects are not cosmetic, but structural, and therefor cannot be discerned until the item is installed. When you discover an issue, Andy puts you off and puts you off till the 45 day eBay time limit for filing a case is up. If you realize this or otherwise happen to file a case, or leave him negative feedback, which I did, he has found a loophole; he has discovered that any item that needs to be installed, which are all of the items he sells, does not qualify for eBay buyer protection because as soon as you put grills or screws or anything in it, the item "is no longer in the condition it was received in" (eBay's words). The case is dismissed, and if you happen to leave Andy bad feedback it is also wiped out. He maintains a close to 100% rating and the negatives that pop up whenever something is not right are soon removed. I repeatedly checked in with him and asked for a replacement or refund on my car hood that buckles when I try to close it and flexes whenever I meet a truck on the highway and he completely blew me off. There was an extended back and forth between us, he referred me to the manufacturer Extreme Dimensions, who simply sent me back to him, and eventually I opened an eBay Buyer Protection case. In the resolution stage, all Andy has to do is ask you how you installed the product and eBay automatically rules in his favor. At one point he flat out told me "destroy the hood, fix the hood, use it as a wall decoration, it really doesn't matter to me."

Though this is a report on Andy's Auto Body, the company whose product he was selling, Extreme Dimensions, was made aware of his tactics and was a participant in the scam. They would ask for information, more information, photos, more photos, video - all delay tactics before they would ultimately say you need to go through Andy as he sold the item.

Also, though eBay may not be intentionally allowing this type of rip-off, they are complicit in that their review guidelines allow such a blatantly obvious practice to continue. Appealing the case ruling appears to follow the same elementary evaluation process as the original case determination. They cannot be ignorant of this type of seller who is constantly receiving negative feedback and having multiple cases opened against them, yet whose negative feedback is always removed and whose feedback profile keeps returning to 100% positive. When I went to write this report I tried to look up the sale in my eBay purchase history and even though it is fairly recent, the record of my purchase is completely erased from my purchase history, which goes back three years. Andy's seller profile, raceonworldwide is still happily selling flawed items. Today the negatives have somewhat accumulated, the rate is at 97%, though within a few days it will be back at 100.